2,954 games
The best games with unique art styles on PC
Games you recognise from a single screenshot: hand-drawn, playful or simply different.
How to find games that really suit you: Select up to 5 games you have played and enjoyed. Playalike compares 20 traits such as combat, story and atmosphere and suggests games that hit exactly the same spot, even across genres.
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1 Hollow Knight
- Lots to discover
- Melee combat with weapons or fists
- Timing and reflexes matter (parrying, dodging)
A hand-drawn Metroidvania in a ruined insect kingdom full of secrets.
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2 Hades
- Runs that play out differently every time
- Action-packed real-time combat
- Melee combat with weapons or fists
Escape from the underworld as a roguelike with fast-paced combat and a story that grows with every run.
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3 Limbo
- Dark, serious atmosphere
- Jumping and platforming
- Puzzles and brain teasers
A wordless puzzle-platformer rendered in stark black and white, following a boy through a hostile shadow world full of deadly traps learned through trial and error. Its oppressive atmosphere and minimalist art make it a haunting, memorable experience.
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4 Ori and the Blind Forest
- Jumping and platforming
- Timing and reflexes matter (parrying, dodging)
- Lavish presentation
A gorgeous hand-painted Metroidvania platformer with tight, demanding movement, tense escape sequences and a heartfelt tale of loss and hope. Its sweeping orchestral score makes the forest of Nibel unforgettable.
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5 South Park: The Stick of Truth
- Lots of humour
- Turn-based combat
- Strong, story-driven narrative
A turn-based RPG that looks exactly like a playable South Park episode: as the new kid in town you join Cartman and friends in a backyard fantasy war that spirals wildly out of control. Timed attack inputs and crude, irreverent humor define the experience.
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6 Journey
- Lavish presentation
- Fantasy setting
A wordless, meditative pilgrimage across shimmering dunes toward a distant mountain, where you may meet anonymous strangers online and communicate only through chimes. Short, breathtakingly beautiful and carried by an award-winning score that hits hard emotionally.
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7 Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Lots to discover
- Challenging difficulty
- Melee combat with weapons or fists
The sequel to Hollow Knight: faster, more acrobatic and even more demanding.
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8 Cuphead
- Action-packed real-time combat
- Timing and reflexes matter (parrying, dodging)
- Lavish presentation
A brutally tough boss-rush shooter animated like a 1930s cartoon, where precise dodging, parrying and shooting decide every fight. A swinging big-band jazz score and local co-op round it out.
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9 Bastion
- Action-packed real-time combat
- Strong, story-driven narrative
- Fantasy setting
An isometric action RPG where a gravelly narrator reacts to everything you do as you mix weapons and rebuild a refuge in a gorgeous hand-painted, shattered world. Its soundtrack and poignant ending choices make it unforgettable.
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10 Persona 5 Royal
- Turn-based combat
- A party of several characters
- Strong, story-driven narrative
High-school life in Tokyo meets dungeon crawling: stylish turn-based battles, time management and a long, gripping story.
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11 Gris
- Cosy, great for unwinding
A poetic platformer about grief, almost wordless and with a watercolour look.
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12 Ori and the Will of the Wisps
- Timing and reflexes matter (parrying, dodging)
- Lots to discover
- Action-packed real-time combat
A gorgeous Metroidvania with fluid movement and an emotional story.
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13 SuperHot
- Action-packed real-time combat
- Tactical depth
- Puzzles and brain teasers
A shooter where time only moves when you do, turning every gunfight into a choreographed tactical puzzle. Its stark red-and-white look and unsettling meta narrative make it unforgettable.
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14 Return of the Obra Dinn
- Puzzles and brain teasers
- Strong, story-driven narrative
- Lots to discover
As an insurance investigator, you use a magical pocket watch to relive the final moments of a ghost ship's crew and deduce the identity and fate of every sailor. Its striking 1-bit visuals and brilliant deduction design make it a one-of-a-kind detective game.
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15 Transistor
- Tactical depth
- Strong, story-driven narrative
- Lavish presentation
A gorgeous sci-fi action RPG in which the singer Red wanders the city of Cloudbank with a talking sword, blending real-time fights with a pausable planning mode. Freely combinable Functions allow creative builds, and a melancholic soundtrack defines the whole experience.
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16 Fez
- Lots to discover
- Puzzles and brain teasers
- Cosy, great for unwinding
A serene pixel-art platformer where rotating a flat-looking world reveals hidden paths through a third dimension. Beneath its calm surface lie cryptic ciphers and deep secrets that reward obsessive puzzle-solving.
