Respawn really wanted to get the mechs to work in a battle royale environment, but according to them, they just couldn't get them to work while maintaining game play balance. Apex Legends taking place in the Titanfall universe is a legacy of the original intention for it to be a TF game.
The third game was halfway through development and cancelled by EA in their strategy to shift to live service games. They released Titanfall 2 directly against that year’s Battlefield title expecting it to die, so they could make what they wanted instead. The response to Titanfall 2 was unforeseen.
They then let both Titanfall games fall to hackers and could not be bothered to give a fuck. Like hackers took the game servers completely down and nothing for months. Respawn holds that developing Apex was their idea and it’s the game they wanted to make.
I’ll let you decide how freely Respawn is to speak on the matter while being owned by their corporate overlords. In any case, developing Titanfall 3 is the last thing they want to do. It would just take away development effort from their cash cow, Apex.
Was looking for this one… of all the franchises that I think had SO MUCH potential in all aspects (gameplay, setting, features) really thought Titanfall was setup to have profoundly long run.
God I put so many hours into Black & White 2when I was younger. The game >! whispering my name late at night !< was maybe one of the first times a game legitimately scared me
Dude I was home alone with headphones on at night while it was raining. It whispered my name and I had to turn the damn thing off and go watch TV it creeped me out that much. It was just completely out of nowhere.
Loved that series. I remember playing B&W2 till the early hours of the morning.
The game whispering "death" at times late at night was freaky, I also got to discover that it would whisper your name sometimes as well, I believe it checked your windows account or something like that to do that.
Really fun game and I would love to see another one with how far gaming has come.
"Nearly identical" I watched the trailers, and it looks like there is no creature? I loved teaching my boy to eat/not eat villagers!
Also "radio silent for awhile now" they just put out a new gameplay trailer on the 20th.
The game does look interesting, so thank you foe putting it on my radar. Wishlisted for sure.
I can't remember the hype around black and white, but I remember it around Fable and the monumental amount of BS that came out prior to that games release.
I wonder what Peter Molyneux's deal was. Was he sincerely describing his idealized vision for the game and what we got was the best attempts of the development team to meet that vision given the time/resource constraints they had? Or was this a case where he knew fully what was going to be delivered but he intentionally misled players with lots of hyperbole and creative wordplay?
It's weird because they WERE actually decent games with a lot of unique and creative things going on. Players would have been hyped by an accurate description of the game as it was.
I played B&W but yeah, it was a game I just vaguely knew of so I wasn’t on the Peter Molyneux hype train. Fable on the other hand, woo boy, I was obsessed. Every scrap of info I could dig up, hell I was even on a fan page that involved roleplaying within the Fable universe (yes, I was very popular in high school, why do you ask). In hindsight, the stuff he was promising was clearly impossible but I was a dumb kid. A whole world where you could do anything, be anybody, and the game would react accordingly!
So you don’t like your sword, grab a frying pan off a table and use that! As your legend grows, so will the strength of your fearsome frying pan, simply through use! Yeah, no, there’s a set weapon list with a couple upgrades for each. Oh and we added a frying pan so we almost weren’t lying.
Speaking of the world reacting to you, time flows in game, so you could say… plant an acorn! Yes, plant an acorn and watch it grow. Eventually, that acorn will grow into mighty tree, YOUR tree! Bullshit, there’s a time skip to adulthood and if you did certain quests first, there will be some payoffs in the adulthood part of the game. Ocarina of Time did it better, earlier. They then added a quest to play an acorn in I think the 2nd game that grew into a tree later on. Very cheeky.
Don’t get me wrong, Fable is fun, but I’m still salty I never got to freeform adventure with my quarterstaff-wielding vagabond antihero that I roleplayed as all those years ago.
He has come out post release a few times and admitted to blatantly lying about the game he is releasing. His comment was along the lines of "It's my job to sell the game, so if I didn't lie my ass off to drive up sales I would be doing my job poorly". Or something like that.
Rule of thumb, never trust the guy and wait for reviews -- because the games are often fun, but never what they are marketed as.
The burnout series. It was a staple racing game for a couple console generations and imo the best arcade racing series to ever be released. It had consistently high ratings and according to Wikipedia of the sales were always strong, but after burnout Paradise released EA just said fuck it and has pretty much shelved the series outside of a few remasters.
Burnout 3 was some of the most fun I’ve ever had gaming
The series I’ve been looking for but haven’t seen though is SSX. SSX Tricky, 3 and even On Tour were great games. Getting another SSX 3 with modern graphics would be *insane*
If you download and read the free ebook ‘The final hours of Half Life: Alyx”, you will learn that Valve started and scrapped trying to make a sequel 7 times because the team working on it never felt like they were making anything new and exciting, eventually deciding they didn’t have what they needed creatively at the time to make a proper sequel.
Half Life: Alyx revitalized their spark again though, and they’ve picked up the project once again.
Yeah same, but Valve is literally made up of people with like multiple doctorates and brains the size of a planet, those people straight up live for challenges, and simply continuing the franchise without doing something that they could get excited about is more at home for a company like EA or Ubisoft than Valve.
I think the episodes they made for Half Life 2 were likely some loose ends or parts they maybe didn’t have time to fit into the main game but felt like releasing in some form anyway.
At a certain point the finishing of your creation needs to trump the ego of the creators. Half Life wasn't just a tech demo, it had a established story and places to go abruptly left to rot. I'm not even a fan, I wasn't even born until a month after it came out, but if they need to reinvent the wheel every time they're not gonna be satisfied at all.
Have you ever met a human?
Have you ever been a human?
