These games have become a bit harder to find on modern consoles, thanks to an increased output of more “mainstream” AAA titles, as well as the phasing-out of physical media. Some of the weirdest games on consoles like the PS4 get quiet releases on the PlayStation Store, and we never find out – but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Here are some super-weird PS4 games you need to try.
20. Goat Simulator (2014)
I don’t think I need to explain why a simulator that lets you experience life as a goat is weird… but there’s more to this game than what its title can tell you. Far from being a “realistic” goat simulator, this title pulls out all the stops and just gives you the most chaotic sandbox experience possible. Just note that sowing discord gets boring after a while – yet you’ll always have something funny to show to your friends.
19. ClusterTruck (2016)
If you’ve ever seen those scenes in action flicks where the hero must outrun some bad guys on the roof of a moving train or a traffic jam, you have a fair idea of what ClusterTruck is like. ClusterTruck drops the player on top of moving trucks and asks them to reach a goal at the front of the pack. You’ll get more points the faster you get there, promoting a risk-heavy play-style that’s sure to get your blood pumping. Jean Claude Van Damme would be proud.
18. Super Meat Boy (2015)
Super Meat Boy is known by lovers of the Platformer genre as one of the best games ever made – it’s also downright bizarre. You play as a sentient chunk of meat trying to rescue his girlfriend – Bandage Girl – from an evil unborn fetus mastermind. This involves clearing some of the most challenging and brutal platforming levels I’ve ever played – often requiring hundreds of retries. Despite the sometimes disheartening difficulty, the game is fantastic.
17. Her Majesty’s SPIFFING (2016)
Britain’s exit from the European Union caught many of us by surprise. And the developers over at Billy Goat Entertainment found just the way to vent their feelings about it. Her Majesty’s SPIFFING explores the British people’s future as a space-faring civilization after the Queen dissolves the parliament and diverts all funding toward the Special Planetary Investigative Force For Inhabiting New Galaxies (SPIFFING). The game follows Captain Frank Lee English and his Welsh lackey Aled Jones on their adventures aboard the Big Ben after the historical building is refurbished as a spaceship, and then launched into the great unknown.
16. Oh… Sir!! The Insult Simulator (2017)
Words shape reality, helping us build a better future – or destroy each other’s self-esteem. That’s what you’ll be doing in Oh… Sir!! The Insult Simulator, where battles are won by laying down the most hurtful and humiliating insults you can against your opponent. Both players take turns picking from a pool of sentence fragments to create the perfect insult. It’s a strategic game where you must juggle ruining your enemy’s carefully-crafted insults and making your own. This insult-oriented combat system is pretty complex, letting you land combos and criticals depending on what words you’ve used in your insult. So get roasted, fam.
15. Don Bradman Cricket 17 (2016)
Yes, there’s a sports game series based on cricket. Sir Donald George Bradman was a cricket legend during the 20th century, drawing in massive crowds to see his cricketing’s aggressive and dynamic style. Now he can draw crowds toward this unusual sports simulator. The game includes a fantastic career mode that takes you from the local level to international competitions, a multiplayer mode, and more. This game gives you lots of freedom when it comes to customizing your experience. Other than the character creator, it has an in-depth stadium editor that’ll let you re-create your favorite local cricket grounds.
14. Guts and Glory (2018)
Remember the time when Happy Wheels completely took over YouTube? Now you can re-live the excitement of controlling spasmodic characters on bikes, skateboards, and cars as they try to make it through stupidly dangerous courses at high speeds thanks to Guts and Glory – which brings the Happy Wheels formula to 3D. As if driving unsafely through the traffic or down steep hills wasn’t enough, you’ll also have to avoid extra-violent hazards like spikes, blades, and buzzsaws placed maliciously all across the maps.
13. Catherine: Full Body (2019)
The original Catherine on the PS3 was one of my favorite games on the platform. Mostly from its addictive tower-climbing gameplay and titillating storyline that let me live out my dreams of juggling two hot girls with the same name. Its “definitive edition” on the PS4 brings more of the same enticing formula with some tweaks to give it a more full-bodied taste. This includes slight changes to gameplay, many extras, and yet another love interest with the same name as the other two. The game is full of bizarre imagery, weird Japanese jokes you’ll struggle to understand, a bunch of alcohol trivia – and much, much more.
12. Stick it to The Man (2013)
I’ve always felt drawn to Puzzle-Platformers – especially ones with weird concepts. Stick it to The Man follows Ray, an average dude that’s acquired psychic powers after being hit on the head by an alien spaceship and having the only surviving passenger set up shop in his brain. Now you’ll have to use the giant pink arm sticking out of your head to traverse diverse, well-designed levels. Reading minds is also key to clearing the game’s puzzles, and getting to know its characters.
11. My Name is Mayo 2 (2020)
My Name is Mayo 2 revolves around a mysterious flask of mayo, which you’ll have to tap over and over again to make stuff happen. Yes, it’s a clicker game on a console. The more stuff you unlock, the more fun you can have. For example, putting a swimsuit on the mayo flask and clicking it repeatedly has different results. Trying out different things lets you slowly discover this game’s little jokes. The sequel merely brings more content to this tried-and-true gameplay loop.
10. Surgeon Simulator: Anniversary Edition (2014)
If there’s any one game to credit for simulator-style titles becoming mainstream, it’s Surgeon Simulator. It may have “simulator” in the name, but these surgical procedures are as realistic as a slice of white bread becoming sentient and trashing your kitchen. The game’s obtuse controls are part of the experience. It’s the chaotic movements of your controlled surgeon that give this game its goofy charm. If people thought Trauma Center was unrealistic, well buckle up.
