Games like The Traitors – Get your murderous fix with video & board games

Now that The Traitors is back on our screens, bolstered by the huge success of the Celebrity version, it's a great time to play some games at home with a similar vibe.

Indeed, Jade from The Traitors season 4 openly said in the show that she is a big gamer, and she sees her gaming experience as helpful preparation for being in the castle.

If you’re looking for a game like The Traitors, what you’re really looking for is some sort of ‘social deduction’ game with a multiplayer element. Basically, anything that can give you those roundtable thrills as you try to work out who’s on your side, who isn’t, and how to bend the other players to your way of thinking.

Thankfully, this is a fairly recurrent trope in both video games and board games, and it's only got bigger since The Traitors took off. Pit your wits against any of the below and you’ll be having Traitors-style fun just as soon as you’ve worked out the rules!

Games like The Traitors at a glance

If you're in a rush to start (fake) murdering, here are some quick links that will take you to the relevant retailers where you can buy these social-deduction games for yourself!

Board games like The Traitors:

• Mafia
• Werewolf
• Blood on the Clocktower
• Cheese Thief
• Spyfall
• The Chameleon
• Agatha Christie's Death on the Cards
• Secret Hitler

Video games like The Traitors:

• Among Us
• Blood on the Clocktower (online version)
• Spyfall (online version)
• Town of Salem
• Goose Goose Duck
• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Official products from The Traitors:

• The Traitors: Official Board Game
• The Traitors: The Interactive Game Book

Keep on reading for more detail on all of those!

Games like The Traitors – board games and video games to get your murder fix

The Traitors: Official Board Game

OK, let's start with an obvious one. You won't find a game that's quite as much like The Traitors as this, the official tie-in board game!

Designed for four to six players, the game splits you into teams (Traitors and Faithfuls, of course), with missions, murders, voting and banishments aplenty.

Of course, as it's designed to be played in one night rather than multiple weeks of telly, things are sped up a bit! Hooded robes sold separately.

Buy now from Amazon

Among Us

Mention The Traitors to a young person and they may well reply, 'Isn't that show basically Among Us?' No word of a lie, a cousin of mine said exactly that the other week. And yes, to gamers who've played many rounds of Among Us, the set-up of The Traitors will seem very familiar.

In Among Us, most players are 'Crewmates' working together to do little jobs around a spaceship. Among them, however, are the 'Imposters', who are trying to sabotage everything and kill the Crewmates.

Players even vote to try and unmask the Imposters. Unlike The Traitors, any Imposters that are found are ejected into deep space. Of course, BBC budget does not allow for that on TV.

Among Us is out now on PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, iPhone and Android — and the mobile version is free!

Mafia (AKA Werewolf)

To other kinds of people, if you start describing The Traitors, they'll say something along the lines of: 'Oh right, like Mafia? Or Werewolf?' These are classics, dating back decades, of the social deduction party game genre!

You might remember that, when Andrew Garfield had to keep lying in interviews about being in Spider-Man: No Way Home, he described his continued public deception as being just like a game of Werewolf.

Originally created by Dimitry Davidoff in 1986, Mafia has a night time segment (where the baddies can kill people off) and a daytime segment (where everyone can vote to try and oust the baddies).

You don't need any cards or props to play, but plenty of people have tried to adapt this concept into new formats over the years.

We'll include some helpful links below:

• How to play Mafia - a brief history
• Board game version of Werewolf

Blood on the Clocktower

You only have to take a quick glance at the video above to see quite how much Blood on the Clocktower is giving off serious The Traitors vibes.

Designed for anywhere between five and 20 players, this party game comes with everything you need to split your group into two factions and set them against each other. Some of you are innocent villagers, while others are working with a demon to bring death and deception to the village.

Blood on the Clocktower is available as a fairly expensive board game, but there is also a website version you can play online with people from across the globe!

• Buy now from Amazon
• Try the online version

Cheese Thief

If cold-blooded murder is a bit too scary for you, why not swap brutal killings for some cheeky cheese theft? That sounds a little less gruesome, doesn't it?

In Cheese Thief, you have a group of players who 'wake up' in the night at various points, and one of them is tasked with stealing cheese from the middle of the table without getting caught.

If the cute concept floats your boat, the equally-cute designs on the cards will probably please you as well! (Shoutout to Katherine Andreou for suggesting this game and the next one on the list).

