Best Nonlinear Games on Steam
Games where routes, objectives, scenes, or solutions can unfold in varied orders.
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1The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition - A time of untold chaos has come. Mighty forces clash behind the scenes in a struggle for power and influence. The Northern Kingdoms mobilize for war. But armies on the march are not enough to stop a bloody conspiracy...
Apr 16, 2012
In this game, you can…
- pick between Roche and Iorveth and watch the rest of the game reroute into different chapters, locations, and main story arcs.
- turn Triss into a small figurine without realizing it, carry her around, and later crack it open to free her and expose a spy.
- wake up naked on a beach with a new neck tattoo, then retrace your drunken night to figure out how it happened.
- get framed for a king's murder, break out of a dungeon, and hunt the real assassin while piecing together your lost memory.
- walk into a cursed battlefield where an entire war zone is enchanted, then team up with mages to lift the curse before you can move on.
- drink potions before fights, coat your blade with oils, lay traps and bombs, and survive by timing Signs instead of just swinging.
- fight in an arena mode where endless enemy waves test your full combat toolkit under mounting pressure.
- import past choices and keep continuity details across games, including carrying that tattoo forward into The Witcher 3.
- reach the ending and get a detailed rundown of how your earlier choices reshaped characters, regions, and political outcomes.
2WEBFISHING - WEBFISHING a multiplayer chatroom-focused fishing game! Relax and fish (on the web!)
Oct 11, 2024
In this game, you can…
- marry a stranger at a private-island wedding, get served snacks and bait, and watch the whole relationship end when the ceremony does.
- pull up a fish so huge it fills the entire skybox.
- wander into hidden spots and intentional out-of-bounds areas, then link flags so everyone can reach the secret space from spawn.
- cast your line, walk away, and come back later to find a fish still waiting on the hook.
- play instruments together in the lobby, from guitar and tambourine to keyboard-like jam sessions.
- hang out in public camps that work like a chatroom, lobby-hop all day, and eventually host your own room for new people to join.
- draw on the ground with chalk and crayons while everyone fishes and talks nearby.
- buy scratch cards, gamble for a big win, and spiral into more side activities instead of fishing.
3Mewgenics - Build the ultimate cat army through tactical breeding and send them into deep, challenging turn-based adventures. Draft abilities, collect items, and manipulate genetics across generations in this roguelike tactics game from the creators of The Binding of Isaac and The End is Nigh.
Feb 10, 2026
In this game, you can…
- eat a fetus in an alley to instantly heal your entire party.
- loop a cat's concussions into power by repeatedly killing and resurrecting it, until it becomes an absurdly armored, brainless wall that crosses the whole board.
- resurrect enemies as zombies that join your party, as long as they die first.
- watch a so-called healer trait make your tank eat every corpse, including teammates, until it's alone and dies from exhaustion.
- breed cats until one ends up casting fireball for -2 mana, then keep it anyway despite permanent osteoporosis.
- stack a bug-host trait with bug gear and duplicate bug affixes until one cat becomes a walking infestation that can nearly solo a run.
- pair "spawn 1HP flies when hit" with "allies taking damage deal 10 back" and turn getting punched into a chain-reaction kill engine.
- kill a bird and randomly get a bazooka as loot.
4Road 96 🛣️ - Hitchhike your way to freedom in this crazy procedurally generated road trip. No one's road is the same!
Aug 16, 2021
In this game, you can…
- answer questions while someone holds a gun to your head on a highway drive.
- get robbed, steal a car, eat rotten trash food to save money, then end up helping a revolution before a serial killer nearly burns you alive.
- hit an election-day finale where what your different teens did across multiple trips can change the outcome.
- hitchhike, take a bus, or steal a car, and your travel choice decides which character encounter you get next.
- play as a different unnamed teen each run, with different cash and stamina, trying to reach the border before you collapse or get caught.
- unlock hacking and lockpicking, then use those skills in later runs to open routes and solutions you couldn't access before.
- scrape together food, cash, and a place to sleep by scavenging diners, motels, and gas stations for small tasks that unlock new options.
- pull off a border crossing by choosing a method, then spending your whole trip collecting the specific items, skills, and money it requires.
5ANIMAL WELL - Explore a dense, interconnected labyrinth, and unravel its many secrets. Collect items to manipulate your environment in surprising and meaningful ways. Encounter beautiful and unsettling creatures, as you attempt to survive what lurks in the dark. There is more than what you see.
May 9, 2024
In this game, you can…
- ride your thrown frisbee across a room after you land on it.
- use a bubble wand to keep making platforms, turning jumps into near-infinite air time with the right timing.
- hit the credits, then keep digging into post-game mysteries that can take a whole community sharing notes to untangle.
- sequence break on purpose by using tools in the "wrong" order to bypass obstacles and reach areas early.
- revisit rooms you thought were finished, then use a new item to reveal hidden routes, shortcuts, and previously impossible interactions.
- draw and stamp your own map notes, then rely on them because clues and connections span the entire labyrinth.
