15 Craziest Crossover Game Series You Shouldn’t Miss Out On

It’s easy to see how people, both hardcore and casual gamers alike, can love crossover game series. Just like how kids like to bash their Power Rangers and G.I. Joe toys together, crossover games pretty much let you experience your wildest fanfics by bringing two (or more) different fandoms together under the same roof. Considering there are many games like this on the market, let’s list the 15 best crossover games you can get your hands on, from the ones that merged fewer franchises to the biggest celebration title yet.

15. Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard’s Game Series Crossover

Although considered to be somewhat of a “black sheep” compared to other Blizzard’s games since it failed to compete against League of Legends and Dota 2, this MOBA is still worth a play, especially for Blizzard fans since the game perfectly translates the original characters’ mechanics and personalities into varied MOBA gameplay. It features 90 different Heroes from five Blizzard titles: Diablo, Overwatch, Starcraft, Warcraft, and classic games like The Lost Vikings, as well as originals characters. It’s also free!

14. Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate

Just mixing in Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, and both Chinese and Japanese mythology isn’t enough for OmegaForce. The third expansion of the third title in the Warriors Orochi spin-off series eventually adds six other Koei Tecmo properties into the fray. From popular ones like Ryu, Ayane, Kasumi, Momiji, and Rachel from Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive, and Sterkenburg from Atelier Meruru to lesser-known characters such as Joan of Arc (Bladestorm), Achilles (Warriors: Legends of Troy), and Nemea (TRINITY: Souls of Zill O’ll). That’s not all though, because for some reason Soulcalibur’s Sophitia Alexandra is also in the game. In total, Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate has over 120 characters from nine different series you can play with.

Later OmegaForce made a spin-off of the spin-off — called Warriors All-Stars — that stars even more Koei Tecmo’s properties namely Nioh, Toukiden, and Nights of Azure, among others but omitting almost all Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors characters. I think they should’ve saved the roster for another Warriors Orochi title.

13. Miracle Girls Festival

When we’re talking about crossover games, action-oriented titles like beat-em-up or fighting games mostly comes to mind. But SEGA’s Miracle Girls Festival proved that other genres could work pretty well as fanservice title — in this case, a rhythm game. Released only in Japan in December 2015 as a PlayStation Vita exclusive, it features a total of 22 songs from 11 different anime series:

1. Arpeggio of Blue Steel.
2. Engaged to the Unidentified.
3. Go! Go! 575.
4. Is the Order a Rabbit?.
5. Kin-iro Mosaic.
6. No-Rin.
7. Nyaruko: Crawling with Love.
8. Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono.
9. Vividred Operation.
10. Wake Up, Girls!.
11. YuruYuri.

12. Compati Hero Crossover Game Series

Before there was Super Robot Wars, there was the Compati Hero crossover game series. The project began in 1990 by Banpresto (now a part of Bandai Namco Entertainment group) and at first features “only” Ultraman, Kamen Rider, and Gundam characters, all in a “Super Deformed” style. It was said to be the first-ever video game series that involve a crossover between established anime and live-action franchises. Later the series added more tokusatsu heroes and other licenses among original characters, expanding the series’ roster to 13 franchises, including:

1. Super Sentai (the Japanese original Power Rangers)
2. Metal Heroes (adapted into VR Troopers for the U.S.)
3. Kikaider
4. Inazuman
5. Kaiketsu Zubat
6. Seiun Kamen Machineman
7. Mazinger Z.
8. Getter Robo.
9. Devilman.
10. Godzilla.

It has a lot of subseries under it like The Great Battle, Lost Heroes, or Heroes’ VS, and each game usually has different gameplay from one another ranging from shoot-em-ups, beat-em-ups, to tactics RPG and even sports games like soccer and basketball.

11. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

SEGA also released another crossover game series that’s not a fighting game. Combining all platform-exclusive bonus racers, this racing game has thirty playable characters from 16 video game franchises. What makes this worthy of getting into this list compared to other crossover racing games is the fact that the PC release added Total War, Football Manager, and Team Fortress 2 representations. It’s not often you heard those names out of their respective genres. There’s also a Yogscast DLC but let’s not talk about that.