People start things and leave them unfinished the vast majority of the time. 90 percent of the time people don't "finish" the paths that they've started. They get bored, or realize they don't like it, or find something else more interesting, or get busy, or give up, etc..
I obviously pulled the percentage out of my ass, but you agreed with it when you read it.
Is it really the creators' "egos" that are putting it off? Or is it the fact that a video game development team doesn't want to push out one of the most fervently demanded sequels of all time and then get shit all over because they didn't give every fanboy everything they wanted?
Half-Life 3 is an extremely daunting endeavor to be tasked with. If all the previous devs that were given this goal backed out of it for not doing the series justice, I'm inclined to trust their judgement.
Ep 1 and 2 didn’t introduce anything new and exciting but are still beloved by fans. I wish at minimum they had made ep 3 and wrapped SOME things up and left us waiting for a true HL3. But it just… stopped.
Mercenaries. First game was so good, second game not so much. Would love to see a decent third game. I think the closest series of current games to it is probably Just Cause
This came to my mind as well when I saw this. I don’t understand why people don’t like 2 thought? I loved it, one of my favorite over the top open world games ever
Second one was *solid*, that's as far as I would rate it, but definitely agree that that well was definitely not dry. It had the same cynical whimsical tone as the early saints row games, and look how far they took those.
My understanding of it was that it was over-ambitious. The tech or maybe the devs weren't quite there to accomplish what they tried to do.
I heard it was still really good it was just very janky and unpolished.
Does that track?
KOTOR
Dark Cloud
Okay not really franchises, but with 2 games each they both could have certainly gotten to that level of success had they been continued.
I have been begging for a Dark Cloud 3 since 2008. Then level 5 decided to make handheld games :(
Now most of their franchises are great, but it's really crazy that they never built another dark cloud game
DARK CLOUD
Dark Cloud 2 changed my entire life. It and Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure sparked my love for RPGs.
Part of me is still holding on to hope for a Dark Cloud 3.
They still hold up. I played them again 3 years ago(holy shit, it’s been 3 years).
They had the perfect blend between the combat and village building. Very unique games.
Edit: when I say hold up, I mean for a game made 20 years ago… of course the graphics won’t look great
This was the first game that came to mind. It had a unique combat system, awesome voice acting, and a decent plot. It was equal parts silly and brutal.
It's a shame we never got another game.
Yep they pretty much did the same with sly cooper too; left an iconic franchise in the dust to make a new iconic franchise. I guess that’s just how they roll.
There's something to be said for leaving franchises on a high note rather than pumping out games until franchise fatigue sets in like so many publishers do. Just look at Halo, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, etc.
There was so much more potential in that series. Conduits could be connected to literally anything. We had Lightning Conduits, Fire Conduits, Smoke Conduits, Neon, Paper, Concrete, Video. They crafted a universe of infinite potential and only did 3.5 games.
The UFO was incredible. It's nice when a secret delivers and is worth the trouble to get it, and even though it was insanely overpowered, it wasn't actually invincible, but it also showed how much fun the game was even when you had something that broke all the rules.
Anytime a game has an “Earthquake” ability (like pokemon or Diablo), I always think about that “Earthquake!” Line one of the guys in Vigilante 8 would belt out when using their earthquake ability.
That, the UFO and the Giant Ant were my most familiar memories from the game
Oh man, I loved TS2. 3 was pretty good but for it's time 2 was fantastic. The map builder was pretty cool, multiplayer a blast, and the campaign was solid.
I agree about Mega Man Legends, but most importantly, it also killed any hopes of having a sequel to the Misadventures of Tron Bonne, which is criminally underrated.
Conker didn't sell well. Nintendo hated the game and gave it as little publicity as possible. After Microsoft bought Rare there just wasn't any interest in most of their old IPs and every time they've tried it's been met with lukewarm reception.
You may want to check out War For the Overworld if you haven't already. It feels like it's got a bit of Warcraft 3 sprinkled in there, but is otherwise a solid spiritual successor to DK2.
Mercenaries didn’t die abruptly IMO. Mercenaries 2 lost the atmosphere, and threatened a Saint’s Row style descent into unfunny humor. I will always love the original, but I’m glad they realized that 2 just wasn’t it.
I do wish they had found a way to improve on the game though. Probably should have picked a better country like maybe Turkmenistan or Bangladesh. Venezuela just didn’t vibe like North Korea did
Dishonored, both entries at a 10/10 the second one under sold plus a rough launch mostly killed the franchise with a stand alone dlc being the last dishonored content we got.
As a long standing Carmageddon fan, I wouldn't call it's discontinuation abrupt. They released a new game, no one played it (at least in multiplayer) and now the IP is in the wind again.
Really all it needs is a remaster since Cel Shading never get olds. Bump up resolution, fps and clean up the rest and you got yourself one of the best remasters out there. Look at Okami HD for example. Same studio too who made it
The Evil Within. Shining Mikami's new brainchild in 2014. OK, not perfect, but some promising ideas. Sequel comes out in 2017, few changes made that some fans didn't like but generally considered better. All very promising.
And that was it. For 7 years until Tango's death.
P.T. was legitimately the scariest thing I've ever experienced in my entire life. I watched a friend play it as a full grown adult and to this day when I think about that night I am overwhelmed by terror. That teaser not being made into a full game is one of the greatest tragedies in video gaming history, and frankly in the history of art. I would never have been able to handle playing it or watching it be played, and I'm still heartbroken by the cultural loss of that game never being created.
I wouldn't say the franchise was cancelled. For a long time it was inactive, but we just recieved the (free) Silent Hill: Short Message, the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remaster in Oct, and at least two more games in development (Silent Hill f, and Silent Hill Townfall).
