10 Games Where Your Goal Is Chaos

In most games, you’re given a definitive mission and a semi-linear path. You slowly acquire the tools needed to achieve your goals and often, you’ll meet many friendly allies along the way. It’s the de facto formula for modern gaming, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only approach.

Some games focus on the exact opposite, reveling in chaotic potential. While some of these examples may have stories, many are little more than sandboxes for your imagination. Instead of acquiring tools to save the world, you’re given the means to disrupt it. More importantly, you’re repeatedly encouraged to incite as much mayhem as possible.

10 Just Cause Series

For fans of visceral chaos, there’s nothing more chaotic than the Just Causeseries. It’s all there in the name. Each game’s sandbox-style world encourages wanton destruction, and you get a full armament to blaze your path of carnage.

Outside the main story missions, you can shoot and blast your enemies away as you please. While strategic players may opt for stealthy long-distance sniping, the most chaotic combat revolves around action movie shootouts and massive explosions. However, at the end of the day, you’re still tied to a story-related goal.

9 Grand Theft Auto Series

The Grand Theft Autoseries has been a stable of gaming since its debut. The controversial games lean into their violent potential, exposing players to every cultural taboo under the sun. They revel in blood, bullets, and wanton crime.

More often than not, Grand Theft Auto games encourage players to indiscriminately destroy their surroundings. You mow down foes without remorse, and every act of random violence is rewarded. However, the games’ adherence to a central story means you aren’t always given the room or tools to unleash your true potential.

8 The Sims Series

Since its debut in 2000, The Sims has given its players endless ways to — as its name implies — simulate life. You can settle into an idyllic suburban dream or become a comically evil dictator. The series’ boundless possibilities and open-ended sandbox worlds are its greatest strengths.

That same flexibility also makes The Sims one of the most chaotic games in mainstream gaming. You can mold your Sim into a beacon of unbridled chaos. Interpersonal drama is only the beginning. With the game’s many add-ons, you can do a shockingly wide variety of cartoonishly chaotic and (sometimes) downright evil things.

7 I Am Bread

Have you ever wanted to experience the life of a magical piece of untoasted bread? I Am Bread helps you fulfill that fantasy by delivering on its title promise. As a magical slice of sentient bread, your goal is to become a slice of deliciously sentient toast. It’s a deceptively simple premise with an outlandish amount of chaos in its execution.

Throughout the game, you’ll find yourself flinging, flying, smashing, and flopping your way to the toaster. Of course, nothing is easy. You’ll have to discover many modes of locomotion, and they aren’t all pretty. Don’t be afraid to destroy some obstacles on your quest to become the world’s most grizzled slice of toast.

6 Saints Row Series

Across all four games, the Saints Row series has done something few other modern shooters have dared: It realized its comedic potential. Instead of taking itself seriously and focusing on the nitty-gritty details of viscera, these games embraced the comedic — and almost slapstick — potential of the tried-and-true Grand Theft Auto formula.

In many ways, each game is a digital zeitgeist. These games embrace and reframe the most ridiculous parts of their era in a chaotic, destructible world. Armed with everything from guns and baseball bats to the series’ iconic purple bludgeoning weapons, you’re encouraged to become a criminal menace to society. And that’s not just a sandbox mode feature; the story actively encourages you to partake in cartoonishly violent acts.

5 Deeeer Simulator

Since the early 2000s, a surprising number of games have followed the mundane lives of animals. For example, Bear Simulator lets you live the exciting life of a brown bear. Similarly, Stray lets you play as a small cat in a big, futuristic world. These games are often poignant art pieces about the relationship between humanity and the earth, and Deeeer Simulatoris the exact opposite.

In this game, you’re not fighting to survive. You won’t even need to graze on grass. Instead, you’ll become a low-poly, sometimes bipedal deer with a grudge against nearby neighborhoods. Eschew your peaceful image and rampage through the small sandbox world with gleeful abandon. There is no definite goal, only chaos.

4 Untitled Goose Game

It’s easy to be fooled by the mundane facts of Untitled Goose Game. Its name is far from intriguing, and its charming low-poly visuals may remind you of many harmless children’s games from the early 2000s. Your protagonist, a simple goose, only adds to the game’s unassuming aura.

However, the illusion fails the moment you begin playing. In Untitled Goose Game, you are no ordinary goose. No, you are one foul fowl. The only objectives available task you with terrorizing the residents of an otherwise quaint and charming British town. So, prepare your feathery fury and unleash all the slapstick chaos you can.

3 Goat Simulator

You wouldn’t expect a game called Goat Simulator to be too chaotic. After all, goats aren’t known for their evil ways. At their worst, they may eat some prized begonias or headbutt a child at a petting zoo. However, the Goat Simulator series looks to challenge that misconception.

In both the original game and its sequel, you take control of what can only be described as the protagonist of Goat Theft Auto. You kick, jump, lick, headbutt, and glitch through entire cities to cause as much damage as possible. In the game’s most recent incarnation, you’re even tasked with ascending the ranks of chaotic goats of the world.

2 Squirrel With A Gun

Squirrel With a Gun is exactly what it claims to be. There are no pretenses or false promises. You are an arboreal suburban rodent, and you have a gun. That’s all there is to say about the matter.

Of course, there’s slightly more nuance to the game than that. You can wield several types of guns and throw various objects. You can use your little claws to indiscriminately climb up trees, poles, and pants legs. The sandbox game gives you many ways to approach your problems, but one thing will always be certain. Regardless of your approach, your quest to hoard as many acorns as possible will carve a decisive path of wanton destruction through an otherwise idyllic suburban neighborhood.

1 Katamari Damacy

Now, there are a few Katamari games. However, the most iconic of the bunch is undoubtedly Katamari Damacy. Despite its 2004 release date, Katamari Damacy remains the bona fide gold standard in chaotic gaming. Its appeal is so strong that it earned itself a re-release sixteen years later, and it still has all the cosmically colorful charm you’d expect.

As in any Katamari game, Katamari Damacy casts you as a tiny prince. Your father, the literal and formally recognized King of the Cosmos, has had a galactic temper tantrum, and you must replace the planets and stars. How? By terrorizing the world with a sticky ball and rolling up anything in your path, of course.