Top 10 All-Time Weirdest Video Games

As I included in a previous article on underrated game franchises, the FMV-based exploration title Mansion of Hidden Souls concerns the first-person investigation of an old mansion inhabited by talking “butterflies” – actually the titular souls of people who are permanently trapped there. Players must find the protagonist’s missing sister before both of them suffer the same fate – with cryptic hints being provided via odd conversations with the butterflies floating around the environment.

9. Earthworm Jim 2 (1995)

Of course, the original Earthworm Jim from 1994 was already one of the weirdest video game properties seen at the time (just look at the title and basic story concept) – however, its 1995 sequel would push further into new, even crazier territory. Players will participate in a quiz show inside the bowels of an incalculably giant entity, avoid grandmothers falling down a stairwell while riding up on a motorized chair lift, and bear witness to one of the most inexplicable endings to a video game ever.

8. Baroque (1998, 2008)

Originally released as a Japanese exclusive for the Sega Saturn in 1998, and later remade and localized for international release on the PS2 and Wii in 2007/2008, Baroque is a “roguelike” RPG set in an extremely bizarre post-apocalyptic world following an event called “The Blaze.” In both versions of the game, players are tasked with descending a massive underground facility called the “Neuro Tower” while fighting against hordes of incredibly creepy-looking (and quite powerful) monsters – with story progression actually being tied to the main character dying and respawning.

7. Seaman (2000)

Despite arguably being more of a “virtual pet” application for the Sega Dreamcast than a full-fledged video game in itself, Seaman is nonetheless one of the quirkiest, most unapologetically weirdest gaming novelties that I had the pleasure of experiencing for myself at launch. Coming bundled with a microphone peripheral that plugged into one of the Virtual Memory Unit (VMU) slots in the Dreamcast’s controller, Seaman has you meticulously care for and raise strange tadpole-like organisms that eventually grow into a fish with a human face – that you can then converse with!

6. D2 (2000)

In possibly the weirdest video game released within the late Kenji Eno’s already particularly odd and unconventional “D” trilogy, D2 for the Sega Dreamcast reaches nearly absurd levels of baffling character and story moments that could each take up entire articles of their own. Such notable plot-points are: scientists finding remains of a plant-like “angel” inside the stomach of a preserved mammoth; a man being “married” to a talking flower; the Earth and cosmos both being sentient (but in stark disagreement); and people growing tentacles from…”interesting” parts of their bodies.

5. Resident Evil: Code -Veronica- (2000)

While the Resident Evil franchise isn’t exactly a stranger to including notably more bizarre plot elements than usual (the later Resident Evil Village featuring what are essentially werewolves and vampires), RE: CV is seen as where the franchise first started to get really odd. Highlights include two “test tube baby” sibling antagonists with an unhealthy attraction, a Psycho-esque crossdressing reveal, and a world-ending plot involving the spread of a virus through a colony of mutated ants.

4. Silent Hill 4: The Room (2004)

Supplementing the last entry, the Silent Hill franchise is already fairly strange in its own right – even more so than the Resident Evil series due to focusing on abstract and psychologically driven horror over the latter’s comparatively schlockier approach. However, The Room – which utilized a first-person “hub” and other then-unorthodox mechanics for the series – includes disturbing imagery referencing childbirth, intangible ghosts as enemies, and a Freddy Krueger-esque dream killer.

3. Rule of Rose (2006)

In what many others have pointedly described as “the Silent Hill games meet William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies,” Rule of Rose is an exceedingly strange (and, on the current secondhand market, extremely hard to find and purchase) video game dealing with very troubling topics. While the weirdest elements (such as being assaulted by strange schoolchildren-like creatures wearing animal masks) do make certain retroactive sense by the ending, it’s still a highly unsettling experience that touches on themes encompassing abuse, trauma, and burgeoning adolescence.

2. Deadly Premonition (2010)

Obviously designed to emulate the look, feel, and plot of the late David Lynch’s co-created Twin Peaks (even more blatantly in a scrapped previous version of the game), Deadly Premonition is already strange just for its association to – and clear inspiration from – that series. The open-world, horror-themed game’s inherent weirdness is arguably “enhanced” by its admittedly low-quality presentation and functionality – however, DP also features elements that would be strange even for Twin Peaks: the giant, aggressive Chihuahuas falling from the night sky definitely come to mind.

1. Death Stranding (2019)

Quite possibly the weirdest video game created by Hideo Kojima (already notorious for including notably bizarre elements in his famous Metal Gear franchise), Death Stranding features the voice – and directly copied appearance – of Norman Reedus as a sort of futuristic mailman. Said mailman must traverse a post-apocalyptic wasteland infested with very aggressive (and nigh-invisible) ghost-like entities that can only be detected via a strange device hooked up to a prematurely born infant…and that’s not even getting into how the story touches on quantum physics and the afterlife.