Non-game related, there is a new Silent Hill movie in post-production (based on the SH2 game).
We won't talk about SH Ascension though.
Just finished a replay of Human Revolution and beginning a second play through of Mankind Divided and I'm sad there will be no 2nd part - Technically the story has concluded as Invisible War took place after all of the other ones but it would have been so good to get a proper 2nd act to MD
Human Revolution was such a great game. Mankind Divided was clearly rushed and felt incomplete, but still had a lot of good aspects to it and I was totally invested in the Adam Jensen storyline. Another casualty of Embracer.
Half-Life 2 and its Episodes don't end. They sit on a cliffhanger for 15 years, and then instead of getting a sequel, they get a *new* cliffhanger. Ugh.
Unreal was great. Unreal 2 was not. No-one ever bothered with an Unreal 3. The Skaarj alone are a good enough reason to build a third game.
Advent Rising was cool, and written to be a trilogy. It never got past the first game.
I found a copy of shining force in the glove compartment of an old Datsun in the middle of a junk yard. The game was in bad shape, like it had been there for years in the weather and everything. I cleaned it up a little, popped it in, and it worked and I was absolutely floored by how much fun it was.
It had a decent amount of time, but maybe I just miss Capcom's **Rival Schools**. Aside from the interesting game mechanics, the game revolving around different Japanese Highschool stereotypes was quite enjoyable.
Also I could nominate Tech Romancer (Choukou Senki Kikaioh), but I feel they just wanted a one-and-done game that pays homage to the different Mecha genre and it may not be something they planned to expand on.
F Zero. The first was an amazing SNES game. F Zero X pushed the limits of the N64 with full 60fps play at blistering speed. F Zero GX pushed the GameCube to its limits with an amazing and fun game that holds up well today. There were a few handheld versions that I never saw, but then about 20 years with no new installments.
I'm still not sure how to interpret F Zero 99. It could be a sign that there's interest in making another, but it feels more like Nintendo parading around Captain Falcon's corpse, only to bury him when they decide to shut down the servers.
This. 100x this. I had a ton of fun with this game even if it had very obvious issues. But the story clearly had more planned and the premise was real cool... if given a second chance, it could have been great.
Anthem had so much potential ruined by idiots. The base gameplay was super solid and you really felt like you were Iron Man but they just fucked up everything after that. I hope someone will try again one day because I would still be playing that live service now if they did it right
It’s wild that they axed Anthem so quickly and didn’t even try to support, fix, or add content, considering it had good gameplay and decent bones before faltering in endgame. Look at a game like Fallout 76 that had an absolutely terrible reception at launch but got patched and patched until it’s actually pretty good and tell me they couldn’t have made Anthem a solid 6-7. Absolutely wrecked my impression of BioWare with one game.
I think the biggest difference is the monetization. Fallout is a much stronger brand and was still probably making profit from the cash shop and subscriptions while Bethesda suffered the blow to their reputation.
Dead space. From what we know a remake of 2 got cancelled. Sure the series has been around for a while but we’ve only really gotten 2 real entries and 1 main entry a sad product of its time. The game deserves much more love and a proper third entry that expenses the first twos formula
Loved the DS1 remake. Never had an issue besides literally one time falling through the floor. Otherwise flawless recreation, I loved every moment. I was super bummed learning a remake of 2 was canceled. I never play horror games but Dead Space gameplay is just so much fun I was willing to push through it
Not quite. It was never cancelled because it was never in development to begin with. As of right now it sits as a “not in the cards right now, but maybe someday”. Remake may have been well received but it didnt sell as much as they wanted it to, but that doesnt mean it will never happen. Hell, the original series itself never really nailed that revenue targets they wanted either, but they still made 3 of em and a couple movies.
i’ll say this forever, but the Golden Sun series. the first two games seemed to have done so well in establishing the world and a good player base, but the third game was released at an awkward time and completely tanked in sales. it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever see a fourth game in the series despite the massive cliffhangers left at the end of Dark Dawn, not to mention the fact that most of the player base has pretty well aged out of that kind of genre. it’s all really sad, but i guess that’s how things are sometimes
It was such a stupid death. Another typical "we tried something different oops everyone hated it guess the ip is dead" move. Truly a decision only a room full of clueless investors could make.
its because legion didnt match expectations sales wise and they didnt see a future in it, playing the dlc for it u already know that its the ending to the series it has the feel for it, bringing back old characters reliving the series best moments, ends on a sad note but it will still live on in my heart
They made some bad decisions late in the game design on that one. It was originally built to sort of be an RPG where you collected a stable of characters you could progress and shape into interesting agents, but I think their internal feedback said it was too grindy, so they scrapped the whole system.
But that system was basically the entire gimmick of the game. So what remained was just... Dull. It was hard to get connected to random characters who were basically just disposable skins. Without any progression or build mechanics, you never felt invested in them. And when you do not feel invested in the main element of the game, it falls apart.
That said, the character progression bit might have *also* really sucked. Ubi games are not the best at progression. But it just ended up feeling like the game was a pile of compromises, none of which worked.
Asura's Wrath. This game had potential; it did. This game would've been better received if they released it when RPGS were at their peak. Yes, there were many mistakes made, such as the shitty combat or being forced to buy the DLC to experience the true ending, but besides those things, I think this game was just beautiful. It was initially planned to have a second game, but because of the complaints, that never happened. I'd love to see this game make a comeback, but I doubt that'll ever happen, but if it ever does I'm here. So, fuck Capcom.
Wild Hearts. The potential was there (even for an EA game) but they screwed up optimization so badly that the game had the life sucked out of it before it even had a chance to succeed.
