7 Most Unique Genre Mash-Ups (2024)

Sometimes, things work well together, even if they seem completely disparate. Like in fiction, if you think of genres like Space Western, or Horror Comedy, and you’ll find that two wildly different things can come together for an experience that is unique, standing apart from their constituent parts.

The same is true for video games as well, with some combinations so novel that they spawn genres of their own. Other times, some combinations are so out there that no one has copied them yet, and perhaps they never will. But whether they're trend-setters or brilliant one-offs, here are the most unique genre mash-ups in gaming.

7 Cataclismo

RTS + Tower Defense + Legos

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Cataclismo is a horde survival game in the vein of They Are Billions or Age of Darkness: Final Stand, where you must fortify your lands to repel increasingly massive waves of enemies. Generally, games like this are Real-Time Strategy, but with a focus of keeping your territory rather than expanding, which puts them more in line with Tower Defense games.

What sets this game apart is a third element not seen in games like it: Legos, basically. Cataclismo has the most modular take on buildings and fortifications, where you can create different shapes and materials to build your defenses in whatever shape you want, brick by brick. This game is currently in Early Access, so who knows just how grand our fortresses can get by its 1.0 release?

6 Typing Of The Dead

Typing + On-Rails Shooter

When this game came out in 1999, during the heyday of gaming magazines, it looked more like a publication’s attempt at an April Fool’s joke than it was a real game. But real it was, retaining the original’s Light Gun gameplay but replacing the guns with keyboards and shots with keystrokes.

While it doesn’t blow the mind like it used to, games with this blend of genres don’t really exist, save for its sequel, the grindhouse-inspired Typing of the Dead: Overkill. Sure, there’s the Bullet-hell/Typing mix of The Textorcist, or the dungeon crawling word-finder Cryptmaster, but they’re just not the same.

5 Brutal Legend

Hack ‘N Slash + RTS

Brutal Legend would have been revolutionary if it wasn’t for a mix of corporate mismanagement, misleading marketing, and just plain coming out before its time. Even then, the game was really fun and garnered favorable reviews.

The core of the game, the Stage Battles, had a combination of frenetic execution-based action and tactical command not really seen before or since. The closest we ever really get are 3rd-person action MOBAs like SMITE. And who knows how much different– and possibly better– those games could have been if Brutal Legend got the reception deserved.

4 Crypt Of The Necrodancer

Roguelike Dungeon Crawler + Rhythm Game

See Also

13 Best Roguelike Games On iOS All Apple Users Need To Play Right Now

Rhythm Games have always come and gone in popularity, from DDR to Guitar Hero, to Rock Band, and so on. They’ve mostly been a genre to themselves, mostly consisting of arrows or jewels that you have to hit in time with your instrument of choice. Crypt of the Necrodancer, however, mixed it up in a pretty major way by also being a dungeon crawler.

By combining strategic decision-making with the constant stress of acting on the beat, it created a mix that kept you on your tapping toes to stay optimized and stay alive. Other than a Zelda spin-off, and some DLCs, there haven’t been many games like Necrodancer, with the closest being the rhythm shooters BPM and Hellsinger, and the rhythm action platformers Hi-Fi Rush, and Everhood.

3 Aeon Of Strife

RTS + RPG

Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas (MOBAs) are so common as to be ubiquitous. Even now, after the age where it seemed like everyone was trying to release their own and most were winnowed out (like DC’s Infinite Crisis), there’s still plenty of them left. One of them is even a sequel to the original MOBA game, Defense of the Ancients custom map from Warcraft 3.

Except that DotA isn’t actually the original. While it might have codified the genre, it wasn’t actually the first to combine an RTS with RPG mechanics, on a multi-lane map, where you control a Hero unit. The first game to do that was the lesser-known Aeon of Strife map on Starcraft, which would go on to inspire DotA, leading a legacy that would continue with games like League of Legends, SMITE, and the under-appreciated Heroes of the Storm.

2 Rune Factory Series

Farming Sim + ARPG

When you think of farm life sims, especially ones with combat, you probably think of Stardew Valley. Indeed, even a cursory look at Steam shows that Stardew Valley-likes constitute a genre of their own. However, just as the farm life sim originated from the Harvest Moon series, the addition of combat to that mix was actually first done by the Rune Factory series, which came out almost two decades before Stardew.

The original was a spin-off of Harvest Moon for the DS and was even called Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon before the latter moniker was later dropped. These games had linear fantasy JRPG stories and real-time combat in addition to the usual farming, villager charming, and ranching.

1 Battle Chef Brigade

Action-Platformer + Puzzler

Battle Chef Brigade had all the ingredients of an iconic indie game: a novel concept, a beautiful art style, and some very charming characters. But for some reason, even with favorable reviews, it never really took off.

The game takes place in a fantasy world where skilled cooks compete Iron Chef-style, hunting their ingredients– monsters– in platforming combo combat and then returning their spoils to the kitchen where you cooked them in a Puyo-Puyo-style puzzle game. It also had a soupçon of fighting games with its admittedly small cast of unique chefs. Maybe this game just didn’t hit the spot at the right time, maybe it was a lack of online multiplayer. But whatever it was, we only got a brief taste that left us wanting more.