Bomb Busters – the co-op board game where everyone defuses one bomb together
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Most family game nights end the same way. Someone wins, someone sulks, and someone “accidentally” knocks the board over.
Bomb Busters fixes that by making everyone lose together. It’s a cooperative board game where the whole table plays one bomb squad, and you have to cut every wire before the detonator runs out. It won the Spiel des Jahres in July 2025, the best-known prize in board games, and it beat the card game Flip 7 to get there.
What is Bomb Busters?
It’s a deduction game for 2 to 5 players, designed by Hisashi Hayashi from Japan, drawn by Dominique Ferland and published by Pegasus Spiele. A game takes about 30 minutes. The box holds 66 missions, split over five sealed boxes of surprises you open as you go, a bit like a legacy game but without tearing up cards.
The theme is a squad of cartoon animal bomb technicians. It’s cute. The tension is not.
How does Bomb Busters work?
Each player gets a rack of numbered wire tiles, sorted from low to high, facing only themselves. According to Meeple Mountain’s review, the base set has 48 wires numbered 1 to 12, four of each, plus yellow and red wires that sit between them with decimal values.
On your turn you point at a wire on a teammate’s rack and say what number you think it is. You can only do that if you hold the same number yourself. Right guess: both wires get cut. Wrong guess: the detonator dial moves closer to boom. Cut a red wire and everybody loses on the spot.
You can’t just tell each other your wires, so the whole game is reading what other people do. Why did she guess a 7 on his far left? Ohhh. Cutting certain numbers earns you equipment that bends the rules a little. Each new mission adds a twist.
The good and the not-so-good
What I like:
- Everyone wins or loses together, so nobody sulks alone.
- Wargamer gave it 10 out of 10 and called it simple but never boring.
- 66 missions is a lot of game nights for one box.
- Amazon buyers rate it 4.7 out of 5 from about 300 ratings.
What could be better:
- Meeple Mountain’s reviewer doesn’t recommend it at two players and thinks it shines with four or more.
- Sometimes you have to guess. If your group hates luck in a logic game, someone will grumble.
- Wargamer’s reviewer found the theme thin. It feels more like a number puzzle than defusing a bomb.
Who is Bomb Busters for?
Families with kids around 10 and up (Pegasus lists 10+, the Amazon listing says 14+), friend groups of four or five, and anyone who liked co-op games like The Crew or Hanabi. It’s also a great gift for people who don’t play many board games: the rules take a few minutes, and the missions teach the rest.
Skip it if you mostly play as a couple. Sky Team from our gifts for board game lovers is a co-op built for two, and Quoridor works if you’d rather beat each other fair and square.
Where can I buy Bomb Busters?
The English edition is sold on Amazon through the Pegasus Spiele store, for about 30 bucks at the time of writing (October 2026). That’s a lot of game for a box that fits under a Christmas tree. Just don’t let anyone cut the red wire.
Take my money. Tick tock.