Our new favorite duel game

Let’s talk about our biggest find at SPIEL25 : 🌕 Zenith! It’s easily in the upper echelon of duel games, but definitely the best of 2025! 😁

I had a bunch of duel games to buy and try on my list, so we went to Zenith as “yet another duel game to try”, but we quickly realized this is a special one. Our demo game was so exciting that we immediately knew we had to own it. 🥰

Zenith is a tug-of-war game: You primarily play cards to influence the 5 colored planets 🪐 on the board. You can claim a planet if it's completely pulled to your side, and the goal is to collect either 3 of the same color, 4 different colors, or any 5 planets. I like this end game trigger because it is easy to track, but there are often surprising plays to be made. 😉

Cards come in 5 colors (like the planets) and upon playing they always let you pull the same-colored planet once, but they all have additional unique abilities too. 🧐 This is the core of the fun, as there are tons of cards, so you always have a bunch of choices to make. Cards also cost credits, so you can’t just play anything, you have to plan in advance.

That’s not all! ☝️ Cards can also be discarded for two other effects. One of these is going up tracks and triggering the appropriate bonuses - this also costs special Zenithium resources. The other effect is to get a small bonus and claim the Leader Badge that raises the hand limit for cards. This is a very interactive element, as there is only one such token and you keep taking it from each other. Some card effects also might require you to own the Badge to trigger. Cards are either Human, Animal or Robotic, and this is important for these two special actions (each type corresponds to a track and bonus).

With all these things, the decision space is great. Turns are quick but you always evaluate multiple choices and try to react fast to your opponents actions (like a planet getting awfully close to them). I’ll also add that the game looks superb: At first it looks a bit too white, but the illustrations are nice and the tokens are really awesome.

If you haven’t given this game a try yet, I implore you to do so. If you enjoy duel games at all, you won’t be disappointed! ☺️