Video games are weird. It's a genre of entertainment that varies so widely. Sometimes it's the deepest most complicated experience ever, and other times it's all about punching the other guy as hard as possible. Games are beloved for thousands of reasons, but the characters they feature are one of the most predominant. And sometimes, as a way of cross-promotion, these characters make guest appearances in other games.
But it's not just game character, real-life celebrities too! There's a myriad of weird crossovers that happened over the years, from skateboarding Spider-Men to "The One" almost fighting against Superman, there are plenty of examples. We're just here to cover the ten weirdest we could find.
10 Monster Hunter? More Like Crossover Hunter
We're going to start things off right with the franchise that probably has the highest amount of crossovers out there, Monster Hunter. The Monster Hunter games were locked to portable handhelds for a long time but just recently moved to the big leagues with Monster Hunter World. And, in it, there have already been an absurd amount of varied crossovers. Games like The Witcher, Final Fantasy 15, Mega Man, Horizon Zero Dawn, Street Fighter, and even Resident Evil 2 have all made appearances in-game. But, out of all the MH games and all the crossovers, our personal favorite has to be the multiple Pizza Hut collaborations, want a pizza-based longsword? Go to Pizza Hut. What a weird timeline.
9 Tekken 7's Guest Characters Are 90% Villains, And Also Noctis
And another game that came out recently with a huge host of guest characters is Tekken 7. The Mishima's are back to cause more trouble and turns out other villains like Akuma and Geese Howard have come with them. But that's not all, Negan from The Walking Dead also somehow makes an appearance! It's odd to think that an actor who plays a character based on a comic book character is then made into a game character. Our brain hurts just thinking about it. In any case, Tekken and its competitor Soul Calibur have always had amazing guest characters, but these new ones are some of the best so far.
8 Naruto Shippūden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 Has A Weirdly Swedish Inclusion
And, speaking of Tekken, there's a character from that franchise who actually shows up in another game, but not the one we'd expect. Lars Alexandersson is a half-Swedish Illegitimate child to Heihachi Mishima and the leader of the Tekken Force. And somehow, this rando character introduced in the latter Tekken games shows up as a DLC fighter in Naruto Shippūden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2. Seriously, why do fighting games get all the best cameo characters? Anyway, it was part of a crossover with Tekken 6 where Masashi Kishimoto, the mangaka behind Naruto, designed a costume for Lars. It's an interesting design for sure, but we never would've expected that these two franchises would cross paths.
7 Sonic And All-Stars Racing Has Danika Patrick, Our Favorite SEGA Mascot
Sonic And All-Stars Racing Transformed is a good game! Though it quickly faded into obscurity, this racing experience featured tons of guest characters from different IP's. The Sega ones, of course, made sense, but there were others that boggled our minds.
Sure, Wreck-It-Ralph was cool, but what about people like Danika Patrick, the most famous female NASCAR racer of all time? Or the Yogscast? There was even a Football Manager racer! This game truly had some of the weirdest inclusions of all time.
6 Poker Night At The Inventory Feels Like A Fever Dream
And along that same vein of weird PC crossovers, Poker Night At The Inventory might be the oddest one. This is a Texas Hold'Em Poker Sim created by the now-deceased company, Telltale Games. And if that sentence wasn't weird enough, it features characters from different worlds playing poker in a warehouse having incredibly deep and complex conversations. The first game featured Strongbad from Homestar Runner, Heavy from Team Fortress 2, Max of Sam & Max, and Tycho from Penny Arcade. So yes, that's a character from a 90's website, a Valve-icon game character, A bunny from a niche classic mystery game, and the main character of a pop-culture fan comic. If that isn't the freakiest blend of characters you've ever heard of, then just wait until you play the sequel.
5 Isaac Clarke Gets Over His Dead Wife By Skateboarding?
To be honest, there are a lot of guest characters in skateboarding games that weird us out, Spider-Man, Boba Fett, Darth Maul, Iron Man, and whatever T.H.U.D was. But, most of those characters were from the Tony Hawk Pro-Skater games that were relatively made for all ages. In fact, most of these guests appear in movies that are aimed at kids!
So they fit much more than someone like Isaac Clarke from the Dead Space games did in Skate 3 back in 2010. This guy is someone who has gone through some of the most horrifying things anyone could image, three different times! We've only ever seen Isaac scared, enraged, or depressed, so watching him skate around having the time of his life is both horrifying and strangely cathartic.
4 Nobunaga Has A Shiny Rayquaza, Obviously
Now, this isn't necessarily a cameo, but the entire concept of this game is a crossover so we feel it counts. Pokemon Conquest might be the weirdest spinoff of all time. In Pokemon Conquest, the player and their Eevee travel around a fictional Pokemon Region obviously based on the Waring States of Japan. They slowly but surely build up a nation and fight against other armies in a sort of Fire Emblem or Nobunaga's Ambition sort of way. Players don't catch Pokemon in this, they recruit Warlords who each have different Pokemon companions. It's a wild ride, and something we've always wanted to play.
3 Ariana Grande A.K.A Dangerous Ariana In Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
There are not many crossovers that still surprise us nowadays, even the new Smash DLC announcements only shock us a tad. But, seeing Ariana Grande's alter-ego in a Final Fantasy Mobile Game as a playable unit? We still just can't quite wrap our heads around it. Grande's character "Dangerous Ariana" shows up in the mobile game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius and was part of a limited-time event back in 2017. Frankly, she's apparently a great unit who works as a great mage for players not willing to spend money. Oh, and she also released a remix of her song "Touch It" exclusively for the game. As weird as this whole event was, we still kind of love the fact that video games have reached this point.
2 Any Of Death Stranding's Cameos
Death Stranding just recently came out. This game is Hideo Kojima's first big game since starting his own studio back in 2015. And, it's is every bit as weird as the trailers make it look, but what's even weirder is the wide array of cameo celebrities that make an appearance in the game.
There are movie directors, company CEOs, late-night talk show hosts, and even horror mangaka all spread throughout this Post-Stranding America. It's the most immersion-breaking thing we've ever seen, but we can't help but love it all the same. Who wouldn't adore being able to bring Conan O'Brien the premium quality Underwear he ordered in a video game?
1 The Baz In A Million Different Things
Back in the days of Street Fighter 2, the dev team had a myriad of potential characters that were cut. One of them, the Bullfighter. This character fell to the wayside and was all but forgotten about until a Youtube Group called Super Best Friends Play (now known as Castle Superbeast) made it their goal to make the Baz into an actual character. Since then he's been in indie darling after indie darling, no one ever knows where he comes from, but they all love him regardless. The best part is because Castle Superbeast doesn't actually own the character, most developers just do whatever they want with him! Heck, he's even a fighter in the upcoming release of Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove!