What is this list?
Randomizers are game modifications and utilities that randomly arranges original game data in a way that significantly increase their replayability. Their randomization are applied before or when starting a new game in order to effectively generate many different games to experience based off the originals. They are also designed to prevent new unwinnable states to the game, or at the very least make such issues extremely unlikely or have easily-applicable non-destructive workarounds.
Randomizers may feature major gameplay tweaks to accomodate possible randomized changes, or other additional minor improvements. However, a game modification or utility that may change any other gameplay element and which cannot be disabled would not be considered a randomizer, as the modified game would become closer to a custom game instead of a randomized one.
This list is an exhaustive list of all known freely-available video game randomizers that are playable by the general public and not bundled with the game they randomize, regardless of their fun factor. The goal of this project is to give positive exposure to randomizers that players of their original games may have missed otherwise. It was originally created by Guillaume Fortin-Debigaré in 2016, and maintained by him up until 2024, when it became an open source community project.
In order to prevent the list from being polluted with randomizers that do not conform to the above, the following is not considered sufficient for inclusion:
- Official games and bundled tools.
- Game modification that randomizes itself rather than the game it is modifying.
- Located behind a paywall.
- Can easily be performed without game modifications or external logic trackers.
- No significant gameplay changes beyond superficial ones.
- Randomization requiring major modifications to the original moment-to-moment gameplay mechanics.
- Guaranteed to be beatable only by using expert techniques that trivializes the randomization.
- Pre-randomized data in the randomizer's code.
- Incomplete coverage of a randomized data type within a standalone game mode.
- Random object injection within original game areas.
- Inconsistent outcomes within the same playthrough.
- Recurring random events triggered by seemingly-unrelated causes.
- Chaotic effects.
Randomizers are listed by the games they randomize and grouped by game series, along with the randomizer's name (or the primary creators' names if it is too generic), along with any additional documentation whenever necessary.
The following rules are used to determine the game name showed in the list:
- For games with different versions, the list refers to the base game name only, unless an alternate version has significantly different gameplay content in which case it is considered a separate game.
- For games with official expansions or downloadable content, only the base game name is listed, even if said expansions or DLCs are required for the associated randomizer to work.
- If at least one official English name exists, the most current one is used, with American English prioritized over European English.
- Official Japanese names with no official English equivalent are romanized in modified Hepburn, with the exception of katakana which is directly translated.
- Whenever different games have identical names, the list refers to the one originally released, unless explicitely specified.
- Legal characters are omitted.
- Proper grammar is used over stylized writings.
Can I help?
This list would not be what it is today without the amazing help of the gaming community! If you would like to contribute in any way, including submitting a video game randomizer valid for inclusion that is not already listed, please join the Video Games Randomizer Discord server, the official Discord server for this page.
If you are a developer, the code repository for this page is also available on GitHub. Feel free to submit pull requests and/or join the Discord server to discuss with the other maintainers!
I want more!
You can chat with other randomizer enthusiasts on the Video Games Randomizer Discord server, a Discord Community Server originally created specifically for this page.
You can look for the Randomizer tag on Twitch to easily find channels streaming live randomizer video content.
Many popular randomizers have progression trackers available. EmoTracker is a popular tool that hosts a large collection of them.
For those interested in creating randomizers, you can listen to the Making a Randomizer panel from Awesome Games Done Quick 2019 explaining the process in detail. ROMHacking.net is also a great resource with plenty of technical information and tools for hacking video games in general. Frameworks such as randomtools-js and Simple Randomizer Maker may also help for development purposes.
For those that perfer an original game experience but still want to experience a randomized challenge, Final Fantasy Five Four Job Fiesta, Hitman Roulette and Scenario Generator can generate interesting rulesets with randomized goals for many classic video games.
While this list is focused on third-party video game randomizers, there are also many official video game randomizers out there. Most notably, the unlockable item randomizer included in the Nintendo 64 version of Resident Evil 2 is believed to be the very first item randomizer ever.
Note that randomizer variants also exist for tabletop games as well, such as Fischer Random Chess and Monopoly Randomizer.