A randomizer is a Game Mod, ROM hack, DLC, or mode that adds a random element to a gameplay system that had previously been static. Examples include:
- Shuffling the locations of items and abilities required to advance the game
- Altering the level ordering or layout of the game world
- Changing locations and attributes of the enemies
- Changing the capabilities or stat growth of the player character
- Graphical changes such as swapping textures or using them in unexpected combinations
Randomizers are commonly made by fans, and can be a way to breathe fresh life into old games by taking something familiar and rearranging it to create new experiences that players haven't seen before, or opportunities that never existed in the vanilla game. They can also turn what was previously a linear experience into something more open, by allowing players to take alternative routes through the game that were previously not possible.
The core of a randomizer is the randomization algorithm, whose logic must be carefully cultivated to ensure that it does not produce unwinnable situations or undesirable gameplay.
Randomizers are especially popular among speedrunners, where they offer a unique challenge to players who are already familiar with the vanilla game. Speedrunning a randomized game requires players to push their abilities to another level - as well as the rote memorization and mastery of game mechanics ("execution") already required in a standard speedrun, they must also become proficient at routing unfamiliar paths, adapting their gameplan on the fly, and inferring where they might find progression based on what items are given to them and when (known as "reading the logic").
Naturally, speedrunners being what they are, they will also use or abuse knowledge of the randomizer algorithm itself to gain information or predict the future. Even if they don't know exactly what the randomizer will do, they know the kinds of things it could do, or may know what its limitations are.
Randomizers also allow for an interesting kind of race, in which all runners are given the same, never-before-seen randomized seed and tasked with discovering the most efficient way to complete the game. These races can attract dozens or even hundreds of players, and knowing one's opponent's tendencies and adapting to them can give rise to a robust Metagame.
In addition to randomizing a single copy of the game, there are additional options that allow multiplayer gameplay aside from straight races, either by two runners playing the same seed ("Co-op"), or by joining multiple copies together in one seed with players sending each other items found in their own world ("Multiworld"), and thanks to websites such as Archipelago
, it's possible to link any number of supported games together all at once!
A related development is "Bingo" mechanics, where the game itself is not randomized, but players are instead assigned a bingo card of random in-game objectives to complete, forcing them to approach the game in a different way than they usually would.
Compare the Roguelike genre, in which games are intentionally built around a randomization engine to provide gameplay variety and unexpected elements.
Examples With Their Own Pages
- A Link to the Past: Randomizer (includes the "SMZ3R" combination randomizer with Super Metroid)
- Final Fantasy IV: Free Enterprise
- Ocarina of Time: Randomizer
- PK Scramble!
- Zelda Randomizer
- Zelda 1 Randomizer
Examples Without Their Own Pages
open/close all folders
Action
- Copy Kitty has "Pandemonium" mode, which takes the semi-random environments and enemies of Endless Mode and adds a new wrinkle: every single enemy and boss has randomized weapons. This can mean the most basic enemies wielding attacks normally reserved for the Super Boss, or it could mean a powerful, intimidating enemy charging up their ultimate attack only to fire a single measly bullet... or anything else in between.
Action-Adventure
- The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening: Link's Awakening DX Randomizer, or LADXR, shuffles the locations of chest contents, seashells, golden leaves, heart pieces, and even (optionally) dungeon keys and the Instruments of the Sirens. This results in the trading sequence no longer being required to beat the game. There are a handful of other quality-of-life changes, such as turning off unnecessary text boxes like the ones for touching rocks, pots and crystals, and removing long quest lines that would otherwise be required to open item locations. A fork of this randomizer is also part of Archipelago, which has the same functionality but can be played as a multiworld randomizer with other games.
- Prodigal has its own randomizer that shuffles most of the items you obtain, which can make the game easier or harder depending on where certain items are found. The way it works is that you choose a number combination, and the item locations will be the same for that specific number on different save files, meaning that run be replayed with the knowledge of where everything is, which might be useful for speedruns.
