Games Like Sons of Anarchy: The Best Outlaw Gang Board Games

The closest board game to Sons of Anarchy is Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem, a real, licensed tabletop game from Gale Force Nine. Past that, the closest experiences come from mob and turf-war strategy games: The Godfather: Corleone's Empire for blind-bid family warfare, Chinatown for pure backroom negotiation, and Root for asymmetric factions that break alliances the moment it pays off. Sin of Angels is a digital pick built around the same territory-and-betrayal itch, its own original outlaw-MC world, no license attached, playable in a browser.

None of these are the show. What they share with it is the fantasy: a crew, a patch, turf worth bleeding for, and a deal you cut today that you might break tomorrow. Some of these you set up on a table with a group in one room. One you open in a browser tab. Pick based on what you actually want out of game night, not just the theme.

Sin of Angels is an independent digital board game and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, endorsed by, or associated with FX, 20th Television, The Walt Disney Company, or the publishers of Sons of Anarchy or Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Key Takeaways

Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem (Gale Force Nine, 2014) is the real, licensed tabletop answer: 3 to 4 players, about 90 minutes, tabletop-only.
The Godfather: Corleone's Empire delivers mob-family turf war through blind-bid auctions and jobs, no TV license attached.
Chinatown is pure negotiation over property: no combat, no dice, just table talk and a sharp read on what your rival will pay.
Root swaps bikers for woodland factions but keeps the same shifting-alliance, break-it-when-it-pays engine.
Sin of Angels is the digital pick: an original outlaw-MC world, browser-based, 2 to 6 players, in closed beta now.

How to Pick: Three Quick Questions

Three questions on license, combat vs. negotiation, and table vs. screen

Before you read five game descriptions, run your group through this. It narrows the list fast.

Do you need the actual licensed Sons of Anarchy setting, or does a different outlaw crew work? If it has to be the real show's world, Men of Mayhem is your only option. Everything else here is an original setting in the same genre.
Do you want to fight for territory, or just negotiate for it? Men of Mayhem, The Godfather: Corleone's Empire, Root, and Sin of Angels all resolve conflict directly. Chinatown never does. You buy, sell, and squeeze, but nobody throws a punch.
Physical table in one room, or a screen you can open anywhere? Four of these five are boxed tabletop games. Sin of Angels is the only one that runs in a browser, on a screen, with friends spread across different couches or cities.

A decision aid for choosing among outlaw-crime board games: whether you want the licensed Sons of Anarchy setting, a game about taking territory by force, or one built purely on negotiation.

Answer those three and you'll already know which two or three of the five below are worth a closer look.

The Games Worth Playing

Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem

Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem is the real thing: a licensed tabletop board game published by Gale Force Nine in 2014, set in the actual Sons of Anarchy world. It seats 3 to 4 rival motorcycle clubs around one table for about 90 minutes.

Screenshot of the Sin of Angels town map showing a row of Site cards including The Iron Works, San Pedro Docks, The Morgue, and Picket Fence Lab, the same named locations gangs fight to control in the game.

It runs on area control and worker placement. Clubs reveal locations on the board, send crew to claim them, and negotiate or trade with each other on The Silk Road as the map fills in. When two clubs contest the same territory, the game resolves it through combat.

What it gives you that nothing else on this list can:

The actual licensed setting, characters, and iconography from the show
A physical box you own and can put on a table for good
A fixed structure built for exactly 3 to 4 players

It is tabletop-only. There is no digital version, no app, and no way to play it remotely. If your crew is not all in the same room, this one is off the table before you even open the box. We wrote a full breakdown of this game against a digital alternative in our Sons of Anarchy board game alternative guide.

The Godfather: Corleone's Empire

If you want the mob-turf-war fantasy without the show's license, The Godfather: Corleone's Empire is the sharpest pick. It seats 2 to 5 players for 60 to 90 minutes and puts you in charge of one of five crime families fighting over New York's underworld.