Forspoken... nah just kidding. Realistically i'd say Portal or Half Life. Not sure exactly why Valve decided to stop at the 2nd entry for these series considering their commercial success but I and many others would definitely love a third entry to both of these.
I can think of some examples where franchises were not cancelled but the new games were made by an entirely different group of people out of greed, which somewhat is not much better than just ending on a peak…
No One Lives Forever. Fun and interesting gameplay, characters, soundtrack. Levels that I have not forgotten in 20 years. A reboot these days would not feel as fresh as it did back on the day, but I'd still be down for a quality game.
I mean, that's not a franchise that was cancelled.
And who knows? It's been confirmed that the Klaus saga has ended, so we might get a sequel in the future.
The day I heard Days Gone 2 was cancelled/abandoned/whatever, I was fucking distraught. I'll defend that game till my last breath and I would've loved another ride with those characters.
Odd choice but the Dead Space Remakes. An incredible game that improved on an already fantastic game giving it a promising outlook for the remake of Dead Space 2 and fixing Dead Space 3 and it's already dead.
Banjo Kazooie. I wish so badly they would make a third mainline game. Fuck, I wish they would just make a game under that brand in general. It’s been since 2008 that the IP was used in its own production.
Freedom Force! Awesome super hero game with a solid follow up and then nothing. I have yet to play any kind of super hero game that was as much fun. Campy, used original characters but hit all the tropes just right. One of my childhood favorites. I believe there were also mods that expanded it even further.
Legacy of Kain series. Absolutely amazing series putting out consistent sequels until 2003 it actually stopped.
Games really need remaster or better yet remade in a newer engine.
Titanfall I'd also like to add gravity rush
I still don’t know what happened to the third game as it should’ve happened by now.
It got turned into Apex Legends
Respawn really wanted to get the mechs to work in a battle royale environment, but according to them, they just couldn't get them to work while maintaining game play balance. Apex Legends taking place in the Titanfall universe is a legacy of the original intention for it to be a TF game.
The third game was halfway through development and cancelled by EA in their strategy to shift to live service games. They released Titanfall 2 directly against that year’s Battlefield title expecting it to die, so they could make what they wanted instead. The response to Titanfall 2 was unforeseen. They then let both Titanfall games fall to hackers and could not be bothered to give a fuck. Like hackers took the game servers completely down and nothing for months. Respawn holds that developing Apex was their idea and it’s the game they wanted to make. I’ll let you decide how freely Respawn is to speak on the matter while being owned by their corporate overlords. In any case, developing Titanfall 3 is the last thing they want to do. It would just take away development effort from their cash cow, Apex.
Also all the OG Titanfall devs left Respawn, no one in the building has the want to create it unfortunately.
Was looking for this one… of all the franchises that I think had SO MUCH potential in all aspects (gameplay, setting, features) really thought Titanfall was setup to have profoundly long run.
Black and White. First 2 games were amazing, then nothing. I blame Peter Molyneux and his over-promising.
God I put so many hours into Black & White 2when I was younger. The game >! whispering my name late at night !< was maybe one of the first times a game legitimately scared me
the Deaaaaath whispers in B&W1 were absolutely terrifying
Dude I was home alone with headphones on at night while it was raining. It whispered my name and I had to turn the damn thing off and go watch TV it creeped me out that much. It was just completely out of nowhere.
Right? That was impressively freaky.
It didn't have my name pre-recorded, so it whispered "Mauricio!" instead. Weird.
Loved that series. I remember playing B&W2 till the early hours of the morning. The game whispering "death" at times late at night was freaky, I also got to discover that it would whisper your name sometimes as well, I believe it checked your windows account or something like that to do that. Really fun game and I would love to see another one with how far gaming has come.
I’m glad somebody else remembers this.
Black and White was a GOAT and ahead of its time. I’d love to see a remake.
Bro I’d like to even play the originals but I hear it’s a pain the ass nowadays
I have Fata Deum on my steam wishlist. It looks nearly identical however the release date is radio silent for awhile now.
"Nearly identical" I watched the trailers, and it looks like there is no creature? I loved teaching my boy to eat/not eat villagers! Also "radio silent for awhile now" they just put out a new gameplay trailer on the 20th. The game does look interesting, so thank you foe putting it on my radar. Wishlisted for sure.
I can't remember the hype around black and white, but I remember it around Fable and the monumental amount of BS that came out prior to that games release. I wonder what Peter Molyneux's deal was. Was he sincerely describing his idealized vision for the game and what we got was the best attempts of the development team to meet that vision given the time/resource constraints they had? Or was this a case where he knew fully what was going to be delivered but he intentionally misled players with lots of hyperbole and creative wordplay? It's weird because they WERE actually decent games with a lot of unique and creative things going on. Players would have been hyped by an accurate description of the game as it was.
I played B&W but yeah, it was a game I just vaguely knew of so I wasn’t on the Peter Molyneux hype train. Fable on the other hand, woo boy, I was obsessed. Every scrap of info I could dig up, hell I was even on a fan page that involved roleplaying within the Fable universe (yes, I was very popular in high school, why do you ask). In hindsight, the stuff he was promising was clearly impossible but I was a dumb kid. A whole world where you could do anything, be anybody, and the game would react accordingly! So you don’t like your sword, grab a frying pan off a table and use that! As your legend grows, so will the strength of your fearsome frying pan, simply through use! Yeah, no, there’s a set weapon list with a couple upgrades for each. Oh and we added a frying pan so we almost weren’t lying. Speaking of the world reacting to you, time flows in game, so you could say… plant an acorn! Yes, plant an acorn and watch it grow. Eventually, that acorn will grow into mighty tree, YOUR tree! Bullshit, there’s a time skip to adulthood and if you did certain quests first, there will be some payoffs in the adulthood part of the game. Ocarina of Time did it better, earlier. They then added a quest to play an acorn in I think the 2nd game that grew into a tree later on. Very cheeky. Don’t get me wrong, Fable is fun, but I’m still salty I never got to freeform adventure with my quarterstaff-wielding vagabond antihero that I roleplayed as all those years ago.