- An update to the Tomb Raider remaster (the first three games) adds a challenge mode that lets the player adjust several settings (enemy health, Lara's health, etc) to fine tune their own personal challenge, but there's also a setting that allows almost any enemy (except bosses) to appear no matter what the location is. For example, the final level in Tomb Raider II has nothing but gunmen for enemies, but the randomizer can also add other enemy types into the mix like yetis and tigers.
First-Person Shooter
- Deep Rock Galactic has the Randowiser beer that completely shuffles and randomizes your weapon loadout, perks, and cosmetics for the next mission.
- Doom mod Corruption Cards makes players choose from a randomly-chosen set of cards at the start of each level, each of which provides a game-altering effect. Cards can have simple effects (ex.: "All projectiles travel faster"), complicated ones ("One monster is cursed. It will cause a nuclear explosion when killed."), and some that can even cause Genre Shift ("No monsters, but a special Revenant stalks you.")
- Team Fortress 2:
- The plugin Randomizer randomizes the player's class and loadout upon joining the server, re-rolling them after they die. The mod has zero restrictions on assigned weapons, which can lead to, say, the Scout wielding a Minigun.
- The community mission Unideal Wavebar serves as a randomizer derived from the Valve-supported Potato.tf Mann vs. Machine campaigns. Set on a modified version of Doublecross, the mission is a single wave with 118 enemies, two tank variants, and three bosses, all of which are randomly rolled from Potato's assets upon starting the map.
- The plugin Randomizer
JRPG
- Bug Fables has the Medal Randomizer mode, which is activated by naming your save file "MYSTERY?". In this mode, all medals are in random locations and they won't be revealed until you pick them up.
- Chrono Trigger:
- The "Eternal Nightmare" randomizer is fairly tame by randomizer standards. It shuffles character, equipment, enemy, and tech stats, shop inventory, and treasure locations, as well as player character color palettes. The game still follows a fairly linear path; in practice, the most impactful change is the chance to find endgame equipment much earlier, trivializing the game's difficulty.
- The "Jets of Time" randomizer, in the style of Final Fantasy 4: Free Enterprise, gives the player access to the Epoch at the beginning of the game, converting what is usually a rather linear game into an open-world scavenger hunt. Character pickups, loot, and enemy drops are shuffled by default, with several other modes being optional. Many aspects of the game are rebalanced to accommodate the randomized structure.
- The "Eternal Nightmare" randomizer
- Each entry in the Dark Souls trilogy and their predecessor Demon's Soulsnote have item and enemy randomizers. For added zaniness, the enemy randomizer can be set to allow regular enemies to be replaced by bosses, create Anti Climax Bosses by replacing them with Mooks, or replace every enemy with the final boss.
- Digimon World and its randomizer (US version only), which randomizes Digimon evolutions, tech properties, most overworld items, and File City recruits (though not the essential ones like the Item Keeper just to avoid an Unwinnable situation). It also adds patches that fix the infamous glitches like Giromon's Jukebox freeze and the "no stat and lifespan change" bug when using Digivolution items.
- Digimon World 2 has a randomizer too. It can randomize Digimon encounters, evolutions, techs, and models, as well as domain music. It also comes with EXP or BIT multiplier to help reduce grinding and the option to add back Dummied Out Digimon.
- Epic Battle Fantasy 5 has the Custom Game option "Random Equips", which shuffles the locations of equipment and makes all purchasable equipment (including festival-exclusive equipment) available from the start.
- Final Fantasy franchise:
- Final Fantasy I has a rather big one for the original NES version. Key items can be shuffled, changing the progression of the game, with plenty of options for how they can be shuffled. Alterations can be made to the overworld to allow for more open exploration without certain items, or the overworld can even be replaced entirely, with the randomizer generating a brand new one, using logic to retain the access requirements. Magic spells can have their levels shuffled, meaning it's possible to get broken spells rather early, or the schools can be mixed up, so healing spells may end up with the Black Mage, or a brand new list of spells can be created to replace the originals. The Character Class System can be changed up, so each class could have their stats changed up, or be given buffs and nerfs, or even replaced with recreations of classes from later games (said recreations being proceedurally generated, so they'll be varied each time), and a setting allows for each Prestige Class to be randomly reassigned to a different base class, so your White Mage could promote into a Bare-Fisted Monk. The ultimate goal is to defeat Chaos, or a potential alternate Final Boss, who is locked behind either the elemental orbs gotten by beating bosses, shards of said orbs found throughout the world, or even hiding out as a Chest Monster in a random treasure chest.
