20 games that nearly ruined their own franchise

Every gaming franchise — even the best, most iconic of the bunch — has its own proverbial “black sheep”, those titles that stand out from the pack as the one obvious blemish in what’s otherwise a pretty sterling legacy. That’s precisely what we’re looking at today, with the following 20 titles representing the games that almost destroyed their respective franchises or, in some cases, were successful in putting the final nail in the coffin on long-running, much-beloved game series. Whether it be through running a well-tread formula into the ground, experimenting with unique mechanics or story elements that didn’t fit the series mold, or outright cash-grabs that felt like cheap, watered-down renditions of previously high-flying franchises, these titles are outliers in what are otherwise some pretty incredible gaming IPs.

Dynasty Warriors 9

• Release Date — February 13, 2018
• Developer — Omega Force
• Publisher — Koei Tecmo
• Genre — Action, Hack and Slash, Musou
• Review Aggregate Score — 57% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

The biggest sin that Dynasty Warriors9 commits is that it’s really not much more than “more Dynasty Warriors“, which, by the time of its release, felt like too little, too late. Keep in mind that by 2018, the Dynasty Warriors franchise had been going strong for nearly two decades and was host to plenty of within-universe and IP crossover spin-offs (including wildly successful offshoots like Hyrule Warriors), so players weren’t all that keen on returning to the same game they’d played nearly a dozen times before, no matter how good it looked on 8th-gen hardware. Thankfully, the answer to the series’ aging formula was a reinvention of the Dynasty Warriors name and gameplay with the excellent Dynasty Warriors Origins, setting the franchise up for an exciting new era.

Dragon Age II

• Release Date — March 8, 2011
• Developer — BioWare
• Publisher — Electronic Arts
• Genre — Action RPG
• Review Aggregate Score — 82% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

The original Dragon Age: Origins is a phenomenal classic in BioWare’s now-legendary catalog that saw the developer return to its CRPG roots with an original story set in a captivating dark fantasy world. It ended up being both a critically acclaimed and commercially successful hit right alongside the likes of Mass Effect. So why Electronic Arts saw fit to interfere and mess with the series’ success is anyone’s best guess, but that’s why we got the strange outlier that is Dragon Age II. Dragon Age II isn’t a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, but it replaces the strategic, tactical combat of the original with an action RPG combat sandbox and removes any emphasis on choice and player agency in favor of a linear story. No wonder they went back to the drawing board for Inquisition.

Metal Gear Survive

• Release Date — February 20, 2018
• Developer — Konami Digital Entertainment
• Publisher — Konami
• Genre — Survival
• Review Aggregate Score — 60% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

It feels almost like an insult to call Metal Gear Survive a Metal Gear game, but it’s the lone series title that Konami would release during the strange window between Kojima’s unceremonious exit from Konami and the studio’s recent revamp of the franchise. This survival-focused spin-off utilizes some of the gameplay elements from Metal Gear Solid V to pit players against an army of zombies, tasking them with elements like base building and resource collection alongside some series-adjacent stealth-action combat. Metal Gear Survive is pretty much reviled by fans for a reason, but thankfully, it was the only blemish on the franchise name before Konami started treating the IP with respect again.

Call of Duty: Ghosts

• Release Date — November 5, 2013
• Developer — Infinity Ward
• Publisher — Activision
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 73% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One

Talk about dropping the ball. The Call of Duty franchise is so prolific that it’s been no stranger to the occasional dud here and there throughout the years, but Call of Duty: Ghosts felt like the catalyst for Activision to rethink the series’ general strategy, given its generally lackluster commercial and critical performance. Ghosts was supposed to be the big “next gen” debut of the franchise that coincided with the launch of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (much like how Call of Duty 2 had been for the Xbox 360 a generation prior), and it actually ended up being held back by having to be a cross-gen release between both new 8th-generation hardware and existing 7th-generation machines. After Ghosts, the Call of Duty franchise went to some interesting places before eventually settling on some incredibly successful remakes of the Modern Warfare games.

Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

• Release Date — June 20, 2003
• Developer — Core Design
• Publisher — Eidos Interactive
• Genre — Action-Adventure, Stealth
• Review Aggregate Score — 52% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 2

Following the first few entries in the series on PS1, the Tomb Raider franchise progressively got worse and worse before culminating in the series’ lowest point: Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. Angel of Darkness gets rid of the actual Indiana Jones-style “tomb raiding” that the series is known for in favor of a dark, stealth action adventure set in more modern environments. To add insult to injury, the stealth mechanics themselves are objectively terrible, leaving players with what’s easily the worst game in a series that had, by that point, already started to be a case of diminishing returns. Thankfully, Eidos was able to reboot the entire franchise not once, but twice, both with fantastic success.

Silent Hill Downpour

• Release Date — March 13, 2012
• Developer — Vatra Games
• Publisher — Konami
• Genre — Survival Horror
• Review Aggregate Score — 68% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Much like Metal Gear Survive, Silent Hill: Downpour is a stain on its respective franchise that released at a time when it seemed like producing quality titles was the furthest thing from Konami’s mind. Additionally, Downpour was the sort of “final straw” for the franchise before a failed reboot via Kojima’s planned Silent Hills game, making it the end of an era for the series. After the cancellation of Silent Hills, the series went dark for nearly a decade before returning with the incredible Silent Hill 2 remake and last year’s excellent Silent Hill f. But Downpour is a different story altogether, showing the franchise at a point where it seemed like Konami didn’t know what to do with it, and putting it in the hands of inexperienced developers who shoehorned in gameplay elements and mechanics that simply didn’t fit the series.

SaGa Frontier

• Release Date — July 11, 1997
• Developer — Square Product Development Division 2
• Publisher — Square, Sony Computer Entertainment
• Genre — JRPG
• Review Aggregate Score — 71% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — PlayStation

Surprisingly, SaGa Frontier would actually end up being the first properly named game in the SaGa series to make its way to the West, and it was so poorly received that it almost ended up being the last. Among the SaGa games, both Frontier titles are experimental entries that go beyond the franchise’s normal penchant for utilizing atypical RPG mechanics and systems to deliver ambitious disconnected narratives split across multiple playable characters (long before Octopath Traveler would do something similar). Unfortunately, SaGa Frontier‘s ambition outpaces its fun factor, as it’s an incredibly challenging and obtuse game even for RPG die-hards. That we got a SaGa Frontier 2 and more localizations of series classics (along with an excellent remake of Romancing SaGa 2) is almost a miracle.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

• Release Date — August 20, 2013
• Developer — 2K Marin
• Publisher — 2K
• Genre — Tactical Shooter
• Review Aggregate Score — 68% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Here’s a great idea: let’s take the incredibly niche-yet-surprisingly successful relaunch of the XCOM series and create a spin-off that ditches the tried-and-true turn-based tactical gameplay of Enemy Unknown for a fairly mediocre tactical shooter. Most players have forgotten The Bureau: XCOM Declassified by now because it’s an entirely forgettable game, but its lackluster critical and commercial reception could have prevented us from ever getting the incredible follow-up to Enemy Unknown that is XCOM 2. This title should forever live on in infamy as a reminder of why a non-strategy or tactics XCOM game is just a bad idea.

Ninja Gaiden 3

• Release Date — March 20, 2012
• Developer — Team Ninja
• Publisher — Koei Tecmo
• Genre — Action
• Review Aggregate Score — 58% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

The first and second games in Ninja Gaiden‘s 3D reboot were incredible character action titles that set a new high bar for the genre and breathed new life into an iconic 8-bit franchise. Unfortunately, by the time the third entry was in production, 3D Ninja Gaiden creator and mastermind Tobonobu Itagaki’s relationship with publisher Koei Tecmo had started to deteriorate, causing the then-in-production Ninja Gaiden 3 to experience a turbulent development that included Itagaki’s departure from both the project and the studio. The rest of Team Ninja did what it could to steer the ship, but what we got is easily the weakest of the 3D Ninja Gaiden games. Ninja Gaiden 3 was such a disappointment that it took more than a decade to get a proper follow-up with Ninja Gaiden 4.

Dead Space 3

• Release Date — February 5, 2013
• Developer — Visceral Games
• Publisher — Electronic Arts
• Genre — Survival Horror
• Review Aggregate Score — 78% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

In the next episode of “Electronic Arts ruins a great game franchise,” we have Dead Space 3. Visceral Games had proven itself adept at crafting phenomenal survival horror expeirences that offered something different from both Resident Evil and Silent Hill with the first two Dead Space games, but those titles’ successes prompted EA to suggest that the third entry should pivot toward being more of a horror action blockbuster — a paradigm shift that resulted in the franchise losing most of its signature identity. Dead Space 3 isn’t terrible, but its emphasis on co-op campaign play, shooting mechanics, and “pay-to-win” DLC takes you out of the experience and kills any sense of tension or dread. To make matters worse, EA would kill the series a second time after sales for the phenomenal remake didn’t hit targets.