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17 Valiant Hearts: The Great War
- Strong, story-driven narrative
- Dark, serious atmosphere
- Lavish presentation
A moving puzzle adventure in a hand-drawn comic style that follows four lives and a loyal dog through the horrors of World War I. Alongside its puzzles, it weaves in real history and hits hard with quiet, tragic moments.
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18 Machinarium
- Puzzles and brain teasers
- Lavish presentation
- Cosy, great for unwinding
A wordless point-and-click adventure following a tiny robot through a gorgeously hand-drawn, rusty machine city, packed with clever puzzles and charming pictogram storytelling. Floex's atmospheric soundtrack makes it a calm, whimsical work of art.
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19 Psychonauts
- Lots of humour
- Strong, story-driven narrative
- Lots to discover
A quirky 3D platformer where a young psychic dives into the minds of eccentric characters, each one a wildly inventive level. Sharp humor, distinctive art and surprisingly heartfelt themes about mental struggles make it a cult classic.
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20 Rayman Origins
- Timing and reflexes matter (parrying, dodging)
- Lavish presentation
- Fantasy setting
A gorgeously hand-drawn 2D platformer bursting with zany humor, tight jumping challenges and frantic treasure-chase levels, playable with up to four friends in chaotic local co-op. It gets seriously demanding in its later stages.
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21 Child of Light
- Turn-based combat
- Fantasy setting
- A party of several characters
A fairy-tale RPG with hand-drawn visuals and a timeline-based battle system.
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22 Don't Starve
- Open world
- Lots to discover
- Challenging difficulty
A merciless survival game with a gothic, Tim Burton-esque hand-drawn style, where you scavenge, craft and fend off hunger, insanity and monsters in a procedurally generated wilderness. Death is permanent, but every run teaches you something new.
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23 Grim Fandango
- Strong, story-driven narrative
- Puzzles and brain teasers
- Lots of humour
A film-noir adventure through a Day-of-the-Dead-inspired afterlife, following skeletal travel agent Manny Calavera as he unravels a conspiracy across four years. Sharp, witty writing, a swinging jazz score and tricky, sometimes obtuse puzzles make it a genre classic.
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24 Mouse: P.I. For Hire
- Action-packed real-time combat
- Timing and reflexes matter (parrying, dodging)
- Lavish presentation
A fast-paced first-person shooter styled after 1930s black-and-white rubber hose cartoons, casting you as mouse detective Jack Pepper in a noir city. Its hand-drawn animation and jazzy score give it a one-of-a-kind identity.
What matters with Games with unique art styles
Games with a distinctive art style stick with you long after the credits. A strong visual identity often goes hand in hand with careful design, so many of these titles also play as well as they look. The main thing to decide is how much challenge you want, because the styles here range from soothing to punishing, and some of the most beautiful games are also the hardest.
If you want something calm, Gris is a gentle, almost wordless platformer with a watercolour look and a relaxing pace. Journey is short and meditative, and you may meet anonymous strangers online who can only communicate through chimes. For a real test of skill, Cuphead recreates 1930s cartoon animation while throwing brutally tough boss fights at you, with local co-op if you want company. Hollow Knight pairs its hand-drawn insect kingdom with demanding combat and lots of secrets to uncover.
Story fans have good options too. Bastion has a gravelly narrator who reacts to everything you do in a hand-painted, shattered world. Persona 5 Royal is a long, stylish JRPG where even the menus have flair, so it suits players who want a big investment. If you prefer pure laughs, South Park: The Stick of Truth looks exactly like a playable episode of the show.
Frequently asked questions
Which unique-looking PC games are relaxing rather than difficult?
Gris and Journey are the gentlest picks here, both focused on atmosphere and emotion rather than challenge. Limbo is also fairly short, but its deadly traps and dark tone make it more tense.
Are there hand-drawn games on PC I can play in co-op?
Cuphead offers local co-op for its tough boss fights, and Rayman Legends supports chaotic four-player co-op in its colourful hand-drawn levels. Journey lets you meet other players online during its pilgrimage.
Should I play Hollow Knight before Hollow Knight: Silksong?
Silksong is the sequel, faster, more acrobatic and even more demanding, so starting with Hollow Knight is a sensible way to learn its style of combat and exploration. Both share the same hand-drawn look and atmospheric world design.
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