- Final Fantasy V:
- Ancient Cave - Inspired by the mode of the same name from Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, the regular gameplay is gone, replaced with a roguelike dungeon crawl down 100 floors of increasing difficulty (and to prevent level grinding, the SNES version restricts the player by a timer on all non-boss floors, and boss floors have a limited number of encounters); items, equipment, jobs, and spells are all hidden in the chests strewn across these floors. Both the SNES version and the GBA rerelease have Ancient Cave mods; however, the latter is built on top of another mod that rebalances the jobs to make all of them more viable so keep that in mind when playing.
- Career Day - An open world randomizer that shuffles bosses between locations and the players goal becomes collecting the four tablets to open the way to the void to fight Neo-Exdeath.
- Grand Cross a randomizer made by the ever prolific abyssonym that allows ridiculous levels of customization.
- The GBA version has not one, but two randomizers, links collated here.
- Ancient Cave - Inspired by the mode of the same name from Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, the regular gameplay is gone, replaced with a roguelike dungeon crawl down 100 floors of increasing difficulty (and to prevent level grinding, the SNES version restricts the player by a timer on all non-boss floors, and boss floors have a limited number of encounters); items, equipment, jobs, and spells are all hidden in the chests strewn across these floors. Both the SNES version
- Final Fantasy VI:
- The "Beyond Chaos" randomizer shuffles treasure locations, party and enemy stats, palettes, sprites, and seemingly almost everything else. As the name implies, it tends provide fairly chaotic results even by randomizer standards; the mod's author says that it's intended for casual play more than competitive racing.
- The "Worlds Collide" randomizer gives the player two random party members and the airship at the beginning of the game as well as the ability to swap freely between the World of Balance and the World of Ruin (something that's impossible without glitches in the vanilla game). Character, item, and Esper locations are randomized, and enemies are scaled to the party, meaning the game lends itself to a Low-Level Run. It is geared toward the competitive racing scene, and the mod's official Discord server has a dedicated racing section.
- The "Beyond Chaos" randomizer
- Final Fantasy VIII has Maelstrom, which is compatible with both the classic release of the game, including the version found on steam, GOG etc., as well as the Remastered version. Some of the options, like randomized draw points, are currently only compatible with the old version, but the program is being developed constantly and features are being added and made compatible all the time.
- Final Fantasy Tactics has Rumble Chaos Crashdown, yet another abyssonym project, and like all of abyssonym's projects, features ridiculous customizability and special surprises.
- Final Fantasy I has a rather big one for the original NES version
- Kingdom Hearts:
- Kingdom Hearts I has a randomizer for the HD 1.5+2.5 Remix PC release. It randomizes weapon stats, item checks, Dalmatian locations, bosses, enemy drops, and so on. Win condition is to find all items needed to complete the two Destiny Islands days, which are scattered throughout the worlds of the game. On finding everything, you turn the items in to Kairi on both days and instead of the final night as in the original game, you proceed to the final boss gauntlet.
- Kingdom Hearts II:
- The original PS2 release has a randomizer for the Final Mix+ version which shuffles items in chests, cutscenes, and level-ups, just like other randomizers. The win condition is to find the three Proofs and then defeat Xemnas. However, it also shuffles the bosses, meaning that in low-level areas, nothing is stopping the runner from encountering a Data Organization XIII member. The randomizer is still in alpha, because shuffling bosses around can break the game, but this is slowly being fixed.
- The PC version has a randomizer for the HD 1.5+2.5 Remix that's bundled with the modding tools which has the same features as the above PS2 version, with the same win conditions.
- Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep has a randomizer for the HD 1.5+2.5 Remix version, featuring the usual set of features like changed item pools and such. However, in addition to enemy randomization bosses can be included in a world's enemy pool replacing strong enemies, and vice versa.