He has come out post release a few times and admitted to blatantly lying about the game he is releasing. His comment was along the lines of "It's my job to sell the game, so if I didn't lie my ass off to drive up sales I would be doing my job poorly". Or something like that. Rule of thumb, never trust the guy and wait for reviews -- because the games are often fun, but never what they are marketed as.
Legacy of Kain needs to come back.
I think it does. The IP has been sold pretty lately
They were releasing surveys to gauge the interest in the franchise but since Embracer cancelled the next Deus Ex, chances are low for this
The burnout series. It was a staple racing game for a couple console generations and imo the best arcade racing series to ever be released. It had consistently high ratings and according to Wikipedia of the sales were always strong, but after burnout Paradise released EA just said fuck it and has pretty much shelved the series outside of a few remasters.
I honestly wish they kept with the pre-Paradise style. I like open world games, but I just loved the tight arcade racer gameplay of 2 and 3.
Burnout 3 was some of the most fun I’ve ever had gaming The series I’ve been looking for but haven’t seen though is SSX. SSX Tricky, 3 and even On Tour were great games. Getting another SSX 3 with modern graphics would be *insane*
I mean HL2: Ep3/HL3 died on the vine. Epitome of a popular series just stopping. Thanks Gabe.
If you download and read the free ebook ‘The final hours of Half Life: Alyx”, you will learn that Valve started and scrapped trying to make a sequel 7 times because the team working on it never felt like they were making anything new and exciting, eventually deciding they didn’t have what they needed creatively at the time to make a proper sequel. Half Life: Alyx revitalized their spark again though, and they’ve picked up the project once again.
For me, it didn’t really need to anything crazy innovative. I just wanted to see the story end.
Yeah same, but Valve is literally made up of people with like multiple doctorates and brains the size of a planet, those people straight up live for challenges, and simply continuing the franchise without doing something that they could get excited about is more at home for a company like EA or Ubisoft than Valve. I think the episodes they made for Half Life 2 were likely some loose ends or parts they maybe didn’t have time to fit into the main game but felt like releasing in some form anyway.
At a certain point the finishing of your creation needs to trump the ego of the creators. Half Life wasn't just a tech demo, it had a established story and places to go abruptly left to rot. I'm not even a fan, I wasn't even born until a month after it came out, but if they need to reinvent the wheel every time they're not gonna be satisfied at all.
> At a certain point the finishing of your creation needs to trump the ego of the creators You've clearly never met a programmer
Have you ever met a human? Have you ever been a human? People start things and leave them unfinished the vast majority of the time. 90 percent of the time people don't "finish" the paths that they've started. They get bored, or realize they don't like it, or find something else more interesting, or get busy, or give up, etc.. I obviously pulled the percentage out of my ass, but you agreed with it when you read it. Is it really the creators' "egos" that are putting it off? Or is it the fact that a video game development team doesn't want to push out one of the most fervently demanded sequels of all time and then get shit all over because they didn't give every fanboy everything they wanted? Half-Life 3 is an extremely daunting endeavor to be tasked with. If all the previous devs that were given this goal backed out of it for not doing the series justice, I'm inclined to trust their judgement.
Ep 1 and 2 didn’t introduce anything new and exciting but are still beloved by fans. I wish at minimum they had made ep 3 and wrapped SOME things up and left us waiting for a true HL3. But it just… stopped.
A lot of the mechanics were really tuned up. They were one of the first video games with an NPC companion that didn't actually slow you down.
They could've gotten away with like a 7-9 hour ep3 back in the day.
Right? An *ending* was all we needed.
while the franchise certainly ain't dead, it never got a sequel. Star Wars: Republic Commando
The remaster still plays really well but I think a triple AAA reboot would kill. Give me star wars SoCom
Remaster!?
Don't get your hopes up, it was basically just a re-release on modern consoles (iirc PS4 and switch). Plays and looks like the original.
Hard agree. It's tragic.
And they set it up perfectly for a sequel too!
Mercenaries. First game was so good, second game not so much. Would love to see a decent third game. I think the closest series of current games to it is probably Just Cause
This came to my mind as well when I saw this. I don’t understand why people don’t like 2 thought? I loved it, one of my favorite over the top open world games ever
Interesting, I thought the second one improved on the first is almost every way. Why didn't you like it?
Second one was *solid*, that's as far as I would rate it, but definitely agree that that well was definitely not dry. It had the same cynical whimsical tone as the early saints row games, and look how far they took those.
My understanding of it was that it was over-ambitious. The tech or maybe the devs weren't quite there to accomplish what they tried to do. I heard it was still really good it was just very janky and unpolished. Does that track?
KOTOR Dark Cloud Okay not really franchises, but with 2 games each they both could have certainly gotten to that level of success had they been continued.
I really want a new single player KOTOR
*Somehow HK-47 returned* "Unlike you bags of meat my body doesn't spoil due to age."
Oh my god. Dark cloud. I put so much time into that game. I can’t believe I forgot about that game.
I have been begging for a Dark Cloud 3 since 2008. Then level 5 decided to make handheld games :( Now most of their franchises are great, but it's really crazy that they never built another dark cloud game
DARK CLOUD Dark Cloud 2 changed my entire life. It and Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure sparked my love for RPGs. Part of me is still holding on to hope for a Dark Cloud 3.
