The 10 Funniest Video Games of All Time, Ranked
Lucas Kloberdanz-Dyck is a writer for Collider. He grew up creating lists, stories, and worlds, which led to his love of anime and video games. He attended Sheridan College where he earned an Honours Bachelor of Game Design. Lucas and his group won 1st place for technical innovation at LevelUp Toronto 2023, and he was also an intern for the Oakville Film Festival of Arts.
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Media is supposed to make people feel things, and one medium that has done this better than most is video games, which have provided nostalgic masterpieces like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and modern classics such as Red Dead Redemption 2. And like most forms of media, video games also present a handful of genres for fans to enjoy.
However, as movies and TV shows have comedies, there aren’t many video games in this genre. That is why this list will rank the funniest video games of all time based on aspects such as comedy, how it is portrayed in writing, story, gameplay, style, as well as fan opinion, and overall quality. Video games can brighten a day in many ways, and making players laugh is one of the best ways to do so.
10 'Hitman' (2016)
Not all funny games are comedic because they want to be; others naturally become hilarious, as was the case with the Hitman revival. Agent 47 is a cloned assassin whose job is to travel across the world and carry out important missions tied to a mysterious organization that controls the world from behind the scenes.
Hitman isn’t inherently funny; in fact, it is quite a serious game where players must assassinate targets. However, it has inadvertently become hilarious because of the juxtaposition of assassins and methods. It blends this grim professionalism with cartoon-style absurdity, where players can kill an entire room of characters with a newspaper or dress up as a clown as they take down high-profile targets.
9 'Grim Fandango' (1998)
The point-and-click genre is a treasure trove of comedic masterpieces, and one of the best games from it is Grim Fandango. Manny Calavera is a travel agent for the dead, but when he learns of a conspiracy that officials are stealing premium tickets from souls, he sets out on a journey across the Land of the Dead in order to save a righteous soul who was forced down a dark path.
Unlike Hitman, Grim Fandango is hilarious by intention, boasting a sharp and cynical writing style that makes the dialog pop and the eccentric characters come to life. It proves that the ‘90s were one of the best decades of video games with its satirical plot that is just as much of a commentary as it is a hilarious video game. Not to mention, Grim Fandango has so many quotable lines.
8 'Gang Beasts' (2014)
Some games are funny because of their writing, but in party games, the comedy lies in the gameplay. Gang Beasts is a multiplayer party brawler, where players can take on friends, family, strangers, or the computer in a series of matches. However, the floppy combat and hazardous locations make the battles anything but badass.
The best way to describe the combat is floppy, with gamers having a hard time controlling these unpredictable characters and their physics. But this just makes the gameplay hilarious, with fights being chaotically goofy and not what players intend. It is easy to fall into a hole or bring down an elevator full of people, displaying an engaging drunken grapple and brawl that is funny in the best way possible.
7 'Yakuza 0' (2015)
Games can be funny and serious at the same time, and this list will show that with multiple entries, starting with Yakuza 0. Kiryu is a junior yakuza member who is framed for a murder he didn’t commit, and Majima is a disgraced yakuza who chooses to protect a civilian instead of killing her to get back into the family.
Yakuza 0 is epic from start to finish, and it achieves this while switching tones between a deadly serious crime drama and an overly silly comedy. The eventful location draws endearing and bizarre characters, leading to some of the most ridiculous side quests that are also the heart of the game. Yakuza 0 maintains its humor alongside its seriousness to become one of the greatest comedy games.
6 'The Stanley Parable' (2013)
Work is boring, especially an office job, but fans may find it to be at least a little bit more interesting after playing The Stanley Parable. The titular character is an average office worker who one day has no coworkers or instructions. The player can either decide to listen to the disembodied voice telling them what to do or forge their own path, with every decision leading to a different ending.
This game can be silly, but the laughs are mostly because of its meta-comedy and sharp writing, which mocks video game tropes, player agency, and the illusion of choice. An intelligent game at its core, The Stanley Parable is a witty satire that makes fun of video games, with each new piece of dialog adding to the humor while also being a stimulating experience that makes players think about their choices.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?
Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn't work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You're dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You're pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you're captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn't replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn't know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It's the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn't talk much, doesn't need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you've finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You'll never need to ask if he has your back. You'll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it'll take you a moment to remember what's actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You'll never be bored. You'll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar's eye and a brawler's instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn't matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you'll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren't so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you've finished reading the briefing, and the plan he's settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn't exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
5 'Octodad: Dadliest Catch' (2014)
It is usually horror games that get massive amounts of attention on YouTube, but some comedy games have become trendy, like Octodad: Dadliest Catch. Playing as an octopus disguised as an average man, gamers follow his life as it escalates from mundane family chores to surviving an increasingly unhinged plot where he can die at any moment.
The premise is already ridiculous and absolutely hilarious, but the deliberately terrible physics engine makes it even funnier. Octodad’s controls are awful, making simple tasks like pouring coffee a struggle. But this only adds to the chaotic slapstick nature of the game that has made it one of the funniest video games of all time.
4 'The Secret of Monkey Island' (1990)
Grim Fandango was a game by LucasArts, which provided more than one hilarious point-and-click adventure. The Secret of Monkey Island. Guybrush is determined to be a great pirate, and to prove this, he must sail to the legendary Monkey Island and save a governor from the undead ghost pirates inhabiting the island.
This was the first game to really kickstart LucasArts’ style of humor, relying on witty wordplay to create smart and funny jokes. The Secret of Monkey Island is also known for insult sword fighting, where duels are won with sharp comebacks, instilling comedy into the fabric of gameplay. With fourth-wall breaking and some of the best comedic writing in games, it easily establishes itself as a must-play comedy game.
3 'Disco Elysium' (2019)
Yakuza 0 isn’t the only comedic game that can switch to a serious plot, because Disco Elysium is specifically known for that. Set in a dystopian world, players are an intoxicated detective with amnesia who must solve a politically charged murder among a web of union strikes and corporate espionage. Thankfully, he has his many other personalities to help him.
Disco Elysium is one of the smartest and most unique video games ever, but it backs this up with a hilarious script that doesn’t undercut the complex narrative. The protagonist isn’t great at his job, but those failures are nothing if not funny, especially when he bickers with the voices inside his head. Disco Elysium isn’t the usual kind of funny, but its intelligent comedy has made it a standout and a video game that should have won Game of the Year.
2 'Untitled Goose Game' (2019)
Some of the funniest stories are about awful people, or in this case, animals. Untitled Goose Game is about a mean goose whose only purpose is to disrupt a peaceful English village. With a checklist of chaotic tasks, players must terrorize the locals in any way they see fit, resulting in hilarious encounters.
Sometimes, it’s fun to be bad, or at least funny, because it is such a joy to play this game. Gamers will be maniacally laughing throughout its entirety as they cause mayhem everywhere they go. The arrogance and power the goose holds is hilarious compared to the seemingly mildly inconvenient tasks it completes. Untitled Goose Game is meant to be funny, and it easily achieves that as players become a honking fiend.
1 'Portal 2' (2011)
This list has proven that comedy can come in so many different ways, from intentionally comedic writing to unexpected emergent gameplay. While it isn’t easy to decide the funniest, that honor arguably goes to Portal 2. Years after the first game, Chell wakes up in the same scientific facility, except this time it is abandoned. With the help of a robot named Wheatley, she tries to escape the facility, but the reactivation of GLaDOS makes that even more difficult.
Portal 2 is one of the greatest video games of all time, establishing that legacy through unmatched gameplay and innovative mechanics. However, it is also a comedic masterclass that blends the puzzles and mechanics with its corporate satire and flawless dialog. Portal 2 was a monocultural event, and that satirical nature of it helped. GLaDOS and Wheatley are a perfect blend of comedy styles that make every punchline worthwhile, proving this game isn’t just smart and fun, but also witty and funny.
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