7 Best Catan Expansions 2025: Top Picks Reviewed
Get ready to upgrade your game nights! These top Catan expansions bring new twists, more strategy, and endless fun for everyone.
7 Best Catan Expansions & Inspired Board Games: Our Top Picks for Settlers Fans
Who knew there could be so many Catan expansions? We sure didn’t, until our game nights turned into mini research sessions. For this list, we focused on games that keep the spirit of Catan alive—think trading, exploring, and friendly betrayal—while adding fresh twists. Some are pure expansions, others are games that have taken inspiration from the Catan world. We looked at replay value, fun factor, and how quickly our friends caught on (and started plotting against us). Get ready to take your Catan obsession to new heights!
On this list:
7 Catan: Seafarers
We had to mention Seafarers first because it simply makes Catan bigger and wetter. Now you get to build ships and explore new islands, which means no more bickering over one tiny sheep spot (okay, maybe a little). The expansion adds maps and a ton of variety, so every game feels different. One time, our boats kept crashing into each other—like bumper ships, but with more wooden hexes. It’s just the right amount of new challenge for those who are tired of the same old land rush. Also, pirates! Everyone loves pirates, unless they’re stealing your stuff.
6 Catan: Cities & Knights
If you want a harder brain workout, Cities & Knights is for you. We always joke that it’s like Catan went to college and came back ready to invent roads. This expansion adds knights, commodities, and progress cards, so you get to defend your stuff from barbarians (they’re very rude guests). When we play, someone always forgets to upgrade their city and watches it get flattened. The extra layers make for wild twists and turns and more table talk. If you’ve ever wished Catan had a bit more ‘oomph’, this should be in your box.
5 Catan: Traders & Barbarians
Sometimes, we can’t decide what kind of Catan game we want, so we pull out Traders & Barbarians. It’s a box of tasty extras—five different scenarios. Each one changes up the rules and adds little side quests, like moving caravans or fishing for extra resources. Once, we all got obsessed with the Fishermen scenario and didn’t trade a single sheep the whole night. This expansion is perfect for groups that don’t like playing the same thing twice. There’s even a two-player mode for sad days when half your friends cancel.
4 Catan: Explorers & Pirates
Explorers & Pirates gives us a new reason to argue about where to go on the map. Instead of building only on one island, now we’re all off sailing to three islands, transporting settlers, and even going after pirate lairs. We once spent a whole round fighting over who got to move the pirate ship—it was chaos and absolutely worth it. There are missions, like fishing or trading with locals, so it feels like a mini adventure game. If you love exploring (and arguing with your friends), this is a great catan expansion.
3 Catan: Starfarers
We picked this because it’s like classic Catan, but set in space! Instead of just trading sheep, we traded laser beans, met aliens, and needed to watch out for space pirates. It’s a fresh twist that kept us on our toes without making our brains melt.
2 Concordia
We picked Concordia because it gives the trading, resource management, and strategic planning feels similar to Catan expansions, but with a Roman twist. It’s less about luck, more about outsmarting your friends and hoarding salt like your life depends on it. Our group ended up arguing over brick in Catan, and in Concordia we all bickered over silk. New setting, same friendships tested.
1 Kingdom Builder
We picked Kingdom Builder because it gives that sweet mix of strategy and randomness we love in Catan expansions, but with its own twist. It lets you build, block, and adapt every game, and no two games feel the same! It’s great for folks who like the interactive nature of Catan, but want something a little snappier and different.
