Chessis one of thegreatest board gamesof all time. This strategic war game is among the oldest in existence to still see contemporary play, and it’s easy to see why. The simple core mechanic of pieces moving around a board is easy to understand, but the varying abilities of the pieces create strategy complex enough to keep the game engaging for a lifetime. Even ignoring its historical significance, it’s a game that deserves to be popular.
If you’re a fan of this game, as many are, there are some other, similar games you might be interested in. Many of them occupy a similar position to chess in other cultures, while others are variations on it that mix things up or change around mechanics to make themselves fresher.
If you’d rather just play chess itself, check out our list of thebest Chess setson the market.
Faerie Chess
A terrific addition to the classic game
Amazing for experienced chess players looking for variation in their favorite game, Faerie chess takes the most classic of board games and expands on it by adding new pieces which you can form into customizable armies.
It’s quite common today for board games to receive expansions: packages of new material that add rules and game elements onto the original game to make it fresher and more complex. Some might never have thought a game as old as chess could receive an expansion, but they’d have thought wrong.
Faerie Chess adds a number of new pieces to the classic game. Each game begins with the players determining the power level of the game, and then customizing their army from a selection of pieces including chess classics like the Knight and Bishop and the new pieces like the Soldier, Inquisitor, and Catapult. Each piece is worth a number of points based on its power level, and you only have so many points to spend on your army, keeping the game balanced. If you are a chess lover, you need Faerie Chess in your life. It takes variant chess pieces that have been fantasized about for hundreds of years and makes them into a playable reality.
Stratego Original
There’s a heavy element of risk and secrecy to this game
Similar to Chess in that it is a short, simple war game about moving pieces on a square board, Stragego simplifies the classic game’s movement mechanics, but adds the complicating factor of hidden knowledge to create a new layer of risk, deduction, and strategy.
You probably already have some knowledge of what Stratego is. In many ways, it’s an update to chess, moving the original game’s medieval image of warfare forward by a few centuries, while still leaving it in what we’d consider history. This game adds hidden knowledge to create a layer of deduction and strategy beyond what Chess alone contains. The pieces in this game have ranks, and you can only capture with pieces that outrank those of your opponent. This is complicated by the fact that you don’t get to know the value of your opponent’s pieces, forcing you to guess and deduce them based on what your opponent is willing to do.
Shogi
The ability to place pieces creates a lot of new possibilities
Also called Japanese Chess, Shogi is a Japanese variation on the game of chess. It comes with a combination of new and familiar pieces, a combination of new and familiar rules, and a 9x9 grid.
This Japanese variant on the classic game of chess, or at least, that’s how it’ll come off to those familiar with the latter. In reality, they’re both derived from an ancient Indian game called Chaturanga, the prototypical ancestor of all the world’s chess variants. (Chaturanga would be on this list, but some of its rules have been lost to time, meaning it can’t be faithfully recreated for modern players.) With a larger grid and some variant pieces, this game emphasizes shorter-range movement and makes capturing and promoting into more significant mechanics.
The biggest change is the ability to drop any piece you’ve captured back onto the board under your control, with relatively few restrictions regarding where you place it. This forces both players to plan for the possibility of pieces suddenly appearing and introducing new threats for them to deal with.
Yellow Mountain Imports Chinese Chess (Xiangqi)
A small increase in complexity makes this game interesting
This slightly more complicated Chinese variant of chess differs from the original game in a handful of minor ways. Its board is divided into zones that behave differently, and there are some interesting restrictions on how both unique and familiar pieces can move.
Another one Chaturanga’s children, Xiangqi, also known as Chinese Chess, will come across to westerners as a slightly more complicated and slower version of Chess. Many of the familiar pieces are here, but many have different names and most of them display at least a little bit of variant behavior, including more intricate restrictions on how they can move.
Special zones called the River and the Palace further complicate how pieces can move, meaning the board is more complex. Still, the absence of dropping means this game will be familiar to chess players overall, making this a good place to start if you’re looking for something that will play similarly.
