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Gaming’s weirdest crossovers

by Dave Elliott

 

Video game crossovers have always been a fun, but often weird, method that developers have used across the years to add excitement, novelty and creativity to new releases. Some have been hugely successful often resulting in players forgetting that the game is even a crossover at all. Others, however, seem like bizarre decisions that were destined to fail from the start. Considering this, let’s look at some of the weirdest crossovers in gaming history and assess the commercial success of these strange releases.

Super Smash Bros. Series 

The Nintendo universe is well-known and well-loved for its eclectic mix of delightfully weird characters across its array of different franchises. Even their most famous franchise, Mario Bros revolves around two Italian plumber brothers saving princesses from dragons and evil twins – bizarre. The Super Smash Bros. Series goes one step further however, incorporating multiple different franchises in a single platform fighting game. Players can choose from multiple characters, from well-loved franchises like Mario and Sonic, as well as some more off-kilter characters like Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid and even Pac-Man. Despite the strange combination of characters, the game remains a stone-cold classic, loved by many.

Kingdom Hearts 

Firmly established as one of the weirdest and most unexpected crossovers in gaming history, Kingdom Hearts is a collaboration project between Square Enix, creators of the Final Fantasy series, and Walt Disney. Often said that the game came about through a chance meeting in a lift between the two successful but different creators, development began for the game back in 2000. The content of the game allows your character to team up with Disney stars such as Goofy and Donald Duck and fight your way through various worlds based on different Disney movies. Despite the strange combination of styles and characters, Kingdom Hearts was both a commercial and critical triumph paving the way for several more games in the series.

LEGO Rock Band 

Nearly every gamer out there has fond memories of playing early LEGO video games when they were younger. Releases such as LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Indiana Jones and LEGO Batman all proved to be highly popular with younger and older audiences providing a fun and exciting video game encompassing the best bits of playing LEGO but in a digital format. One particularly strange move in the LEGO video game universe was its collaboration with the instrument-based game Rock Band. The game remained more similar to a traditional Rock Band game, with much less interactive LEGO components when compared to other LEGO video games, leading many to question the point of the collaboration. Despite this, the game was moderately successful.

Themed Slot Games 

Over the years, finding online slots that have collaborated with major gaming franchises has become a common yet strange occurrence. Themed slots range from classic games like Tomb Raider and Resident Evil up to modern-day blockbusters such as Call of Duty. Despite using characters and themes from the original releases, similarities between the themed slot-style game and the original franchise end there. That being said, collaborating with major franchises is a great way to offer a unique aspect to slot machine-style games, often providing the player with greater interest and enjoyment. This has allowed slot-style games like these to maintain a high level of popularity throughout the years.

Soulcalibur IV x Star Wars

Legendary fighting game series Soulcalibur has featured several character crossovers over the course of its franchise history. Usually, these crossovers are characters from games of a similar fantasy renaissance setting, such as Assassins Creed’s Ezio or Link from the Zelda games, featuring in the fifth and third editions respectively. Many players were then left understandably confused when playing Soulcaliber IV, with the surprising inclusion of several Star Wars characters. Yes, science fiction legends Darth Vadar and Yoda were somehow fitted into this fantasy fighting game. While many enjoyed the bizarreness of this choice, many players questioned the inclusion, claiming the force-wielding abilities of these characters made them overpowered in gameplay as well as the fact that it all just felt very unnatural. Despite this, the game still topped the sales charts for several weeks upon release.

Burger King Games

Little explanation is required to state how strange this crossover was when these games were released on Xbox in 2006. All three games PocketBike Racer, Sneak King and Big Bumpin’ feature The King himself involved in various game styles and were released as a part of the Christmas promotional campaign of that year. Packed full of Burger King advertisements, the games were originally available for download only from the Xbox store however due to high demand, physical copies became available to purchase in Burger King restaurants at £3.99 a piece. The three games received mixed reviews while over 3 million copies of the games were sold. In addition, Burger King reported a 40% increase in sales during the quarter of the game’s release.

Fortnite and Everything 

Contemporary trailblazer, Fortnite, has well and truly become the king of collaborations in recent years, introducing crossover characters from virtually every corner of modern pop culture. A key aspect of the game’s continued success; players are regularly provided new characters, themes and items whether that is the infinity gauntlet from the Marvel film franchise, NFL skins or even celebrity avatar appearances. Focusing on games, some of the most famous video game characters of all time have made an appearance. Master Chief (Halo), Lara Croft (Tomb Raider), Ezio (Assassins Creed) and Geralt (The Witcher) have all been featured as characters in Fortnite. This strategy of overloading players with an abundance of recognizable and nostalgic characters has proven to be unbelievably successful, with the game still attracting over 200 million monthly players.

It is fair to say that across the history of games development, players have been given provided some weird and wacky crossover combinations. However, despite the absurdity of some of these creations, the success of many of these crossovers cannot be denied.

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