Each round, a territory comes up for grabs and families blind-bid Respect tokens to win it. Between bids, you send Tom Hagen out on delivery jobs to stock resources and use Luca Brasi to intimidate a rival out of a job or muscle in on what they've already built.

The tension is different from a straight area-control brawl. You are not rolling dice against a rival crew. You are trying to guess how much Respect everyone else is willing to burn on the same piece of turf, then committing before you find out if you guessed right.

Three stacked bars listing what The Godfather: Corleone's Empire layers on top of a straight turf war: blind-bid territory auctions, delivery jobs, and intimidation.

Sin of Angels

Sin of Angels is a digital board game built around the same crew-and-territory fantasy, set in its own gritty California underworld rather than a licensed one. You bring in patched members and recruits, move them onto the town's sites (dive bars, the Iron Works, San Pedro Docks, the Picket Fence Lab), and use those locations for cash, guns, and narcotics.

You run the economy by trading on The Silk Road and managing your Felonies with the law. You cut deals and ceasefires with rival clubs, then break them when the numbers say it's worth it. When two clubs clash on a site, the game resolves it with a cinematic 3D Brawl instead of a dice roll. Hold the most Cash when Round 6 ends and you win.

Where it actually differs from the four tabletop games on this list:

No box, no setup, no teardown. It runs in a browser on desktop, tablet, or phone.
You can play solo against an AI, online with friends across devices, pass-and-play on one screen, or throw the 3D board on a TV for party mode while everyone else plays from their phone.
2 to 6 players instead of a fixed 3 to 4.
It is in closed beta right now, so it has no BGG rating and no finished box sitting on a shelf yet.

A split comparing a physical game night, which needs setup and gathers everyone in one room, against a browser-based game that needs no setup and plays from any device.

If a physical box on a table is part of the appeal for you, this is not that. If what you actually want is the crew-and-turf-war structure without needing everyone in the same zip code, get on the list. Join the Beta

Chinatown

Chinatown is the odd one out here on purpose. Published in 1999, it seats 3 to 5 players for about an hour, and it has no combat, no dice, and no violence of any kind. You are building businesses on city blocks and trading lots, cash, and future promises with the people sitting across from you.

How it actually plays:

You draw building tiles and lot cards, and from there almost everything is negotiable.
You collect matching businesses, place them on adjacent lots, and collect income.
Winning comes down to knowing exactly what a property is worth to your rival, then charging them just under their breaking point.

If what hooked you about Sons of Anarchy was the backroom deal-making, the reading of the table, the sense that everyone is calculating what the other person needs and how badly, Chinatown delivers that half of the fantasy in full. It just never lets anyone throw a punch to back it up.

Root

Root hides a genuinely vicious war behind cute woodland-creature art. It is an asymmetric area-control game, meaning every player is running a completely different faction with its own rules, seated 2 to 4 for the base game and running 60 to 90 minutes.

The theme has nothing to do with outlaw motorcycle clubs. What carries over is the mechanic underneath it: shifting alliances that hold only as long as they're useful, and a board state that can flip on you the moment a rival decides your truce isn't worth honoring anymore. That is the same math a Sons of Anarchy negotiation runs on, just with birds and mice instead of bikers. For more games built on that same asymmetric, alliance-breaking engine, see our games like Root guide.

Five outlaw-crime games plotted on two axes: licensed setting versus original world, and taking territory by force versus winning it through negotiation.

Root
Game	Format	Best For	Players	Play Time	Complexity
Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem	Physical, licensed	Fans who need the actual show's world on the table	3-4	about 90 min	Medium
The Godfather: Corleone's Empire	Physical	Blind-bid mob turf war without a license	2-5	60-90 min	Medium
Sin of Angels	Digital, browser	Zero setup, cinematic Brawls, solo or across devices	2-6	about six rounds	Not BGG-rated
Chinatown	Physical	Pure negotiation and property control, no violence	3-5	about 60 min	Light-medium
Root	Physical	Asymmetric factions and alliances you break mid-game	2-4 (base)	60-90 min	3.84/5

What Sons of Anarchy Fans Are Actually Chasing

Why these games feel like the show: territory, breakable deals, and heat from the law

Before you buy or download anything, it helps to name what actually hooked you about the show. It usually isn't the motorcycles.

