Dormant/Dead franchise and what killed them -- discussion

R.Graves

R.Graves

Confirmed Retard
this can include spiritually dead franchises that haven't really had a solid entry in... well a long ass time. for example, silent hill. there hasn't been a good one of those since what 2004? Contra barely exists anymore. that last one i remember was contra 4 back in like 2007. hell same for castlevania. we had that reboot a while back then a sequel and then radio silence. come to think on it Konami is pretty great a running a franchise into the ground. and not with something simple like over-saturation (guitar hero, or skylanders and its assorted ripoffs) no just look what they did with silent hill. 3 shitty mainline entries in a row with a shit remake/spinoff for wii. then a wierd dungeon crawling hack and slash "silent hill" game that no one anywhere asked for. then there was the complete butchering of silent hill 2/3 in they're HD collection. if anyone wants a comprehensive look at the disaster that was then check this video out. oh and then they not only canceled silent hills but then basically deleted its playable teaser from existence itself. which, i know, is all old news but its still a very disheartening precedent.

or hell look at metal gear.

the story was concluded with such finality that the only available option for a fifth entry was yet another prequel. problem was that we already got the point in MGS3. MGSV is a solid game but almost completely pointless in the franchises grand narrative which lets be honest... Metal gear has had a huge focus on ever since Metal Gear 2: solid snake on the MSX.

anyways after the whole fuck you kojima fiasco they released this mod called metal gear survive. a survival focused game with micro-transactions, crafting, and almost no story. oh and then they made you pay for save slots.

the series lost its creative vision and then immediately shifted gears to an entirely different genre. not a great sign for the series future.

banjo kazooie is dead. not really sure why or who even owns the rights.

fallout is looking pretty grim what with fallout 4 and 76 being polar opposites to the most critically acclaimed game in the series.

holy shit legacy of kain. what a great fucking series. the last entry was in... 2003.
a sequel went into development in 2004 but was cancelled after a few months. then another sequel entered development in 2009 and was for some reason targeted as a playstation 4 launch title... anyways that was cancelled too but square enix salvaged the multiplayer and released it under the title of nosgoth... yay?

remember how long doom was dead for? i mean it was never *really* dead because holy fuck that mod community. but we had doom in '93, doom 2 in '94. doom 64 in '97. then we got doom 3 in 2004 which was this atmospheric corridor shooter with monster closets much like area 51 on ps2 (hey look another dead franchise). then doom was rebooted as an arena shooter that brought back most of the appeal of the original. fast paced balls to the wall combat with no reprieve and a rockin soundtrack. also since everyone remembers doom being gory for some reason this one is stupidly gory as all get out. its not doom proper but as modern re-visioning of the series.. i couldn't be happier with it.

anyways i mean fucking bubsy came back so its hard to imagine any franchise is absolutely 100% guaranteed to stay dead 100% forever so we never know but is still find this an interesting subject.
 
- Dead Space franchise is completely dead. Visceral is defunct and by extension the Dante's Inferno God-of-War clone is dead. I sat in on a focus group for the sequel (for Dante) that was in-development and it was supposed to be a continuation of the first in purgatory + a MOBA-esque online mode. That's 100% dead in the water.

- Splinter Cell franchise has been dead for a while now. They actually brought back Michael Ironside for a throwaway quest in Ghost Recon Wildlands but that was it. We're mostly left speculating as to what they'll do with probably one of the best stealth franchises in the market.

- Dawn of War RTS franchise is effectively dead and unlikely to have a future thanks to the performance of the third entry. Relic studios, according to a Glassdoor review, is one more bad game away from closing their doors permanently.

- Wolf Among Us part 2 from telltale games is never happening for obvious reasons.

- Sim City is never going to happen again. Maxis is all hands on deck with the Sims franchise at this point and Cities Skylines is too much of a behemoth to compete with.

- Dead Island franchise is looking to be DOA. It's been in development hell since 2012.

- Deus Ex is probably dead thanks to Square Enix.

- Roller Coaster Tycoon is also dead. They original devs at least carried on with the spiritual successor Planet Coaster, but the original franchise is probably gone. They actually pulled the game (RC3) from Steam/GoG and I still have the platinum edition in my library.

- Half Life. 3 is never happening and I trust that most people have come to accept that.

- Anno franchise appears to be mostly stagnant. The recent entry was a major bust and I honestly don't anticipate they'll put out another title.

Edit (1/18/2020): Striked out some stuff that surprised even me. Half life is happening (though not in the format most people probably anticipated), Anno 1800 was actually an incredibly well-reviewed game (96% open critic), and Bigby Wolf lives again in The Wolf Among Us 2 (Coming soon).
 
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Someone thought a good idea to make an FPS on the Commando franchise. The franchise never recovered from that.
 
Duke Nukem is begging for a Retrowave inspired comeback.
Along with the real QUAKE and Blood.
 
Kingpin: Life of Crime. It wasn't the greatest success and the rights to it are with Interplay and therefore pretty much dead.
Heretic and Hexen: Killed by the failed attempt at a different direction with Heretic II and the general shift in FPS games in the early Naughts. Remains dead due to id/Zenimax holding publishing rights for the first three games, and Activision holding development rights. Sucks, because a Heretic reboot using idTech 7 would be absolutely awesome.
Crimson Skies: The franchise itself still exists, but the video games are dead. The first PC game was well received, but never got a proper sequel. The console sequel was meh and so the franchise went down.
 
Legacy of Kain. Dead and buried, and that's a damn shame.
Silent Hill is also in a pretty bad shape.
 
