10 Games That KILLED The WHOLE Franchise

(text beeps) - [Narrator] Many game franchises have multiple entries or sequels, and every so often, one of them comes along and kills off or severely damages an entire franchise. Here are 10 examples of that. Just a fair warning, this video is a little bit of a bummer.

Let's get started off with number ten and talk about "Medal of Honor. " This is a now classic World War II shooter franchise. I mean, it was like, kick-started by freaking Steven Spielberg.

From the PlayStation One-PlayStation Two era, the "Medal of Honor" games lived a wonderful life. They were incredibly fun, cinematic first person shooter war games well before you had a solid "Call of Duty" campaign or anything like that. "Medal of Honor" was crushing it with a score by Michael Giacchino who is now famous for doing like, superhero movies.

Two really incredible, still memorable depictions of stuff you'd see in war movies like "Saving Private Ryan," like "Storming the Beaches of Normandy. " Yeah, "Medal of Honor" did that, and they crushed it in video game form. From the Pacific Theater to Nazi intrigue, all kinds of stuff, they really had it going on for a while.

And then it seems like when "Call of Duty" and "Battlefield" really started to pop off, "Medal of Honor" kind of fell to the wayside. But around 2010, it's when EA really tried to revitalize things, and kick "Medal of Honor" into the modern age, so to speak, with 2010's "Medal of Honor," and then 2012's "Medal of Honor Warfighter. " And the problem with these games is that they were half-assed and just so, so painfully generic.

Now, they had their moments, mind you. "Medal of Honor Warfighter," which I do remember reviewing back in the day, not for "Gameranx," but somewhere, actually had some surprisingly good driving sections. But otherwise, these modern revamped "Medal of Honor" games were like, totally all style, no substance.

On the surface, they looked pretty good, but once you actually got to playing one, there were so many other games just doing this stuff better at the time, and they totally ate Medal of Honor's lunch. 2012 had "Medal of Honor Warfighter" come and go and quickly be forgotten, and we haven't heard anything about "Medal of Honor" since. Then, I mean, to be fair, in 2010, there was "Medal of Honor Above and Beyond," the Oculus VR game by Respawn of all people, but that didn't necessarily take off.

And after that, and considering this was a pretty expensive VR game to make, we don't know if the "Medal of Honor" franchise is ever really gonna see a resurgence. I mean, nothing is ever really dead. They could bring it back and drag it out in a couple more years and maybe do it right, but for now, "Medal of Honor" is definitely sleeping with the fishes.

Next, over at number nine, there was "Ninja Gaiden 3. " Oh man, do you remember this one? Leading up to it, it seemed like it was gonna be pretty awesome.

All those cool new weapons, the kind of visual style, the game's cover art, like, it just seemed really cool. People were obviously really excited specifically because the last two "Ninja Gaiden" games were great. They were incredibly challenging, really tight games.

I mean, we still talk about "Ninja Gaiden" and "Ninja Gaiden Black" all the time here if you watch "Gameranx" every day. Man, the lead up to "Ninja Gaiden 3" was so exciting. And then when this thing dropped in 2012, it got a lot of bad reviews.

I famously remember a really crushing one from Giant Bomb where they gave it like, a two out of five stars. Overall, nobody was really happy with it. I remember personally after, it just felt like regular old generic video game stuff.

And along with that, the game just lost a lot of its identity. It felt really hand-holdy. A lot of people had built it as just kind of button-mashy and stupid.

The game had your typical quick time events, which were popular at the time, and just something was really missing. The soul of "Ninja Gaiden" here wasn't quite right. And again, it's just so jarring because these first two "Ninja Gaiden" games were so tight.

Those were solid video game-ass video games with challenge, secrets, nuance, and "Ninja Gaiden 3" just kind of felt like a cheap clone, a cheap knockoff. Now, they then tried fixing it with the "Razor's Edge" re-release, but for most people, it was way too little, way too late. Oh, and then after that, I mean, are we even gonna get into this?

They put out "Ninja Gaiden Yaiba," and 'cause like, that was even worse. Technically that wasn't like, a main entry in the series, but still, it definitely didn't hurt things. Really, "Ninja Gaiden 3" was where a lot of things seemingly died.

I still think the original two games, and I mean, the classic franchise before it, are still good enough that eventually we might see something again. But as of right now, "Ninja Gaiden" is kind of dead, and it pains me to say that. Like, it just doesn't feel right.

