8 Video Game Character Cameos That Made You Go "What?!"

When it comes to video games, crossovers, cameos, and nods to other franchises are par for the course. You can look at pretty much any title and find Easter eggs and references to other games as developers play a strange game of "who's got the best inside joke" going.

However, as you might expect with wildly different franchises meeting in the middle and throwing their keys in the bowl, this can have a wild and completely whacky impact on the title's tone and even their in-game universes. For example, did you know that the same island home to the outbreak of deadly dinosaurs in Dino Crisis appears in Ace Attorney? Meaning that in that game's universe, people are likely being eaten alive while you're arguing in court?

That sort of information can cause your mind to unravel, your system to become overloaded, and for your mouth to utter that infamous saying: "What?!"

So let's take a look at characters who took a little journey from their titles or respective universes and played havoc with the internal logic of others. These are 8 Video Game Character Cameos That Made You Go: "What?!"

So, Revenge Of Shinobi for the Mega Drive is an utterly brilliant slice of arcade crack, and by that, I mean that it is as addictive as it is brutally punishing, with levels designed solely to hoover up coins which made absolutely no sense on a home console release.

Still, my cousin and I would routinely return to try and thrash this game, and it all stemmed from one moment in which we'd gotten fairly far only to die to one of the game's brutal bosses. We sat there stunned, not at the difficulty but because this boss, in particular, looked an awful lot like the superhero Spider-Man!

In fact, this boss is actually two superheroes in one, as when you damage it enough it'll turn into Batman! The reason behind this clear copyright violation was that the concept artist drew the two heroes as reference points for other artists to adapt from... they just didn't get the message.

Luckily, Sega ended up acquiring the rights to Spider-Man thanks to another Mega Drive release, but Batman... not so much.