- Kingdom Hearts III has a randomizer with the usual set of features as well as compatibility with certain mods. The clear conditions are to find three Proofs a la the Kingdom Hearts II randomizer and then proceed to the final boss fight.
- The Persona games 3 to 5 have their own randomizer, dubbed simply PersonaRandomizer, which allows one to scramble Persona properties, skill effects, and enemy encounters and properties. For 3 and 4 (though only the PlayStation 2 versions), one can randomize the music, portraits, and 3D models for added chaos. Persona 5 Royal also has the ZMenu which features a randomizer setting which can achieve the same thing sans the portrait and model swaps.
- Pokémon has a wide variety of randomizers, including but not limited to: being able to randomize the Pokémon themselves, their types, movepools and abilities. The Trainers, levels and items can also be randomized. Funnily enough, this was one of the original concepts for the series itself, with each game procedurally generating various aspects of the world and Pokémon selection based on the player's Trainer ID number, before the much simpler One Game for the Price of Two setup was decided upon instead.
- Super Mario RPG has an open world randomizer where the goal is still to assemble the seven stars to repair Star Road, but the bosses that hold the stars as well as the stars themselves are no longer where you expect to find them, and your party can end up a little...different, to say the least.
Metroidvania
- Axiom Verge received a randomizer as a third-party mod. Years after release, an official randomizer was added, giving options for vanilla progression, speedrun progression and low% progression.
- Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night got a built-in randomizer mode as free post-launch DLC, in lieu of the Roguelike mode originally offered in the Kickstarter campaign. While the castle's layout remains the same, shard drops (including progression shards) and item placement (including key items) are randomly shuffled between enemies and chests. Shuffled progression shards and key items may make you take a very different route through the castle to reach the end bosses.
- Hollow Knight has a mod that allows for most items in the game to be shuffled with each-other, as well as various map randomizers that can change the locations of every room in the game. There are also various other options such as the ability to randomize skills the Knight already starts with in the vanilla game like swimming and Focus, and options to enable or disable various skips from being required. Addons for the randomizer also exist to add more parts of the game like Levers, Journal Entries, and Breakable Walls into the item pool.
- The remake of La-Mulana, and La-Mulana 2, each have randomizers, starting with the standard item shuffle and going to entrance, shop, and sometimes even boss randomization... as well as which weapon one starts with. Thankfully for quality of life, Lemeza or Lumisa can start with some of the items such as the grail, Mirai.exe, and TextTrax (useful for recording what's in each shop).
- Metroid:
- Super Metroid has a randomizer that works as one would expect, shuffling the locations of the various items to be collected. It also includes options for the user to choose which glitch tricks (if any) can be taken into consideration with item placement.
- Metroid Fusion has two separate ones. One is known by the acronym "MFOR" (Metroid Fusion Open Randomizer) while the other was known as "MARS" (Metroid Advanced Randomizer System) before being dubbed "Fusion RDV" (short for Randovania) upon realease. Both have the same base goal as the original game; getting the items needed to defeat the SA-X, beating it in battle, and setting the BSL on a crash course with SR388 before escaping. They also have unique beam combos that aren't accessible in the basegame, including Ice Beam being promoted from 11th-Hour Superpower to a normal item. The palettes of everything can be randomized for fun, including Samus, enemies and bosses, and tilesets. However, the two do have some differences that set them apart.
- MFOR came about in 2021. It has the potential of softlocking, so saving is suggested to avoid getting stuck. All major items appear as a question mark, and one option enables every item to be displayed in such a fashion. The order of the six Sectors can be shuffled, as can the destinations of the shortcut tubes that each Sector has. Sector 5's state depends on what items you have, triggering the relevant event flag to destroy it if you have the prerequisites. The Security Rooms unlock their doors like the vanilla game. Unlocking Level 4 Security is required for the endgame due to the door in Operations Deck being unchanged.
