Usually, when designing a roster of playable characters for a video game, developers try to maintain some kind of cohesion to make the game feel like one unified experience.
But why not try to have some fun instead? Whenever a playable character strays from the general theme of the others in a roster (for example, a real-life personality side-by-side with fictional ones or just characters from different companies, franchises, mediums, etc...), it can make both that character as well as the game in general way more memorable.
For this reason, we at EarlyGame compiled this list of the Top 10 Most Absurd Guest Characters in Video Games. Aside from the criteria mentioned above (playable and strays from the roster's general theme), for variety's sake, we limited ourselves to fully-fledged characters (no mere skins, sorry Fortnite) and only one entry per franchise.
Likely the reason for this topic's recent resurgence in popularity, the announcement of Salvatore Ganacci being added to Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (2025) really made waves in some online spaces and propelled the game into public conversation. No one expected SNK's signature fighting game series, known for its unique roster of brawlers, to suddenly feature a real-life Bosnian-born DJ. Ganacci, equipped with a few signature dance moves, will now to have to stand tall against the energy blasts and martial arts of the Fatal Fury cast. | © SNK
As another fairly well-known candidate when talking about absurd guest characters in video games, those who are familiar with the topic may have grown numb to the fact that Sega's crossover between its Virtua Fighter and Fighting Viper franchises also included – among others – the most prominent car from its Daytona USA series of racing games. By contorting its body and extending his front wheels, this vehicle turns into quite a formidable opponent who can stand toe to toe with the other Sega AM2 icons. | © Sega
It was really difficult to pick just one representative of the Tony Hawk's franchise, whose main cast (real-life pro skaters and some original characters) has in the past been supplemented by characters from Marvel, Star Wars, other video games as well as prominent musicians. However, none felt so out of place on a skateboard like DreamWorks' overweight green ogre in Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (2004). Maybe him joining was part of a weight loss program he enrolled in along with Benjamin Franklin, a fellow guest character in the game. | © Activision
Considering that Capcom's Cyberbots (1995) is a fighting game featuring the characters of the Armored Warriors franchise, all of which are sci-fi mechs, one may be confused how Street Fighter's Akuma, famously a half-demonic martial artist instead of robotic android, made his way into the Japan-exclusive PlayStation and Sega Saturn ports of the title. The solution: He was fully redesigned into a giant robot named G13-EX Zero Gouki, representing a complete deviation from the style and setting of his home series. | © Capcom
As if it wasn't already weird enough that this rotation-based puzzle platformer for the Game Boy Advance starred characters from the Donkey Kong Country series in the first place, with several Kongs and Kremlings playable in its "Jungle Jam" side mode, the team decided to add Bubbles from Nintendo's ancient NES title Clu Clu Land (1984) as well. Only being unlocked after 100% completing the main campaign as both Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong, the red bubble fish actually turns out to have the best stats in the game. | © Nintendo
Despite its Street Fighter name, this experimental free-to-play fighting game included a bunch of characters from across pop-culture, for example representing the novels of Louis Cha or manga like Cyborg 009 and Detroit Metal City. But we can't imagine anybody expected a caricature of then-US-president Barack Obama to be added as DLC on Valentine's Day. Aside from constantly spreading propaganda during a match, he also seems to have picked up some of Ryu's special moves along the way. | © Capcom
The original cast of Sony's once-signature Everybody's Golf series has occasionally been supplemented by various PlayStation mascots, specifically in the Western releases. While some could fathomably conceived to take a liking to the poshest of all sports (like MediEvil's royalty Sir Daniel or Gex as a superficial high society wannabe), the psychotic killer clown Sweet Tooth from car combat series Twisted Metal is highly unlikely to ever have viewed a golf club as something else than a murder weapon. | © Sony Computer Entertainment
Among the Mortal Kombat series' cast of elemental ninjas, gods, soul wizards and super-powered movie stars, Conan the Barbarian from the 1930s stories of Robert. E. Howard just sticks out. Sure, the common throughline with all Mortal Kombat guest characters is their violent source material, be it video games (Kratos in Mortal Kombat (2011)), movies (Alien in Mortal Kombat X (2015)) or comics (Spawn in Mortal Kombat 11 (2019)), but Conan's lack of special abilities make him seem like... just some really strong guy. | © Warner Bros. Games
As of the time writing this, we don't yet fully know how wild the roster decisions of Sonic Racing CrossWorlds (2025) may get, but we can't imagine Sega coming up with a decision more out-of-the-blue than adding real-life pro racer Danica Patrick to Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (2012). Other non-Sega-related guest characters like Team Fortress, Wreck-It Ralph, the Miis or the Yogscast had at least some relation to gaming in general, whereas Ms. Patrick was apparently only hired and included to promote this game an nothing else. | © Sega
When Electronic Arts released streetball simulator NBA Street V3 for PS2, Xbox, and GameCube, players on Nintendo's console were in for a surprise: Alongside NBA stars, a few original characters and three rappers, the GameCube version featured a team of "Nintendo Legends". Mario, Luigi, and Peach looked hilariously out of place among the realistically modeled athletes and thanks to their strong stats, Peach, whose presence technically broke the game's depiction of a men's league, was actually one of its best characters. | © EA
Given that a solid playable guest character can make any video game more interesting, we at EarlyGame felt the need to compile this list of the Top 10 Most Absurd Guest Characters in Video Games, including only one game per franchise with a strict no-skins-policy.
