Best Of
10 Best Social Deduction Games Like Yokai Landlord: Monster Mystery

Yokai Landlord: Monster Mystery is an upcoming social deduction game based on an intriguing plot and one of the most creative themes yet. You play a landlord trying to find out which of your tenants are secret Yokai. The stakes are high, as the hidden Yokai will reveal their fierce identities and attack the other tenants on the night of the new moon. The yokai are good at deceiving and misleading. As such, you must be good at calling a bluff or sniffing out a lie to uncover them. Unfortunately, this game is still under development and will launch in 2025. Fortunately, there are plenty of other intriguing social deduction games you can play in the meantime. Here is an overview of the ten best social deduction games, like Yokai Landlord: Monster Mystery.
10. Werewords
Werewords places you in a small medieval town where werewolves concealed in human form have infiltrated the community. The werewolves await the opportune time to act, and you have to help the people escape before that happens.
The only way to escape is to learn and use a secret magic word. Only the mayor knows the magic word, and the only way to get it out of him is by asking 20 questions. However, players playing as werewolves will join the interrogation to try to throw you off.
9. The Thing 1982: The Board Game
This game is inspired by the Antarctic scene in the popular film The Thing. It pits humans against aliens, with humans trying to get away and aliens trying to convert humans into aliens. Fortunately, there are subtle tell-tale signs to help you differentiate real humans from shapeshifting aliens. Moreover, the game is more hands-on, as you can explore the facility for escape routes.
8. One Night Ultimate Werewolf
One Night Ultimate Werewolf is ideal if you feel like solving an intriguing mystery on the go. Solving the mystery doesn’t take long, as it is short, simple, and relatively easy. Additionally, it has apps for Android and iOS devices. Your goal is to convince everyone else that you are not a werewolf and try to find the actual werewolves. On the one hand, the group tries to find the werewolves and vote them out before nightfall. On the other hand, the werewolves take advantage of the night to kill an innocent.
7. Salem 1692
Salem 1962 is one of the most detailed deduction games, featuring in-depth character descriptions and an impressive design. Moreover, it incorporates card play to make things more interesting.
Players play cards against each other as they try to identify a witch among them. Moreover, trial cards vote suspected witches out of the community. Notably, special night cards signal death, as players must close their eyes for the witch to choose someone to kill. However, before the witch kills the victim, the constable has one chance to guess the victim’s identity and save them.
6. First Class Trouble
First Class Trouble has a more futuristic setting and is more hands-on than most other social deduction games. It is set in space and involves working with or against an AI program trying to take over the spaceship. The two teams comprise humans and robots disguised to look like humans, and you can play for either team. Besides dialoguing and voting players off the ship, you can also perform various activities to help or sabotage the AI’s plans.
5. Deceit
Deceit is ideal for players looking for some action, as it is a first-person shooter, social deduction game. While everyone looks normal, a third of the players are infected with a virus that turns people into monsters. Playing as an innocent, you can collect guns and other items you may need for survival. You can also work with other players, but differentiating the innocents from the infected is tricky. You can protect yourself from the infected by trying to identify them and voting them out or shooting them.
4. Dead of Winter
Dead of Winter is one of the most challenging social deduction games. Moreover, it delivers one of the most impressive storytelling experiences. You have two problems. First, the community is under siege from hordes of zombies, and crisis cards regularly unlock new gruesome ways to die. Second, some of the people in the community secretly sabotage your efforts to stay safe. As such, you must identify and expel the saboteurs to increase your chances of surviving.
3. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong has you looking for a murderer instead of a monster, but that doesn’t make it any less thrilling. The rules are quite intriguing, too.
You know the murderer’s identity. Your task is to give other players clues that can help them identify the murderer. Interestingly, the group can also include an accomplice and a witness, and the witness serves as a wild card. If caught, the murderer has one chance to name the witness. If he guesses correctly, the witness dies, and the murderer escapes and wins.
2. Among Us
Among Us is largely credited as the game that restarted interest in the social deduction genre. It features a bunch of quirky characters preparing a spaceship for departure. However, they must first weed out the impostors among them, who are hell-bent on sabotaging the trip and killing everyone.
Besides holding discussions to sniff out the impostors, players can also engage in more hands-on activities to prepare the ship for departure and repair sabotages. Interestingly, you can also play for the other team to secretly kill the good guys and sabotage the trip.
1. Blood on the Clocktower
Blood on the Clocktower is one of the best overall social deduction games. The theme is thrilling, as it involves demons killing villagers and displaying their corpses. Moreover, the rules make it engaging, as everyone in the game plays an important, unique role, and the variety of roles requires players to develop a strategy to identify the demons. Interestingly, the game also encourages the main players to run the game in a dramatic way.