10. DreamMix TV World Fighters

One of many forgotten Smash Bros.-clones in the market. However, since it crosses over not just video games characters from Konami and Hudson’s IPs but also Takara Tomy toys, the roster is actually absolutely bonkers. Where else can you watch Solid Snake fights Optimus Prime and a Moai and having Tyson rips his dragon-summoning Beyblade on the same stage? Just take a look at the character list:

1. Binbogami, Momotaro (Momotaro Densetsu)
2. Bomberman (Bomberman)
3. Manjimaru Sengoku (Far East of Eden)
4. Master Higgins (Adventure Island)
5. Yugo Ogami (Bloody Roar)
6. Moai (Gradius)
7. Power Pro-kun (Power Pro Baseball)
8. Simon Belmont (Castlevania)
9. Solid Snake (Metal Gear)
10. TwinBee (TwinBee)
11. Aska (Cy Girls)
12. Licca Kayama (Licca-chan, a Barbie-like doll)
13. M121 Mason (Microman)
14. Optimus Prime and Megatron (Transformers)
15. Tyson Granger (Beyblade)

9. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale

Gaming fans have often accused Sony of copying its rivals; from the PlayStation Plus subscription system, PlayStation Move, to the PSP. However, no one can argue that PlayStation All-Stars is Sony’s most blatant attempt at copying another company’s success so far. It plays just like Smash Bros., but the only way to defeat other characters is through special moves. If you missed it then you have to build your bar all over again. Although featuring 22 popular franchises, players were disappointed by how it felt they were added only for marketing appeal and failed to feature iconic third-party mascots like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, and Lara Croft:

1. Big Daddy (BioShock)
2. Cole MacGrath, Evil Cole MacGrath (Infamous)
3. Colonel Radec (Killzone)
4. Dante (DmC: Devil May Cry)
5. Emmett Graves (Starhawk)
6. Fat Princess (Fat Princess)
7. Heihachi Mishima (Tekken)
8. Isaac Clarke (Dead Space)
9. Jak and Daxter (Jak and Daxter)
10. Kat (Gravity Rush)
11. Kratos, Zeus (God of War)
12. Nariko (Heavenly Sword)
13. Nathan Drake (Uncharted)
14. Parappa (PaRappa the Rapper)
15. Raiden (Metal Gear)
16. Ratchet & Clank (Ratchet & Clank)
17. Sackboy (LittleBigPlanet)
18. Sir Daniel Fortesque (MediEvil)
19. Sly Cooper (Sly Cooper)
20. Spike (Ape Escape)
21. Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal)
22. Toro Inoue (Doko Demo Issyo)

8. Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax

A 2D arcade fighting game developed by Ecole Software and French Bread and published by SEGA. It was made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Japanese book publisher ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki Bunko imprint. The game features characters from 24 light novels published under the Dengeki Bunko name both as playable and assist-only characters:

1. A Certain Magical Index/A Certain Scientific Railgun
2. Accel World
3. And you thought there is never a girl online?
4. Black Bullet
5. Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-Chan
6. Boogiepop
7. Durarara!!
8. Golden Time
9. Grimoire of Zero
10. Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl
11. Heavy Object
12. Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere
13. Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu
14. Kino’s Journey
15. Oreimo
16. Ro-Kyu-Bu!
17. Shakugan no Shana
18. Spice and Wolf
19. Strike the Blood
20. Sword Art Online
21. The Devil Is a Part-Timer!
22. The Irregular at Magic High School
23. The Pet Girl of Sakurasou
24. Toradora!

Thanks to SEGA’s involvement as the publisher, Virtua Fighter‘s Akira and Selvaria Bles from Valkyria Chronicle also appear as playable characters. It debuted in Japan as an arcade game in 2014, and the console version was released to the West in October 2015. An updated version that adds additional characters and balance patches, Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax Ignition, was released in December 2015 exclusive in Japan and Asia.

7. Project X Zone

The follow-up to the Japanese-exclusive Namco’s 50th-anniversary celebratory game, Namco x Capcom, Project X Zone adds SEGA into the mix. This grid-based crossover tactical RPG released for the 3DS in 2013 features 60 playable characters from 26 different franchises owned by the three gaming companies. The sequel Project X Zone 2 later adds Chrom and Lucina from Fire Emblem Awakening.