Buy now from Amazon

Spyfall

The Traitors isn't all about killing. It's also about the roundtable chats where players have to grill one another to work out who is playing for a different team.

Spyfall (not to be confused with the Doctor Who episode of the same name) is perfect for emulating that kind of feeling!

In a four-player game, for example, three people are told a location from a long list of places, and one doesn't know but has to pretend they do. You take turns to ask questions to one another to suss who the one out of the loop is.

Spyfall is a card game, but there's also a free online version if you want to jump straight into the action without having to pay a penny.

• But now from Zatu Games
• Try the online version for free

The Traitors: The Interactive Game Book

OK, time for another official product! If you don't fancy The Traitors: Official Board Game that we mentioned earlier, perhaps this will do the trick instead.

The Traitors: Interactive Game Book is something of a unique proposition. A bit like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, it allows you to make choices that may or may not lead to victory in a fictionalised version of The Traitors. There are also little missions included that you can play alone or with other real-life people.

Buy now from Amazon

The Chameleon

Here's a board game option that we really think you'll like, and it's easy to pick up as well. In a group of 3 to 8 players, one of you will randomly and secretly become 'The Chameleon' at the start of each round.

All the players are shown a set of words, but the Chameleon does not have the clue card to lead them to the correct answer amongst these words. As all the players give one-word clues to hint at the answer without giving it away, the Chameleon must guess at the truth and try to blend in by giving a clue that fits the theme.

Once the round is complete, the players will try to guess who was the Chameleon in their midst. It's fast, frantic and very funny to play with a group of friends or family. And for once, no one gets murdered! But you will get judged on your body language and every silly thing you say.

Buy now from Waterstones

Town of Salem

Back to video games for a moment, Town of Salem came out in 2014 for PC and Mac. It has since spawned expansions, a sequel and a mobile game version.

Town of Salem is an online game where, much like Mafia or The Traitors, players are secretly split into teams with vastly different goals. There's The Mafia, the Townspeople and – interestingly – the Neutral, who have their own set of jobs to do, adding a little twist on the formula.

Buy now on Steam or check out the free mobile version on iPhone or Android

Agatha Christie's Death on the Cards

A brilliant card game option here. Inspired by the works of Agatha Christie, Death on the Cards starts with each player being assigned three secrets – most of these are harmless jokes, but one of you will be dealt the murderer card at this point and there is also an accomplice in the mix.

By collecting iconic detectives including Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, players will gradually be able to reveal each other's secrets, whilst the baddies try to blend in with the crowd and burn through the deck as quickly as possible. If the deck runs out, the villains get away!

Buy now from Amazon

Goose Goose Duck

Back to video games for a moment, Goose Goose Duck is like Among Us with a lot more feathers. With multiple maps and game modes, and more than 50 character roles, it's a great option for social deduction fans who've already played the most obvious stuff.

Each map has different features but that core concept is still at the heart of it – can your flock complete your tasks, find the hidden baddies and overcome them before they kill the lot of you? Geese are the goodies, of course.

Play for free on PC/Mac, iPhone or Android.

Secret Hitler

Back to tabletop games now. Secret Hitler is another one with a very similar format to The Traitors, and it's really fun for a games night with a raucous group of pals.

There are three potential roles in this version of German history's Weimar Republic — you can be a fascist, a liberal or Hitler himself. Each part you can play comes with its own objectives (ranging from election to assassination), and there's also a fun voting mechanism involved.

Buy now from Amazon

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

And finally, something a bit different – with thanks to Alex Raisbeck for this suggestion! If you've ever watched The Traitors and wished it was set in an anime high school wherein Claudia Winkelman is replaced by a psychotic, animatronic bear, then boy, do we have the game for you!

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is a visual novel that plays host to a grisly murder game, requiring you to solve the murders of fellow students, finding clues, staving off suspicion and revealing the true culprit in court, all while investigating the secret behind the school that has you imprisoned.

If you can get past the bizarre setting, there's a satisfying and surprisingly deep murder mystery game here with a series of cases that Agatha Christie herself would have been proud of.

Buy now on Steam, PS4, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, iOS or Android

Read more on The Traitors:

• The Traitors' banished Faithfuls explain what fans don't see
• Tom Hiddleston wants to do Celebrity Traitors
• How to apply for The Traitors

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