Command and Conquer - After EA acquired it they released (surprisingly) two excellent titles - that is CnC 3 Tiberium Wars and Red Alert 3, with expansion packs for both which were also very good.
Then they released CnC 4 Tiberian Twilight which was a self-inflicted headshot to the franchise.
After that they cancelled a planned Generals 2 game (but not before they tried to convert it into a micro-transactions ridden F2P RTS), released a shitty browser game and had another shitty mobile CnC game or something...
Or in all, this legendary RTS series is dead.

Mass Effect - After Andromeda's release, it's no wonder. I assume EA will revisit the IP simply because the first three games are still widely considered as great titles, so a future remaster is likely, if another sequel. However, given Andromeda being complete failure, it's still uncertain.
 
While Myth 3 has enough flaws to get its lukewarm reception, the conditions surrounding the developpment of the game ensured that it wouldn't reach success. The game seems more unfinished than ill-designed. Sadly, there was no subsequent Myth games, or even Myth-like games.
 
Never say never with Kickstarter and such. Some games I never thought I'd see again have received sequels recently thanks to crowdfunding.

Biggish budget titles like Dead Space or Half Life though are probably not happening (though I still think Valve will do something Half Life related eventually).
 
Quake. I don't really consider the latest Quake game to be a Quake game, BTW. Saying Quake Champions is a Quake game is like saying Fallout 76 is a Fallout game. ID Software has their head up their asses. Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights too. Those games are owned by incompetent people. Blood. Those games are owned by incompetent people. I really hate the concept of intellectual property. Imagine a world where devs could just make any game they feel like making. EDIT: Half Life. Because Valve is incompetent. Their Steam client doesn't even work 100% correctly. And their catalog has so many games that are just pure garbage. Command and Conquer. Because EA is incompetent. Myth because whoever owns that IP is incompetent. Duke Nukem because it's owned by those asshats. Heretic, Hexen, the list can go on and on...
 
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The few minutes of Quake Champions that I played were actually fun, though.
Didn't like the whole character-approach with different stats and abilities, but the gameplay felt absolutely solid. But yeah, it's not really Quake as we know it.
Heretic and Hexen are dormant because the IP is partially owned by id and partially by Activision. id has publishing rights for the first three games, and Raven Software/Activision has developing rights. Since there's not much need for them to get on the same page, Heretic/Hexen is dead for now.
Given that id and Bethesda are certainly on a path of reimagining a lot of their old franchises (with great success, too) I'd certainly like to see a Heretic "reboot" using the the newest idTech. Sadly, Raven is with Activision, so the old magic of "Raven + idTech = Awesome" is never going to come back.
 
Hassknecht said:
Kingpin: Life of Crime. It wasn't the greatest success and the rights to it are with Interplay and therefore pretty much dead.
Click to expand...
Guess what, it's not dead. 3D Realms continues cashing in on that sweet, sweet nostalgia wave, and they decided to "reload" Kingpin.
https://3drealms.com/catalog/kingpin-reloaded_171/
That makes me quite happy. Maybe there'll even be a sequel or reboot or whatever if this generates enough interest.

Basic graphical update, some re-balancing and a new quest system, allegedly some other improvements. We'll see.
Either way. Kingpin isn't dead yet.
Now bring back Heretic and Hexen.
 
The Darkness- The first game had some truly great moments and the second ended on a cliffhanger.
It also helps that my boi Mike Patton voiced the Darkness.
 
Armored Core- God I miss this series. It was From Software's bread and butter before they were contracted for Dark Souls, but between the two one of those is obviously the moneymaker.

The contract they signed with Bandai Namco when they took on Souls granted them development of at least two more AC titles but the marketing for them was nonexistent. Coupled with the fact that people are filthy philistine casuals there's not a huge market in the west for robot games or console games that revel in back-end complexity, they flopped pretty hard outside of Japan, and by that point the Souls games' daddy was in charge of the studio and the writing was on the wall.

It's been speculated, probably not erroneously, that Bandai Namco owning the Gundam license that would be AC's chief competitor in the mecha game niche could have had a little something to do with it, too.
 
Myth III was mentioned. I would really like to see a return to the Myth series, and to the Oni series.

Also I'd like to see a new installment of the Disciples series.

Other continuations (or perhaps just re-masters) that I would like to see made are:
  • Sacrifice
  • Armed & Dangerous
  • Giants:Citizen Kabuto
  • Lands of Lore
  • Nox
  • Startopia
  • Slave Zero
  • Rune
  • A real Bard's Tale 4
  • NOLF [3]
  • Darklands
  • Die By The Sword
  • Homeworld:Cataclysm [now shamefully called :Emergence due to fear of Blizzard]
 
Yamu said:
Armored Core- God I miss this series. It was From Software's bread and butter before they were contracted for Dark Souls, but between the two one of those is obviously the moneymaker.
Click to expand...


IIRC a new Armored Core game is in development.
 
Hassknecht said:
Kingpin: Life of Crime. It wasn't the greatest success and the rights to it are with Interplay and therefore pretty much dead.
Click to expand...

That's one of those games that could potentially improve a lot with a remake, if done right.

Hassknecht said:
Guess what, it's not dead. 3D Realms continues cashing in on that sweet, sweet nostalgia wave, and they decided to "reload" Kingpin.
https://3drealms.com/catalog/kingpin-reloaded_171/
That makes me quite happy. Maybe there'll even be a sequel or reboot or whatever if this generates enough interest.

Basic graphical update, some re-balancing and a new quest system, allegedly some other improvements. We'll see.
Either way. Kingpin isn't dead yet.
Now bring back Heretic and Hexen.
Click to expand...


Whoa just saw this. Does this mean that the graphics aren't really even improved, just higher rez or something?
 
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