Metroid: Other M

• Release Date — August 31, 2010
• Developer — Team Ninja, Nintendo SPD
• Publisher — Nintendo
• Genre — Action-Adventure
• Review Aggregate Score — 79% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — Wii

From a mechanical standpoint, Metroid: Other M is actually a pretty great game that does something cool with the Metroid formula. Yes, it’s not a Metroidvania like most players would have wanted, but to Team Ninja’s credit, they implement enough Metroidvania-like mechanics into this action-adventure game to make it feel like a sensical evolution of the series’ 2D formula in a 3D setting. But where Metroid: Other M fails is the story department, totally letting longtime fans of both the series and its main character, while also not being a good enough game to outright forgive its terrible narrative. No wonder this would be the last 3D Metroid game outside of the Metroid Prime series.

Devil May Cry 2

• Release Date — January 28, 2003
• Developer — Capcom Production Studio 1
• Publisher — Capcom
• Genre — Action
• Review Aggregate Score — 68% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — PlayStation 2

Wild that, just a couple of years after an incredible debut entry that established the Devil May Cry IP as a bona fide blockbuster for Capcom, the series would almost completely derail itself with its first sequel. Devil May Cry 2 has long been considered the worst entry in the franchise, especially when compared to its incredible predecessor and phenomenal follow-up, and it’s easy to see why. The game’s slower pacing and complete lack of challenge felt entirely counter to what made the first game so special, and splitting up the included campaigns across two discs made the whole experience feel like it was unnecessarily bloated compared to the tight pacing and non-stop thrills of the original. Thank goodness we got to see Capcom do right by Devil May Cry with the third game, otherwise the series may have died almost as soon as it started.

Battlefield 2042

• Release Date — November 19, 2021
• Developer — DICE
• Publisher — Electronic Arts
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 63% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Dedicated military shooter fans can be a prickly bunch, which is especially true when narrowing the focus to just Battlefield fans. And rightfully so, as Battlefield is an incredibly iconic series with a strong track record of great entries that offer some of the best large-scale warfare simulations out there. So why EA thought it would be a good idea to completely do away with the systems of past Battlefield games for 2042 is a total mystery. Battlefield 2042 launched to a mostly negative reception, with players understandably upset about the switch from classes to hero shooter-like operators and generally displeased with the game’s technical performance. DICE was able to right the ship, though, eventually paving the way for the excellent Battlefield 6 and the series’ return to form.

Diablo Immortal

• Release Date — June 2, 2022
• Developer — Blizzard Entertainment, NetEase Games
• Publisher — Blizzard Entertainment
• Genre — ARPG
• Review Aggregate Score — 67% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — Android, iOS, PC

“Do you guys not have phones?!” With that one phrase, Blizzard Entertainment sealed Diablo Immortal‘s fate as a soulless cash grab that fans were all too ready to write off before they even played it. Tone deaf remarks from Blizzard employees aside, though, Diablo Immortal is also just a soulless cash grab that lives and dies by its predatory microtransaction system. “Pay to win” is nothing new in mobile games, but Diablo Immortal takes it to dizzying new highs (or is it lows?). And while the Diablo franchise has definitely been on an upswing since the release of Diablo Immortal (including the excellent Diablo II remaster and the incredibly positive reception and player retention of Diablo IV), it’s hard not to view Immortal as being one of several elements that changed most players’ perception of Blizzard as a company for the worse.

Fallout 76

• Release Date — November 14, 2018
• Developer — Bethesda Game Studios
• Publisher — Bethesda Softworks
• Genre — Action RPG, MMORPG
• Review Aggregate Score — 53% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Speaking of greedy cash grabs, I guess it’s time to talk about Fallout 76. An MMORPG set in the Fallout universe seems like it would be a no-brainer success for Bethesda, but the company’s reliance on a predatory subscription model at launch, combined with some disastrous technical performance and a litany of bugs, made Fallout 76 an insult to the IP and Bethesda’s legacy. However, much like DICE was able to do with Battlefield 2042, Bethesda has been able to mostly fix Fallout 76 and restore a bit of goodwill toward the game, to the point where it seems to have done a one-eighty in the eyes of fans. But that initial ball drop seems to have set the entire IP back by a couple of years, resulting in Fallout 5 not even being a possibility before 2030.