- Fusion RDV began development in 2023 and was publicly released in August 2025, and is a part of the Randovania set of randomizers. The Sleep Mode function is replaced with a command to warp back to the room the seed began in to prevent softlocks. Unique sprites are made for every major item, including Security levels which are randomized into the pool and can be at normal item checks (with the Security Rooms instead granting checks just like Data Rooms). It also has the ability to toggle items on and off, as in Super Metroid. Sector 5 has a slight redesign to make checks that are normally only available in the destroyed version of the area accessible at all times. ADAM gives hints as to item locations at each unique Navigation Room, with varying Security levels being required to earn all of his hints except the one for Charge Beam. Extra checks have been added in story rooms to incentivize visiting them, such as the Habitation Deck, Sub-Zero Containment (which now has a Level 3 Security lock), and Auxilary Power Station. Additionally, a new option for the game is available where you need to collect Baby Metroids before being able to trigger the endgame; this is new to Fusion and designed to be like the Chozo Artifacts from Metroid Prime and Sky Temple Keys from Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, as a series of collectibles needed for completion.
- Both Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes have separate randomizers as part of Randovania.
- In the unofficial 1.2 update to Another Metroid 2 Remake, completing the game in under four hours unlocks Random Game+ mode, which shuffles the locations of all the major upgrades (for example, you might get the High Jump Boots as early as the Golden Temple, but have to wait until the Tower to get the Charge Beam). The lava starts off at the level just below the Distribution Center, allowing you to explore everything up to that point in whatever order you want, though you have to defeat all the Metroids in those areas before you can go any further. Some minor modifications are made to the levels so you can't get trapped without a way to progress. There are also options that allow you to shuffle just the regular item expansions or to shuffle the item expansions with the major upgrades.
- Salt and Sanctuary: The 1.0.2 patch added new randomizer challenges, allowing the player to randomly rearrange all of the enemies, non-essential items, or both, as well as allowing them to choose whether the health and damage of the bosses and enemies is adjusted for their new placement.
- Yoku's Island Express: The game has a Randomized mode that causes all its collectibles and major unlocks to be scrambled throughout the map, so one may find different items in treasure chests or from quests. Dialogue doesn't reflect on the changed items though. The game recommends you beat the main game before trying this. Such a mode has three difficulties, Normal, Hard, and Very Hard, with the harder difficulties having more erratic randomizing, and the description of Very Hard downright stating that one must know speedrun strategies and even methods of Sequence Breaking to beat this difficulty.
MMORPG
- RuneScape: Yes, really. The Old School Runescape randomizer combines randomizer elements with a Chunk Limitation gameplay, which is to say, the player is unable to exit any overworld zones they have unlocked. The challenge of the game is to complete randomly assigned tasks, which opens weapon/armor upgrades or more map chunks to explore and grind in. The randomizer takes place entirely within a free-to-play account, with the win condition being to complete the quest Dragon Slayer I, which effectively requires a range of skills in the 30-40 level range and almost every other F 2 P quest completed to even start.
Platformer
- Celeste has a mod that creates a randomized level from any room in the 9 chapters and all B and C sides. Before playing, the player can choose which chapters to pick levels from. Additionally, there are a few extra settings, including one that scatters gems around a randomly-generated labyrinth that the player has to navigate and collect.
- Celeste also has another mod that provides variants to spice the gameplay including flipping controls, setting the whole room underwater, and many more. A setting in this mod allows these to be randomized as well, with settings that disable or enable any of these variants to be included or excluded. And of course, this works with the level randomizer, so using both could guarantee chaos.
- Donkey Kong 64 has a randomizer at dk64randomizer.com. Many things can be randomized, including level order, number of Golden Bananas needed to enter each level, starting Kongs, starting moves, minigames (including the Rambi Arena and Enguarde Arena, the Hideout Helm kegs, and a few unused minigame difficulties), bosses and how many colored bananas are needed to access them and, of course, the locations of every item in the game, including Golden Bananas, Banana Medals, Banana Fairies, and each Kong's moves. Palettes can also be randomized, there's a healthy amount of custom music and sound effects to make the experience different, and Krusha can be used to replace a Kong, granting him their abilities on top of his own moveset. Several quality-of-life tweaks were made, including the addition of Tag Anywhere, a toggle getting put in to switch between normal and homing ammo, several minigames, challenges, and bosses being shortened or having their difficulty lowered, and an option being added to exit to DK Isles from almost anywhere.