6. Jump Ultimate Stars, The Best Crossover Game for Manga Fans

Released way back in November 2006, as you can expect from its name, this NDS-exclusive game features dozens of characters from 41 different manga series published by the Shonen Jump magazine. Yep, ranging from serious action-packed adventure series we all know and love like Naruto, Bleach, Dragon Ball, One Piece, sports titles like Eyeshield 21 and Slam Dunk, to gag comics such as Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Makibao, and Dr. Slump, it has a representation from all genres. 

Although Jump Ultimate Stars is ultimately succeeded by Jump J-Stars Victory VS and Jump Force for more modern platforms, unfortunately, both games still failed to rival the same amount of characters as the NDS title. This game never got an official English release, but an incomplete translation fan patch does exist.

5. Marvel vs. Capcom, The Best Comic and Game Series Crossover Yet

If Compati Hero combines the three most famous Japanese franchises, then Capcom crosses over the East and the West with Marvel vs. Capcom. Capcom’s successes in developing Marvel licensed games for the arcades in the ’90s — The Punisher, X-Men: Children of the Atom, and Marvel Super Heroes — pretty much paved the way for a project that ends up as a widely popular crossover game series. Starting with X-Men vs. Street Fighter, eventually, it evolved into a full-blown crossover game utilizing both companies’ wide range of celebrated properties.

So far, 56 Marvel comic heroes and villains and 58 Capcom characters from dozens of franchises have starred in the whole Marvel vs. Capcom series. Capcom has also made crossover fighting games with SNK and anime production company Tatsunoko, all featuring their own colorful and iconic roster.

4. Kingdom Hearts series

Who in the right mind would have the idea to mix JRPG and Disney? Unsurprisingly, the one that did was Final Fantasy creator, Squaresoft (before the Square Enix merger). In this “infamous” action RPG, you play as Sora, a young boy who wields a powerful Keyblade, and travels to 32 Disney worlds, meeting countless characters from both companies, accompanied by Goofy and Donald Duck in search of the missing King Mickey Mouse and save the worlds from darkness throughout three mainline games and around nine confusing spin-offs. It is as epic and crazy as it sounds.

3. Super Smash Bros. series

This crossover game series debuted in 1999 for the N64 as a fanservice title for Nintendo fans. Thanks to the unique “platform fighting” game mechanic it instantly become a hit, becoming the fifth best-selling N64 game of all time with 5 million units sold worldwide as of 2001. Starting with Sonic and Solid Snake in Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii, the crossover casts eventually grew to 89 playable characters from 39 franchises in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

It does not just add iconic third-parties characters namely Mega Man, Pac-Man, Ryu, Cloud and Sephiroth, Kazuya Mishima, Simon Belmont, and other new first-party Nintendo characters as well, such as Fire Emblem‘s Byleth and Splatoon‘s Inkling among others.

2. Comics, Movies, and Games Series Crossovers in Fortnite

Epic’s worldwide craze started its humble beginning by basically copying Left 4 Dead and Minecraft. Then once the battle royale genre became a viral hit with PUBG, the team instantly shifted gear to follow the latest trend. Who would’ve guessed it ends up being one of the trend leaders? Estimated to have more than 150 million active players each month and earning $5 billion in 2018 it’s no wonder that many third parties are craving to get a slice of the game’s pie.

As I’m writing this article, Fortnite has featured at least four movie franchises, six popular gaming IPs like Halo and Street Fighter, and has 33 different comic character skins from both Marvel and DC. This is the only place where you can see Master Chief, Kratos, and Ryu (armed with a gun) flossing and dabbing together in a single, officially licensed video game. And don’t get me started on real-life personalities like Marshmellow, Ninja, Travis Scott, Ariana Grande, and others.

1. Super Robot Wars series

And the undisputed winner for the biggest and craziest crossover game series is none other than the Super Robot Wars. Having over 90 titles under its belt to date and featuring over 274 mecha anime franchises, the series even managed to be recorded to the Guinness World Record in June 2021 as the RPG that uses the most intellectual property licenses. Aside from giant robots occasionally other outliers also star in the game, such as Tekkaman and Space Battleship Yamato/Star Blazers.

In the latest game in the series and 30th-anniversary celebration title, Super Robot Wars 30, you will be able to command dozens of giant robots from the Gundam series, Getter Robo, Code Geass, SSSS.Gridman, and many more.

Out of those 15 games, which ones have the crossover content you like? Do you think other games should be added to this list? Share your thoughts in the comments and stay tuned for more gaming and nerd updates at The Nerd Stash.