Street Fighter V

• Release Date — February 16, 2016
• Developer — Capcom, Dimps
• Publisher — Capcom
• Genre — Fighting
• Review Aggregate Score — 74% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 4

Between the incredibly successful Street Fighter IV and the most recent (and critically acclaimed) Street Fighter 6, Capcom hit a bit of a rough patch with Street Fighter V, especially in its initial launch window. A fighting game that is intended to foster and then thrive upon a bustling online community needs to have solid netcode to make that happen, and the frustrating technical issues that players ran into in the initial months of Street Fighter V‘s launch almost made it dead on arrival. Thankfully, Street Fighter V picked up the slack in the intervening years and is in a much better state today than it was back in 2016, but it still lost the series a bit of momentum in comparison to Capcom’s other golden geese (one of which we’ll talk about very soon).

Star Fox Zero

• Release Date — April 21, 2016
• Developer — Nintendo EPD, PlatinumGames
• Publisher — Nintendo
• Genre — Rail Shooter
• Review Aggregate Score — 69% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — Wii U

Looking at the ingredients for Star Fox Zero on paper, it’s hard to imagine it not being a rousing success. The Star Fox franchise has always been an on-rails shooter at heart more than it’s been any kind of realistic flight sim, so to see Nintendo partnering with PlatinumGames to make a new Star Fox shoot ’em up seems like it would be a winning combo. And, for the most part, it is. Where Star Fox Zero falls short is with its confusing control scheme, which forces players to use the Wii U tablet in ways that are entirely counterintuitive. If we could get a Switch port of this game with some normal controls, that might be enough for Nintendo to see that players are still interested in the franchise and encourage its revival.

Mass Effect: Andromeda

• Release Date — March 21, 2017
• Developer — BioWare
• Publisher — Electronic Arts
• Genre — Action RPG
• Review Aggregate Score — 76% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

After almost killing Dragon Age and then setting its sights on ruining Dead Space, the next target for EA’s terrible management decisions was the Mass Effect franchise, which had a lot riding on its follow-up to the main trilogy. Mass Effect: Andromeda was pretty much doomed from the start by Electronic Arts’ insistence that BioWare use the Battlefield Frostbite Engine for the game’s development, which presented all kinds of problems that resulted in one setback after another. By the time Andromeda launched, it failed to really connect with fans or meet the lofty expectations set by the original trilogy, leaving the Mass Effect franchise dead in the water for years until the eventual reveal that a fourth mainline game was in the works (though who knows, given BioWare’s current woes).

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

• Release Date — January 14, 1987
• Developer — Nintendo R&D 4
• Publisher — Nintendo
• Genre — Action-Adventure, Action RPG
• Review Aggregate Score — 78% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — NES

Looking back now, it seems almost impossible that a Zelda game could ever be anything but universally loved, but that was absolutely the case with the first sequel in the series, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Released at a time when Nintendo was hungry to experiment with the kinds of experiences that the NES made possible, Zelda II runs counter to everything players loved about the original, adopting a new perspective, greater emphasis on RPG mechanics, and a steep challenge. It sold like crazy, but a lot of fans of the original hated it, leaving the future of the series in question. Thankfully, the team at Nintendo EAD recognized the need to go back to the style of the original for the series’ third game and SNES debut, gifting us one of the best games ever made with A Link to the Past.

Resident Evil 6

• Release Date — October 2, 2012
• Developer — Capcom
• Publisher — Capcom
• Genre — Survival Horror, Action
• Review Aggregate Score — 67% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

There’s absolutely no way we could have a list of games that almost derailed their franchises without talking about Resident Evil 6, the one game in the series that just about everyone can agree on hating. In fact, Resident Evil 6 was subject to such a mediocre critical and commercial reception that it prompted Capcom to go back to the drawing board and soft reboot the entire series with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, paving the way for the franchise’s current ongoing renaissance. In a way, we have Resident Evil 6 to thank for that, but that doesn’t mean we should go back and play it. No. Never, ever do that. Bloated, boring, and unsure of what kind of game it wants to be, Resident Evil 6 is a mess best left in the dustbin of history.

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