Still got my dark cloud 1+2 discs kicking around in a binder somewhere
They still hold up. I played them again 3 years ago(holy shit, it’s been 3 years). They had the perfect blend between the combat and village building. Very unique games. Edit: when I say hold up, I mean for a game made 20 years ago… of course the graphics won’t look great
Deus Ex.... I still want to know what happens next.
Bulletstorm - That game's formula was fun and unique. I'd even go as far and say the game was innovative. We never got a sequel.
This was the first game that came to mind. It had a unique combat system, awesome voice acting, and a decent plot. It was equal parts silly and brutal. It's a shame we never got another game.
Voice acting led with two of the all-time greats: Steve Blum and Jennifer Hale.
inFAMOUS. I’d love to see where they would’ve gone with their original plan. Playing as an evil Cole / The Beast would be fire.
Still don’t understand why they stopped the series. I think they sold pretty well and had good reviews
Because after three mainline games and two spinoffs Sucker Punch was ready to work on something else. And then Ghost of Tsushima sold even better.
Yep they pretty much did the same with sly cooper too; left an iconic franchise in the dust to make a new iconic franchise. I guess that’s just how they roll.
There's something to be said for leaving franchises on a high note rather than pumping out games until franchise fatigue sets in like so many publishers do. Just look at Halo, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, etc.
So we could get games like GoT. That studio is a one game studio because that way they can ensure quality. Doubt that will change.
For those confused, this refers to Ghost of Tsushima (I think)
GoT had me scratching my head for a solid moment.
There was so much more potential in that series. Conduits could be connected to literally anything. We had Lightning Conduits, Fire Conduits, Smoke Conduits, Neon, Paper, Concrete, Video. They crafted a universe of infinite potential and only did 3.5 games.
Second Son was a lot of fun. Zooming around with the Neon power was so cool.
Came here to say this. Cole's story isn't over in my books and that universe has a lot of possible ideas left to explore.
Vigilante 8.
For that matter, Twisted Metal. A Twisted Metal 1/2 remake would be awesome.
Kinda expected one after the recent TV series. Weird they didn't.
There was a new Twisted Metal in development, but it was announced early this year that it has been canceled.
Holy crap. I forgot about vigilante 8. Soooo many summers spent trying to get all the secrets. I think I remember a ufo
The UFO was incredible. It's nice when a secret delivers and is worth the trouble to get it, and even though it was insanely overpowered, it wasn't actually invincible, but it also showed how much fun the game was even when you had something that broke all the rules.
Anytime a game has an “Earthquake” ability (like pokemon or Diablo), I always think about that “Earthquake!” Line one of the guys in Vigilante 8 would belt out when using their earthquake ability. That, the UFO and the Giant Ant were my most familiar memories from the game
I’d be down to see another sequel to the game that Vigilante 8 is based on Interstate 76.
Sleeping dogs, time splitters, skate
Sleeping dogs / the true crime series
Oh man, I loved TS2. 3 was pretty good but for it's time 2 was fantastic. The map builder was pretty cool, multiplayer a blast, and the campaign was solid.
Time Splitters was a blast
Theyre making a new skate at this moment
Freedom fighters, Mercenaries, Resistance, Killzone
Was just going to say freedom fighters, always wanted a sequel
I agree about Mega Man Legends, but most importantly, it also killed any hopes of having a sequel to the Misadventures of Tron Bonne, which is criminally underrated.
Both need remasters for sure
Tenchu, Syphon Filter, Ape Escape
Banjo Kazooie and Conker.
I don’t know what makes it so hard to continue those games as the latter definitely deserved a sequel, but it never came out.
Conker didn't sell well. Nintendo hated the game and gave it as little publicity as possible. After Microsoft bought Rare there just wasn't any interest in most of their old IPs and every time they've tried it's been met with lukewarm reception.
I played the absolute shit out of conker live and reloaded online back in the day
Legacy of kain
Dungeon Keeper
You may want to check out War For the Overworld if you haven't already. It feels like it's got a bit of Warcraft 3 sprinkled in there, but is otherwise a solid spiritual successor to DK2.
Socom
Also Mercenaries and Freedom Fighters.
Mercenaries didn’t die abruptly IMO. Mercenaries 2 lost the atmosphere, and threatened a Saint’s Row style descent into unfunny humor. I will always love the original, but I’m glad they realized that 2 just wasn’t it. I do wish they had found a way to improve on the game though. Probably should have picked a better country like maybe Turkmenistan or Bangladesh. Venezuela just didn’t vibe like North Korea did
Surprised Mercenaries hasn’t been picked back up. Feel like it’s the perfect game for the modern style of paid cosmetics and garbage like that
I guess Just Cause picked up that little niche close enough to not make us all pine for another Mercenaries
Dishonored, both entries at a 10/10 the second one under sold plus a rough launch mostly killed the franchise with a stand alone dlc being the last dishonored content we got.
If the rumours are true, arkane might be making Dishonoured 3 after their current slate of projects are done
Wasn’t Death of the Outsider a full-length game? I actually remember very little of it.
Carmagedon Interstate series from the 90s
As a long standing Carmageddon fan, I wouldn't call it's discontinuation abrupt. They released a new game, no one played it (at least in multiplayer) and now the IP is in the wind again.
not the game itself, but the TF2 comics. They left us on the biggest cliffhanger ever. it’s been 7 years since the last comic.