Onitama
Play chess in just a few minutes without the pressure of blitz
This modern attempt to simplify the family of games chess comes from is complex and variant in a very modern way while still capturing something essential about the feel those classic games share. Plus, it plays super fast!
With its five-by-five square grid and varying pieces, Onitama could be mistaken for another centuries-old descendant of Chaturanga, but this is not the case. Released in 2016, this game represents a modern attempt at creating a simplified chess variant with an eastern flavor that makes it feel like it could be ancient, even though it isn’t.
This game has only two pieces, masters and pawns, with the pawns using cards to move in a variety of ways. These varying movement abilities give this game a lot of replay value, and its small grid and small number of pieces ensure that it plays very quickly. If you’re looking for a variant of chess that you can play through in ten minutes, this is the game for you.
Hnefatafl - The Viking Game
The two players have different pieces and different goals
This ancient Norse game is similar to chess in many ways but is distinguished by its asymmetric nature which adds an interesting new dynamic to this classic family of games.
The final historical game on this list, Hnefatafl is sometimes known as Viking Chess, though it probably isn’t directly related to Chess or descended from Chaturanga. It is centuries old, however, and similar enough to chess that it’s worth checking out for people who like chess and its variants.
The main thing that sets this game apart is its asymmetry. Instead of two identical armies beginning at opposite ends of the board, this game has an attacker whose goal is to capture the game’s single king while the defender attempts to escort him to the corner of the board. This altered dynamic makes this game feel very fresh, despite the simplified movement rules and much smaller number of piece types.
Cathedral
A game outside the family, but with some familiar chess trappings
Though its 1979 release makes it practically brand new by the standards of this list, Cathedral is still a classic of modern two-player strategy gaming, with a medieval theme and a square grid that will make it very familiar to chess fans.
This classic (by ordinary standards) building placement game tasks players with placing their alternate-colored building pieces on a square grid in a strategic way designed to prevent the other player from getting their pieces onto the board. Pieces do not move after being placed—every turn is about placing more buildings until the board is too full to take any more. When that happens, the game will have to end, and players will be rewarded for having placed as many of their buildings as possible.
This game isn’t as chess-like as the others, but its simplicity, use of space, two-player nature and lightmedieval themestill give it a similar feel.
Hive
A modern game that holds its own among this swarm of ancient classics
This tile placement and movement game gives many of the ideas present in other games on this list an insect theme as it has you place and move pieces in an attempt to surround your opponent’s queen (a real tactic bees sometimes use to kill queens in the wild).
This modern hexagonal game takes many of the ideas found in different versions of chess and gives them an insect theme, making each piece a different bug and moving the whole thing to a hexagonal grid resembling those often associated with such animals in nature. The game begins with the placement of pieces, but once you’ve placed a handful of them, including your queen, your bugs will start skittering around the board, each according to their own movement rules.
One of the coolest things about this game is how variable the shape of the play area is. It doesn’t operate on a pre-defined grid. The board grows and mutates as pieces are added and moved around, and everyone’s movement rules are designed around this fact. This makes for a game that, though chess-like, still has its own unique feel.
FAQ
What game is most like chess?
All of the games on this list resemble chess to a significant degree. Faerie chess is essentially an expansion rather than a new game, so is technically the most chess-like. Xiangqi is the closest of the seven distinct games.
Which is harder Go or chess?
Go is a token-placement game that is often compared to chess because its significance in some eastern cultures is considered analogous to Chess’ significance in western cultures. While its fundamental rules are superficially simpler, it is by far the more difficult and complicated of the two games to play.
Is chess getting less popular?
Nope. Chess is about as popular now as it has ever been. The rise of the internet has brought a new era of chess streamers and influencers with grandmaster or international master titles, and most of the top chess players in the world have large online followings. The internet also makes it easier than ever to find and play with a wide variety of opponents.