9. Blood Bowl 2 (2015)
The Warhammer franchise has never been afraid of trying unusual stuff as long as it’s violent. And Blood Bowl 2 is nothing if not violent. Bringing together the incredibly bloody worlds of Warhammer Fantasy and American football was just a genius move on the developers’ part. Other than the exciting multiplayer mode, there’s also a campaign where you’ll lead the human team – the Reikland Reavers – to victory against Orcs, Dwarfs, Skaven, and many more. If you like monsters, blood, gore, and football, you can’t let this game pass you by.
8. Jazzpunk (2016)
If you liked The Man in the High Castle but thought it was too tame and lacking in comedy, then you’ll love Jazzpunk. The game takes place in Japanada – a retro-futuristic alternate reality where the Japanese conquered over half of the US during WWII. Here you’ll find yourself working for the local espionage agency, completing missions like infiltrating the Russian Consulate after taking some mysterious pills. The game is a comedy through and through. So your adventures throughout Japanada will usually take a turn for the surreal.
7. What Remains of Edith Finch (2017)
Nowadays, most people you ask would agree that video games are an art form, just like painting or cinema. But it wasn’t always like this. We have games like What Remains of Edith Finch to thank for this change in perception. The game centers on Edith Finch, as the player character goes through her journal and slowly finds out about the curse that’s killed-off all but one member of the Finch family every generation. You’ll also explore the Finch house in Orcas Island, trying to understand its former occupants. This includes playing through little levels with unique gameplay related to their demise. It’s hard to explain, but considering it won a BAFTA for Best Game and a Game Award for Best Narrative, you should just play this unusual artsy game. You’ll get it pretty quickly.
6. Talos Principle (2015)
One of my absolute favorite games in the PS4’s roster is Talos Principle, an unusual puzzle game where you play as a self-conscious robot with a human-like mind in a sort of digital Eden. From the beginning, it’s evident you’re in some virtual reality. As you play you’ll hear voices, find contextual clues, and even terminals full of juicy flavor text that’ll slowly reveal the game’s true storyline. While the game’s puzzles can be brutal at times, you’ll probably spend more brain energy pondering the game’s philosophical questions about the nature of the human mind, the eternal cycle of death and rebirth, and plenty more.
5. Hatoful Boyfriend (2015)
The realm of Japanese visual novels has always been a weird one, thanks to its daring settings and bizarre storylines. Few games are a better example of this trend than Hatoful Boyfriend. You’ll play as the only human student in PigeoNation’s Institute, where everyone – from the teachers, to the school doctor, to the students – is a pigeon. You’d think wooing a pigeon, dove, or quail would be as easy as spilling a bag of breadcrumbs over your head and waiting for the bachelors to come – but you’ll have to put in a little bit more effort than that if you want to get hitched to one of these dashing birds. The game has a total of 14 surreal endings. And you’ll get access to a second, darker story mode after getting at least four of these. If you thought the main game was weird, you might be surprised by what you’ll find here.
4. I Am Bread (2015)
Do you think getting through life is hard as a human? Imagine how hard it must be when you’re bread! I Am Bread is the first game that comes to mind whenever someone says “weird games”. It puts you in control of a sentient slice of white bread. Your objective? To become delicious, buttered-up toast. You’ll achieve this by moving the toast wannabe through the levels with some incredibly wonky controls. It’s not bad game design – the complicated controls are part of the experience. As you may have guessed, you’ll cause incredible chaos and destruction on your way to becoming toast. You know what they say – you can’t toast bread without setting some things on fire.
3. Octodad: Dadliest Catch (2014)
Do you know what’s harder than raising two human children as an octopus? Doing so without anyone – including your wife – realizing that you’re an eight-legged (tentacled?) resident of the sea. Well after watching My Octopus Teacher on Netflix, I’ll believe anything about these creatures. Learning to move your tentacles delicately in public is an entirely different experience from using them to escape from an enraged fishmonger at a supermarket – but you’ll need both skills to survive. If you found “I Am Bread” and “Surgeon Simulator” to your liking, the hard-to-master controls of Octodad will keep you hooked to the paternal experience.
2. Roundabout (2015)
Now if you’re looking for something very off-beat, I’d recommend Roundabout: a simple indie driving game where your car is always spinning on its axis. You’ll play as trans limo driver Georgio Manos, who’s only ever known how to drive in circles. Despite this, they somehow managed to get a taxi license – and now you get to drive hilarious NPCs around the city like you would in Crazy Taxi. Except this is, well, much crazier than Crazy Taxi… as you’ll find out the more you progress into the story. The best part about this title is how the plot is delivered through FMV sequences where terrible actors play bizarre characters. Anything can happen, and it’s all incredibly surreal.
1. Push Me Pull You (2016)
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a game that’s as disturbing and just plain fun as Push Me Pull You. The game is named after Doctor Dolittle’s two-headed llama, Pushmi-pullyu. This is awfully appropriate for a game about long, sausage-like beings made up of two humans joined at the hip, all crawling around chasing a ball. So you have to work together with your other half to get the ball and keep it on your side of the court for a certain amount of time. Games usually result in bizarre images of monstrous sausage people tangled together with other two-headed sausages… It’s great fun if you can stomach it.