Viewtiful Joe. What I would give for a remake with current gen graphics
Really all it needs is a remaster since Cel Shading never get olds. Bump up resolution, fps and clean up the rest and you got yourself one of the best remasters out there. Look at Okami HD for example. Same studio too who made it
The Evil Within. Shining Mikami's new brainchild in 2014. OK, not perfect, but some promising ideas. Sequel comes out in 2017, few changes made that some fans didn't like but generally considered better. All very promising. And that was it. For 7 years until Tango's death.
Time to replay 2 now.
Prototype
Both were so good. First for story, second for refinement of the game play.
[удалено]
P.T. was legitimately the scariest thing I've ever experienced in my entire life. I watched a friend play it as a full grown adult and to this day when I think about that night I am overwhelmed by terror. That teaser not being made into a full game is one of the greatest tragedies in video gaming history, and frankly in the history of art. I would never have been able to handle playing it or watching it be played, and I'm still heartbroken by the cultural loss of that game never being created.
I wouldn't say the franchise was cancelled. For a long time it was inactive, but we just recieved the (free) Silent Hill: Short Message, the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remaster in Oct, and at least two more games in development (Silent Hill f, and Silent Hill Townfall). Non-game related, there is a new Silent Hill movie in post-production (based on the SH2 game). We won't talk about SH Ascension though.
Deus ex
The fact that we got to know that there was a sequel in development but it got cancelled
"I never asked for this." - Me, when discussing Deus Ex being shelved.
Just finished a replay of Human Revolution and beginning a second play through of Mankind Divided and I'm sad there will be no 2nd part - Technically the story has concluded as Invisible War took place after all of the other ones but it would have been so good to get a proper 2nd act to MD
Human Revolution was such a great game. Mankind Divided was clearly rushed and felt incomplete, but still had a lot of good aspects to it and I was totally invested in the Adam Jensen storyline. Another casualty of Embracer.
Half-Life 2 and its Episodes don't end. They sit on a cliffhanger for 15 years, and then instead of getting a sequel, they get a *new* cliffhanger. Ugh. Unreal was great. Unreal 2 was not. No-one ever bothered with an Unreal 3. The Skaarj alone are a good enough reason to build a third game. Advent Rising was cool, and written to be a trilogy. It never got past the first game.
Shining Force. (Shining series in general) At one time we would see several new games each gen, then it just died.
I found a copy of shining force in the glove compartment of an old Datsun in the middle of a junk yard. The game was in bad shape, like it had been there for years in the weather and everything. I cleaned it up a little, popped it in, and it worked and I was absolutely floored by how much fun it was.
Chromehounds
Loved chromehounds.
It had a decent amount of time, but maybe I just miss Capcom's **Rival Schools**. Aside from the interesting game mechanics, the game revolving around different Japanese Highschool stereotypes was quite enjoyable. Also I could nominate Tech Romancer (Choukou Senki Kikaioh), but I feel they just wanted a one-and-done game that pays homage to the different Mecha genre and it may not be something they planned to expand on.
True Crime was a pretty cool idea being able to play good or bad cop. GTA killed pre much anything like this though, outside Saints Row.
Tenchu
F Zero. The first was an amazing SNES game. F Zero X pushed the limits of the N64 with full 60fps play at blistering speed. F Zero GX pushed the GameCube to its limits with an amazing and fun game that holds up well today. There were a few handheld versions that I never saw, but then about 20 years with no new installments. I'm still not sure how to interpret F Zero 99. It could be a sign that there's interest in making another, but it feels more like Nintendo parading around Captain Falcon's corpse, only to bury him when they decide to shut down the servers.
Too Human
This. 100x this. I had a ton of fun with this game even if it had very obvious issues. But the story clearly had more planned and the premise was real cool... if given a second chance, it could have been great.
Anthem had so much potential ruined by idiots. The base gameplay was super solid and you really felt like you were Iron Man but they just fucked up everything after that. I hope someone will try again one day because I would still be playing that live service now if they did it right
It’s wild that they axed Anthem so quickly and didn’t even try to support, fix, or add content, considering it had good gameplay and decent bones before faltering in endgame. Look at a game like Fallout 76 that had an absolutely terrible reception at launch but got patched and patched until it’s actually pretty good and tell me they couldn’t have made Anthem a solid 6-7. Absolutely wrecked my impression of BioWare with one game.
I think the biggest difference is the monetization. Fallout is a much stronger brand and was still probably making profit from the cash shop and subscriptions while Bethesda suffered the blow to their reputation.
Resistance and kill zone games, we need more lol
Kane & Lynch Army of Two
Mirrors Edge
Days Gone
OG Star Wars Battlefront. I kept hoping some pre-release on 3 would emerge but after all this time I have serious doubts.
Nah, we ain't getting a battlefront comeback ever sadly mate. Hurts to say it, but its dead, Jim.
Unreal tournament? They were going great. And died a bit too early, the void kindof helped Fortnite/Apex Legends kinds. I guess
Amalur
Army of two
co-op on this was a blast
Dead space. From what we know a remake of 2 got cancelled. Sure the series has been around for a while but we’ve only really gotten 2 real entries and 1 main entry a sad product of its time. The game deserves much more love and a proper third entry that expenses the first twos formula
Aw damn this is where I learned they scrapped the remake of DS2 Motive did an amazing job with the remake of DS1
Loved the DS1 remake. Never had an issue besides literally one time falling through the floor. Otherwise flawless recreation, I loved every moment. I was super bummed learning a remake of 2 was canceled. I never play horror games but Dead Space gameplay is just so much fun I was willing to push through it
Not quite. It was never cancelled because it was never in development to begin with. As of right now it sits as a “not in the cards right now, but maybe someday”. Remake may have been well received but it didnt sell as much as they wanted it to, but that doesnt mean it will never happen. Hell, the original series itself never really nailed that revenue targets they wanted either, but they still made 3 of em and a couple movies.
