Codenames XXL

Two rival spymasters know the secret identities of twenty-five agents standing in the field. Only their own team's operatives are worth reaching. Each spymaster gives their team a single word as a clue, plus a number, and the team has to work out which cards on the table that clue points to. Touch an innocent bystander and the turn ends; touch the assassin and the game ends there and then.

Codenames XXL is the whole game in a much larger format. The cards and the printed words are considerably bigger — bigger even than the previous XXL edition — so the grid can be read from right across the room, and anyone with limited vision isn't left squinting at the table. This 2025 edition adds a revised word list, fresh artwork, a rewritten rulebook that's far easier to teach from, and a new insert that keeps the components in order.

It remains one of the most reliably brilliant party games ever made: a minute to explain, endlessly re-playable, and just as sharp with a table of four as it is with a room of twenty.