- collect 64 hidden eggs, track them on a shelf-like display, and use milestone rewards to push deeper into the maze.
- unlock a flute after the first 16 eggs, then play it to activate fast travel stations for the backtracking-heavy parts.
- treat creatures like puzzle pieces, luring and outsmarting them with tools and the environment instead of just fighting them.
6Another Crab's Treasure - In a vibrant undersea kingdom on the verge of collapse, a hermit crab embarks on a treasure hunt to buy back his repossessed shell. The second game from AGGRO CRAB.
Apr 25, 2024
In this game, you can…
- swap between dozens of trash shells mid-fight, using stuff like bottle caps or rubber ducks as your armor and abilities.
- start as a hermit crab whose shell gets repossessed for unpaid taxes, then hunt treasure to buy your home back.
- fight bosses that wield junk as weapons, like a lobster that snaps a bike lock on you like a guillotine.
- pull enemies to you or slingshot yourself into them with a grappling hook that also opens up early platforming routes.
- learn sea-creature powers, then chain mantis-shrimp punches into bobbit-worm grabs to keep fights escalating.
- tune accessibility sliders to slow time, change damage, boost shell durability, disable fall damage, and keep your money on death.
- give your crab a gun.
- find fully missable secret areas with their own bosses and rewards, then return later with new abilities to open more paths.
7Blasphemous 2 - The Penitent One awakens as Blasphemous 2 joins him once again in an endless struggle against The Miracle. Dive into a perilous new world filled with mysteries and secrets to discover, and tear your way through monstrous foes that stand between you and your quest to end the cycle once and for all.
Aug 24, 2023
In this game, you can…
- use your weapons as traversal tools, like ringing a bell to reveal hidden platforms or teleporting through mirrors to cross gaps
- stumble onto a dark chariot that ferries you to parts of the map you otherwise can't reach
- pick one of three starting weapons and get routed through different early areas because each one opens different paths
- swap between three weapons mid-fight and chain combos without stopping your movement
- unlock double jump, air dash, and wall climbing, then immediately return to old zones to reach ledges and whole sections you couldn't access before
- mark unreachable spots on the map, then come back later with the right movement or weapon interaction to crack them open
- slot and rearrange altarpiece pieces to mix bonuses into full builds that change how your combat plays
8Pseudoregalia - Deep within the realm of sleep, Sybil finds herself pulled to a distorted castle. Grow strong, and unlock new abilities to build up a deep movement system, fight enemies, find secrets, and free the weary soul of Castle Sansa, in this retro-inspired 3D Platformer Metroidvania.
Jul 28, 2023
In this game, you can…
- chain a slide jump into a sideflip into a wall kick into a pole cancel backflip to reach ledges.
- sequence break by combining movement tricks to bypass ability gates and reach areas you weren't supposed to access yet.
- get upgrades from the exit side of rooms, and the game still lets it count.
- use just a couple hidden abilities to force your way through huge sections early.
- treat wall kicks like a skill ceiling, dialing in near-perfect angles to climb routes that look impossible.
- look at a vertical room, pick a weird route, and just go there if you can physically make the jumps.
- fight a standout final boss built around dodging, weaving, and reflecting projectiles despite the game keeping combat light overall.
9TUNIC - Explore a land filled with lost legends, ancient powers, and ferocious monsters in TUNIC, an isometric action game about a small fox on a big adventure.
Mar 16, 2022
In this game, you can…
- collect an in-game instruction booklet page by page, then use its pictures like a map, a guide, and a riddle.
- discover that key moves were available all along by finding a manual page that explains them later.
- hunt down a late-game golden-path puzzle by tracing lines, numbers, and patterns spread across the whole world.
- wake up on a ruined island with no readable language, then piece together how to play by finding manual pages.
- stumble onto secret passages hidden in plain sight, like corners and ledges you can walk past for hours.
- revisit old areas with new knowledge, then watch dead ends turn into routes and scenery turn into clues.
- solve puzzles that start as quiet environmental mysteries, then escalate into logic riddles that demand note-taking.
- reach places far earlier than you thought, because the game never tells you the rules you were already allowed to use.
10Antichamber - Antichamber is a mind-bending psychological exploration game where nothing can be taken for granted. Discover an Escher-like world where hallways wrap around upon each other, spaces reconfigure themselves, and accomplishing the impossible may just be the only way forward.
Jan 31, 2013
In this game, you can…
- walk into a dead end, turn back, and find you're somewhere else entirely.
- solve rooms by walking backwards, because moving normally makes the path disappear.
- use a hint as a physical object, turning the clue itself into the thing that solves the puzzle.
- turn around and watch a closed door vanish into thin air.
- climb staircases that loop into themselves and hallways that make impossible turns without ever crossing.
- keep your eyes off a room so it stays stable long enough to use.
- pick up and place blocks with a gun, then upgrade it to pull cubes along different axes to reshape the space.
- bounce back to a central map room to fast-travel between puzzles, then return later when new rules make old rooms solvable.