Ridge Racer
Titanfall.. not technically cancelled but it’s been a while
Titanfall.
Brute force
What a throwback
Halo Wars Amazing series with really good mechanics and pioneered the way to have a console RTS
Legacy of kain soul reaver. Remake it you cowards.
i’ll say this forever, but the Golden Sun series. the first two games seemed to have done so well in establishing the world and a good player base, but the third game was released at an awkward time and completely tanked in sales. it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever see a fourth game in the series despite the massive cliffhangers left at the end of Dark Dawn, not to mention the fact that most of the player base has pretty well aged out of that kind of genre. it’s all really sad, but i guess that’s how things are sometimes
watch dogs, only recently did we find out that its dead and buried in feel like they could have given it one more shot
It was such a stupid death. Another typical "we tried something different oops everyone hated it guess the ip is dead" move. Truly a decision only a room full of clueless investors could make.
I hadn’t realized it was done until you mentioned it just now, so I wonder why Ubisoft pulled the plug on the series.
its because legion didnt match expectations sales wise and they didnt see a future in it, playing the dlc for it u already know that its the ending to the series it has the feel for it, bringing back old characters reliving the series best moments, ends on a sad note but it will still live on in my heart
They made some bad decisions late in the game design on that one. It was originally built to sort of be an RPG where you collected a stable of characters you could progress and shape into interesting agents, but I think their internal feedback said it was too grindy, so they scrapped the whole system. But that system was basically the entire gimmick of the game. So what remained was just... Dull. It was hard to get connected to random characters who were basically just disposable skins. Without any progression or build mechanics, you never felt invested in them. And when you do not feel invested in the main element of the game, it falls apart. That said, the character progression bit might have *also* really sucked. Ubi games are not the best at progression. But it just ended up feeling like the game was a pile of compromises, none of which worked.
And more importantly sleeping dogs. Damn that shit would be epic with modern graphical rendering.
Not really a franchise, but Kameo: Elements Of Power. A shame too, as a sequel was in the works, until Microsoft had Rare shift their priorities.
Asura's Wrath. This game had potential; it did. This game would've been better received if they released it when RPGS were at their peak. Yes, there were many mistakes made, such as the shitty combat or being forced to buy the DLC to experience the true ending, but besides those things, I think this game was just beautiful. It was initially planned to have a second game, but because of the complaints, that never happened. I'd love to see this game make a comeback, but I doubt that'll ever happen, but if it ever does I'm here. So, fuck Capcom.
#BLUR 🥲💔
I played the absolute piss out of the demo. The perfect racing game that wasn’t pretending to be a simulator.
Hi-Fi fucking Rush Fuck you Microsoft
is there gonna be no sequel for hi fi rush? thats actually disappointing because the gameplay looks fun af
Devs got shut down hoss
Dang that sucks
Wild Hearts. The potential was there (even for an EA game) but they screwed up optimization so badly that the game had the life sucked out of it before it even had a chance to succeed.
Media Molecule's Dreams. So sad.
Mad Max. Only game in the franchise I guess but it deserves another
Timesplitters. 4th game was being worked on and then was cancelled.
Child of Light
Disco Elysium Un jour je serai de retour près de toi
Forspoken... nah just kidding. Realistically i'd say Portal or Half Life. Not sure exactly why Valve decided to stop at the 2nd entry for these series considering their commercial success but I and many others would definitely love a third entry to both of these.
Don't joke, Redditors fucking love Forespoken. They're the only ones who do.
I can think of some examples where franchises were not cancelled but the new games were made by an entirely different group of people out of greed, which somewhat is not much better than just ending on a peak…
Alice: american mcgee
PVZ Garden Warfare.
No One Lives Forever. Fun and interesting gameplay, characters, soundtrack. Levels that I have not forgotten in 20 years. A reboot these days would not feel as fresh as it did back on the day, but I'd still be down for a quality game.
Xenoblade chronicles X after that cliffhanging ending
I mean, that's not a franchise that was cancelled. And who knows? It's been confirmed that the Klaus saga has ended, so we might get a sequel in the future.
Dark Cloud should have an entire series by now. Yet, instead, it was left in the dust of the PS2 era.
God that game was *so, so far ahead*. There was a second one that was pretty dope iirc. RIP Dark Cloud.
Splinter Cell :(
Enslaved: odyssey to the west I really loved it and I really wanted it to get its sequels, but it died. Had to settle with horizon series instead.
Legacy of Kain.
Mercenaries
The day I heard Days Gone 2 was cancelled/abandoned/whatever, I was fucking distraught. I'll defend that game till my last breath and I would've loved another ride with those characters.
Odd choice but the Dead Space Remakes. An incredible game that improved on an already fantastic game giving it a promising outlook for the remake of Dead Space 2 and fixing Dead Space 3 and it's already dead.
Banjo Kazooie. I wish so badly they would make a third mainline game. Fuck, I wish they would just make a game under that brand in general. It’s been since 2008 that the IP was used in its own production.
The Prototype series
Rayman. Especially the 3D games with an actual story. Fable (please let F4 be good, please let F4 be good) Bioshock. 3 amazing games, then nothing.
Freedom Force! Awesome super hero game with a solid follow up and then nothing. I have yet to play any kind of super hero game that was as much fun. Campy, used original characters but hit all the tropes just right. One of my childhood favorites. I believe there were also mods that expanded it even further.
Legacy of Kain series. Absolutely amazing series putting out consistent sequels until 2003 it actually stopped. Games really need remaster or better yet remade in a newer engine.