- Sonic Adventure 2:
- The game has a fanmade randomizer for the Steam version of the game that allows you to change several things:
- Every character begins with all upgrades, and the characters who can't normally get those upgrades (such as the Mystic Melody for the multiplayer characters and Eggman without his mecha) receive them to make life easier for you.
- Level orders are randomized, and are no longer tied to Hero or Dark Story. The missions you have to do are randomized too, so you may end up having to find lost Chao or collect 100 Rings in the main story.
- The characters you use, and the ones you fight against in player character battles, are completely different from the normal game, and include every multiplayer character, so you might end up playing through City Escape as Chaos Zero or Death Chamber as Eggman outside of his mecha (though every level will receive edits to make it easier if it's a level for a different type of character). There are also model swaps for the playable characters, such as 2020 film Sonic over Sonic, Gemerl over Metal Sonic, Shade over Tikal, and Wario over Knuckles, and a few characters, like Amy and Rouge, have alternate outfits. Omochao also has a new red and black palette.
- Kart models and stats are randomized.
- Cutscene order is also randomized, removing any semblance of the game's normal story in a funny way.
- Dialogue lines both during gameplay and cutscenes are swapped with other lines from this game (and, if enabled properly, lines from Adventure DX) because it's hilarious.
- Music is randomized both in cutscenes and gameplay, to amusing effect.
- SA2 also has a more traditional randomizer as part of Archipelago, which makes the game play more like a Collect-a-Thon Platformer, with you collecting Emblems to access more of the game and finding each character's upgrades in random spots. Various goals can be set, including one where you need to get enough Emblems to reach Cannon's Core and defeat the Biolizard, one where seven Chaos Emeralds are randomly scattered throughout the available levels and you need to find them, and one where you have to beat all of the Kart Race levels. Checks are awarded for beating missions within a certain rank (which you can set to any rank - "E" equating to "just beat the level"), missions can be randomized to pick from all 5 missions, and the amount of missions present for each stage can be changed as well, with each one also granting a check for clearing them. Further settings let you put checks on things like Chao Boxes, Gold Beetles, whistle locations, and even Chao stat level ups, Chao Race and Chao Karate (if you own the Sonic Adventure 2 Battle DLC, in Karate's case).
- The game has a fanmade randomizer
Racing
- F-Zero 99 has a Mini Prix Shuffle that forces all players to race with whatever machine the game chooses for them and then try to come out on top in a three race series.
Roguelike
- The Binding of Isaac:
- Eden is a character added in Rebirth that lets you play a mild randomizer. They start with a random passive and active item as well as random stats, giving you a different experience every time you start a run with them. In order to prevent cheesing resets, playing as Eden requires an Eden Token, acquired from a late-game boss. Eden's Tainted variant has a similar randomization mechanic, with the added twist that Tainted Eden's appearance, stats, and items are re-randomized every single time they take damage.
- Repentance takes it a step further with the item TMTRAINER. It replaces every item for the rest of the run with a "glitch" item that looks like a jumbled mess of various sprites, has a garbled string of characters for a name, and assigns several random effects to random triggers. This can range from turning enemies into coins, to deleting every pickup in the room, to spawning bombs on top of you, or even crashing the game. It's all random, and things can get pretty messy if you're unlucky. The appropriately-named DELETE THIS challenge has you starting with TMTRAINER. Tellingly, you unlock the item by beating The Beast as the aforementioned Tainted Eden. Similarly, beating one of the final bosses as Tainted Eden unlocks "Corrupted Data", which permanently adds a small chance to generate glitch items in secret and I AM ERROR rooms even without TMTRAINER.
- When it comes to modded content, the 700,000 Items mod, which has existed since modding the game was a thing but got most popular after the release of dedicated modding tools in Afterbirth†. It adds thousands of procedurally generated items to every pool. It's definitely an interesting way to shake up your runs, and was mentioned by one of the developers of Repentance to have been the basis for the above TMTRAINER item.
