The Last Game I Bought
Rebirth won the Kennerspiel des Jahres. I almost didn't have room in my suitcase.
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The last game I bought before my 2026 no-buy challenge won the Kennerspiel des Jahres.
I didn’t plan it that way. I was in Rome for work, with a morning free before my flight back to Sicily, and I had found a small board game shop on Reddit. The kind of small where you have to turn sideways between the shelves. I had a target: Zombicide Dark Side had been on my list for a while. I spotted it near the back wall, picked it up, looked at my carry-on, looked at the box, and put it back. It wasn’t going to fit.
The shopkeeper saw the whole thing and offered me a deal on Rebirth. He knew the game. I did too, barely: a few months earlier I had heard about it on Board Games Hot Takes, a podcast I love and the winner of the 2025 BGG Golden Geek for Best Podcast, and the description had stuck. Tile-laying, rebuilding Scotland after a collapse of civilization. Reiner Knizia’s name on the box.
I took it home. It fit in my bag.
***
On July 13, 2026, Rebirth won the 2026 Kennerspiel des Jahres.
Not just any win. Reiner Knizia now holds the Spiel des Jahres, the Kinderspiel des Jahres, and the Kennerspiel des Jahres. He is the first designer in the award’s 47-year history to complete that set. Keltis in 2008 for the main award, Whoowasit? the same year for the children’s category. Then a wait of eighteen years, because the Kennerspiel category didn’t even exist until 2011. And now Rebirth.
Nobody has done this before him.
***
I own three Knizia games. RA, El Dorado, and Rebirth. I love all three.
Ra comes out every Christmas. Me and Joesey shouting “Hip Hip UnRA!” across the table every time someone calls an auction. The joke has its own life now. I’m not sure it was ever funny. We do it anyway.
Rebirth is different. Quieter. Tighter. It has that specific Knizia quality where every decision feels like it carries more weight than it should. My wife liked it. Some friends who are newer to the hobby played it and asked to play again. Joesey tried it and said he wants to come back to it after the summer.
I don’t always agree with the Spiel des Jahres jury. This year, I do.
***
The Roman shopkeeper was right. I’m glad the box fit in my bag.
Is there a game in your collection that you almost didn’t bring home? What changed your mind?
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