Territory You Take and Hold

Every club in the show is fighting over something specific: a garage, a route, a supplier, a piece of a town too small for two crews to share. That's why area control sits underneath almost every game on this list. You don't just accumulate points in the abstract. You physically occupy a space, and holding it means someone else can't.

That's what separates these picks from a generic strategy game:

A location is worth fighting for, not just worth owning.
Losing a spot on the board costs you something real, not a number on a track.
The map itself tells the story of who's winning, before anyone tallies a score.

Deals Built to Break

The show runs on alliances that everyone knows are temporary. Clubs team up against a bigger threat, then turn on each other the second that threat is gone. Men of Mayhem, The Godfather: Corleone's Empire, Root, and Sin of Angels all build that directly into the rules: you can talk, promise, and cut a ceasefire, but nothing stops you from breaking it the moment it pays off more than keeping it.

Chinatown runs the same instinct in a lower gear. The promises there are about price, not territory, but the read is identical: figure out what the other person needs, then decide how much of your word you're willing to spend to get it.

A range from table talk with no consequences through to a broken deal that costs a player their territory, showing where each game's negotiation sits.

The Law Is Always a Third Player

Nobody in Sons of Anarchy operates without worrying about who's watching. That pressure shows up mechanically, too, in the games built for it. Sin of Angels makes you manage Felonies with the law directly, on top of running your economy: rack up too many Felonies and it costs you flexibility elsewhere. Men of Mayhem builds the same tension into its area-control structure, where every move you make on the board is visible to everyone else at the table, cops included in spirit if not always in rules text.

It's a small thing, but it's part of why these games feel like the show and a plain territory-grab game doesn't. You're never just fighting the other players. You're managing exposure the whole time.

Which Game Should You Actually Get

Run it back through the three questions from the top, and the pick should be obvious:

Need the real Sons of Anarchy world? Men of Mayhem. Nothing else on this list is licensed, and nothing else should claim to be.
Want mob-movie tension without the show's license? The Godfather: Corleone's Empire.
Want to negotiate without anyone throwing a punch? Chinatown.
Want the deepest alliance-and-betrayal engine, theme aside? Root.
Want to play tonight, from a couch, a phone, or across different cities, with zero setup? Sin of Angels, currently in closed beta.

None of these are wrong answers. They're just built for different game nights.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there an actual Sons of Anarchy board game?

Yes. Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem, published by Gale Force Nine in 2014, is the real licensed tabletop game. It seats 3 to 4 players for about 90 minutes and it is tabletop-only, with no digital version.

What board games are similar to Sons of Anarchy?

The Godfather: Corleone's Empire delivers a similar mob turf-war fantasy without a TV-show license. Chinatown strips the genre down to pure negotiation over property. Root keeps the shifting alliances and mid-game betrayal, just with woodland factions instead of bikers.

Is there a Sons of Anarchy video game or digital board game?

Not from the show's publishers. Sin of Angels is an independent digital board game built around a similar outlaw-motorcycle-club fantasy, set in its own original world and playable in a browser. It is not affiliated with Sons of Anarchy or Men of Mayhem.

Can you play an outlaw-motorcycle-club-style game online with friends?

Yes. Sin of Angels runs in a browser on desktop, tablet, or phone, with solo play against an AI, online multiplayer, local pass-and-play, or party mode on a TV. It is in closed beta now, so the fastest way in is the beta list.

What's the best pick if you want negotiation without a fight?

Chinatown. There is no combat and no dice, just trading businesses and property until someone blinks. It is the lightest, fastest-to-learn game on this list.

Whichever one fits your crew, get everyone in the room, or in the same lobby, and start the war.