- Nubby's Number Factory has Balogna Tony, who randomizes the trigger conditions of every item in the game. This can allow for absolutely broken builds if you're lucky, up to and including going infinite with just one or two items — or it can saddle you with a bunch of completely useless items. The Moldy Sandwich was added to the café in 1.3.1.5 to help mitigate this, but it only rerolls what is in your inventory.
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky has the SkyTemple Randomizer which covers various aspects from starter selection to dungeon properties to NPCs. It also comes with quality-of-life mods like total party control that users may opt in and integration with the PMD Sprite Repository fansite so that the randomized actors can have custom sprites and portraits to cover the ones they do not have!
Simulation
- RimWorld: Randy Random is the AI storyteller who forgoes normal difficulty progression and event scaling (contrasting Cassandra Classic and Phoebe Chillax, who both start off easy and gradually send more difficult challenges and have more predictable gaps between the challenges), potentially resulting in several raids in rapid succession, several drop pods full of goodies landing near your colony in rapid succession, a large raid at the very beginning of the game, or years passing when nothing notable happens.
- Patch 1.5 of Stardew Valley added Advanced Game Options to, among other things, randomize the requests in the Community Center bundles, which are the primary measure of progress in the game.
Stealth
- Hitman 2: A relatively simple mod randomizes Agent 47's starting inventory, with each item bound by its category (e.g. pistols can only be replaced by other pistols, explosives by other explosives, etc.). Item locations within levels are also randomized, as are guard inventories, with chaotic results. Guards are far more lethal to Agent 47— there are a lot more guns that will effectively OHKO him than those that won't— and even to themselves (the AI is pretty bad at handling explosives safely).
Strategy
- Civilization VI released a "Tech and Civic Shuffle" game mode in August 2020, which randomizes the Tech Tree and Civic Tree when enabled. Techs and civics within each game Era are shuffled, the tree layouts are changed, and unknown techs and civics are hidden.
- Fire Emblem: Some of the best known mods completely randomize the class, stats, growth rates, items, and join time of units. Many early randomizers use the GBA games as they are very simple to program but later randomizers also exist for much more complex games like Fates and Three Houses. Due to randomizers affecting units but not affecting voice acting, it often leads to humorous scenes like characters having voices that don't suit them like Mercedes with Death Knight's voice.
- FTL: Faster Than Light: While the game itself is already highly randomized, the final boss is always the same, funneling the player into one of a handful of optimal builds in any given run. With the Flagship Randomizer mod, the Rebel Flagship's layout and capabilities are randomized. The player is given a broad overview of the randomized design at the beginning of each run, encouraging them to build their ship to counter it if possible.
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown: The free "Second Wave" DLC gives the option to randomize several elements that are static in the base game, such as weapon damage values, funding levels provided by Council nations, and soldier statistics. The Training Roulette option randomizes most class abilities, allowing for combinations not possible in the base game.
Survival Horror
- The Nintendo 64 port of Resident Evil 2 featured an unlockable Randomizer option, albeit limited to just randomizing item placements. Nonetheless it sure was ahead of its time, as years later randomizer mods for most games in the series sprung up. This included Resident Evil 2 itself (for its 2006 Sourcenext PC port). A randomizer for the Claire A/Leon B route allows players to not just randomize items, but enemy placements, which means as early as the first screen of the game you could have an army of Mr. X Tyrants coming at you. Voice lines can also be randomized, solely for fun.
Western RPG
- Fallout: New Vegas: The NVRNG mod randomizes many aspects of the game, including starting SPECIAL attributes, container contents and enemy loot, character models and sizes, weather, and jump height. The power curve is nonexistent, and the already somewhat wacky atmosphere of the game is magnified to ludicrous extremes when you find yourself facing a three foot tall Powder Ganger armed with a goddamn Fat Man.
- Ultima IV: The Ultima IV Map Randomizer changes the layout of Britannia, while updating the dialog of people who tell you specific sextant coordinates for things. While we're at it, it also allows for options like diagonal attacks and a few bugfixes.