Dead of Winter: A Cross Roads Game

Lore & Background

Dead of Winter was first published in 2014 by Plaid Hat Games. The game is played over a set of rounds, with players using dice to have their survivors execute actions such as scavenging for supplies, attacking zombies, building barricades, and contributing to crises. Each game uses one of ten possible scenarios, each with a starting morale level, zombie presence, round limit, and unique team victory objective. The game can end when morale reaches zero, rounds run out, or the main objective is completed. After each round, environmental effects resolve, including food consumption and zombie attraction, compounded by players' individual secret objectives and repeated crises.

Reader's Guide

Dead of Winter: A Cross Roads Game has been recognized with multiple awards, including the 2015 Origins Award for Best Board Game and the 2014 Golden Geek awards for Most Innovative Board Game and Best Thematic Board Game. It was featured on Felicia Day's YouTube channel Geek & Sundry in the third season of TableTop, and later inspired a spoof video starring Brandon Routh, Felicia Day, Jeff Lewis, Amy Okuda, and Ify Nwadiwe. Board Games Land included it in the top 10 zombie board games ever made. We The Nerdy described the game as 'brilliantly stressful and yet so much fun to play.' In a review for Black Gate, E.E. Knight recommended it as 'a decision-heavy brain-picker of a game with loads of strategic considerations.' The game's expansions include the Kodiak Colby promotional expansion, Felicia Day promo cards, the standalone expansion The Long Night (announced in early 2016), and Warring Colonies (released in 2017). A Crossroads Cards App for Android and iOS was released in 2015, offering narrated cards and sound effects.

Did You Know?

• Dead of Winter won the 2015 Origins Award for Best Board Game.
• The game was featured on Geek & Sundry's web series TableTop in its third season.
• A standalone expansion titled Dead of Winter: The Long Night was announced in early 2016.
• Plaid Hat Games released a Crossroads Cards App for Android and iOS in 2015.

The Architecture of Tension

Dead of Winter, designed by Jonathan Gilmour and Isaac Vega and published by Plaid Hat Games, carves out a distinctive niche in board gaming by fusing cooperative survival with concealed personal ambitions. Two to five players take on the roles of faction leaders in a zombie-ravaged colony, tasked with keeping the group alive against relentless hordes and scarce supplies. Yet beneath that shared struggle, each player harbors a secret victory condition that can directly clash with a teammate's goals, injecting a layer of quiet betrayal into every negotiation.

The round structure revolves around dice-rolled actions: survivors scavenge for weapons, food, fuel, medicine, or new recruits; engage zombies or rival players; clear debris; or shore up barricades. Additional moves—repositioning survivors, trading cards, or feeding the crisis—need no die. Each session is drawn from one of twenty scenarios, each with its own starting morale, initial zombie pressure, round cap, and a unique team objective. The game ends when morale hits zero, rounds run out, or the group completes its goal. Between turns, the world worsens: every survivor consumes food and attracts more zombies, while stacking crises and conflicting agendas make victory genuinely hard to achieve.

A Growing Universe

The first edition of Dead of Winter hit shelves in 2014, and Plaid Hat Games quickly began expanding the world. A promotional mini-expansion introduced the character Kodiak Colby, and in April 2015 the studio released Felicia Day promo cards timed to International TableTop Day; both small add-ons contributed an extra character and a crossroads card to the pool.

The more substantial growth came with Dead of Winter: The Long Night, announced in early 2016. That standalone expansion brought a fresh roster of survivors, new locations, additional crises, objectives, and items, and could be played either as its own complete game or layered onto the base experience. In 2017, Warring Colonies arrived, adding fifteen new survivors, fifty extra crossroad cards, and roughly fifty new items to the ecosystem.

On the digital front, Plaid Hat shipped a Crossroads Cards App for Android and iOS in 2015. The app functions as a virtual card deck, letting players filter out mature or cooperative cards, hear the text read by professional narrators, and toggle atmospheric sound effects to deepen the table's mood.

Critical Acclaim

Dead of Winter earned a remarkable string of recognition in the two years following its 2014 debut. At the 2014 Golden Geek Awards, it took home both the Most Innovative Board Game and Best Thematic Board Game titles, and it was also nominated for the Meeples' Choice award that same year.

The momentum carried into 2015, when the game received nominations across a wide range of prestigious ceremonies. It was put forward for the Origins Award for Best Board Game, the French As d'Or – Jeu de l'Année, the SXSW Tabletop Game of the Year, and the Tric Trac award. This breadth of international and domestic recognition—spanning innovation, theme, and overall design—cemented Dead of Winter as one of the most talked-about titles of that period in the hobby.

The game was also reviewed in Casus Belli, appearing in the January/February 2015 issue (volume 4, issue 13), further underscoring its presence in dedicated board-game press.

Beyond the Table

Dead of Winter's cultural footprint extended well past the gaming table, largely thanks to its connection with the online entertainment world. Felicia Day's Geek & Sundry channel featured the game in the third season of their popular web series TableTop, where the cast played through a full session and brought the colony's drama to a broad YouTube audience.

The following year, Geek & Sundry produced a comedic spoof of the game. The short film cast Brandon Routh as Buddy Davis, Felicia Day as Olivia Brown, Jeff Lewis as Forest Plum, Amy Okuda as Annaleigh Chan, and Ify Nwadiwe as Harman Brooks, turning the tense survival premise into a lighthearted parody that further introduced the title to mainstream viewers.

In the hobby press, the game earned a spot on Board Games Land's list of the top ten zombie board games ever made. We The Nerdy praised it as "brilliantly stressful and yet so much fun to play," while E.E. Knight, writing for Black Gate, called it a "decision-heavy brain-picker" loaded with strategic considerations and urged readers not to miss it.

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