Next, over at number eight, we have "Command and Conquer 4," which if you ask certain people, they say it was kind of the last gasp of the good series. I mean, "Command and Conquer" as a brand still exists today. They roll it out for certain things, but "Command and Conquer 4" was the last numbered entry, and it wasn't that great.

They really kind of changed up the whole resource gathering thing in favor of more like, managing and capturing different control points, and it just didn't feel the same, and it seems like it didn't for a lot of people. That being said, it's an okay game. If you look at reviews, you know, it's got a lot of sevens across the board.

Not a total complete disaster or anything like that, but I feel like there's a lot we can dive into with just like, the main "Command and Conquer" games, how the "Red Alert" games changed things up. Like, there's a lot of nuances here, but ultimately, the bottom line is that 4 was just 4, and then too many people, the RTS genre started to kind of lose steam, at least with mainstream popularity. They're still out there.

People really play them and love them, but they don't quite pop off in terms of mainstream sales like they used to. And I think EA unfortunately realized that they're always the first to bail on stuff, and in this case, they kind of bailed on "Command and Conquer. " Next, over at number seven, we have "Castlevania: Lords of Shadows 2.

" Now, this released in 2014, and it's actually technically like, the last new entry in the series in almost 10 years. And that sucks because they were kind of onto something with the original. I mean, depending on who you ask.

It definitely took a lot of stuff and threw it to the wayside from classic "Castlevania" games. But it was a cool refresh. It was very of the time, kind of a "God of War" style game, but with cool vampires, and the Belmonts, and all that stuff you expect, but "Castlevania: Lord of Shadows 2" kind of took it even further with you playing as Drcula with you being the bad guy.

And that was something that ended up being a cool twist in the first game. And then in the second game, it kind of went hokey. It kind of jumped the shark a little bit.

There's parts where it's in a modern world, and it just very much was more a video game of the time, a 2014 game, you know, cheesy cutscenes, over the top characters, quick time events. I personally like that stuff, but not always for "Castlevania. " And while it was cute for "Lord of Shadows," it was not as good for the second one.

It didn't review as well as the first game. And ultimately, I think that coupled with the fact that Konami was just being Konami at the time, and really were kind of stepping away from games, that was it. "Castlevania" I don't think is dead forever.

I think we're gonna see more of it soon. I really hope so. I really think it's time for this thing to return full speed ahead, but I guess we're just gonna have to wait and see.

Next, over at number six, we have "Dead Rising 4. " Now, let's roll the clock back a little bit. The original "Dead Rising" was revolutionary.

It was just so cool and creative and a really good spin on an almost like, George Romero style zombie game with a good Capcom Japanese spin to it. It was creative, it was challenging, it was stress-inducing, and it was also technically very impressive. For a lot of people, if you ask some of us, that first game was truly special, and the series never really quite reached the same height since.

It was all downhill. Now, the second one kind of continued the thing, added some things, and it was all right, but then by three, the game started to lose its identity. So 2016's "Dead Rising 4" was supposed to be kind of like the comeback kid.

You were once again playing as Frank, the beloved classic character, and it had kind of a shopping mall Christmas time spin, like, you weren't just in a shopping mall. There was a lot more to it, but still, seems like it was gonna have some callbacks to the first one and be a good time. Unfortunately though, the game was not received very well at all.

Now, full disclosure, I played it. I thought it was all right. I didn't think it was the best in the series, but I certainly didn't hate it by any means.

But for most people, they were checked out of the series at this point, I guess completely lost faith. I think that ultimately the bottom line is that they just kept watering down what "Dead Rising" was from game to game. And by four, it had really dried up.

I mean, it was another open-worldish game in a sea of them when a lot of other games were kicking ass that year. I mean, 2016 was the year that like, "Hitman" started to kind of roll out, the new "Hitman. " "Doom" was blowing people away, so "Dead Rising" just kind of came like a fart in the wind.

Ultimately, it seemingly flopped for Capcom, and that's really all we've heard about "Dead Rising" since. That was 2016. We're pretty far out from that.

I expect good old Frank West to be dragged out for something at some point, but not a new mainline game anytime soon. Next, over at number five, we have "Fear 3. " Now, let's roll it back again.

The original "Fear" was absolutely revolutionary. It was an incredibly tense, technically impressive first person shooter with compelling enemies, some challenge, and also just it was surprisingly scary. It had some really, really good scares to it.

Things kind of continued with "Fear 2," but at that point, the developer, publisher had really smelled the money, and "Fear 3" released in 2011, and really, it was a shadow of its former self. If you compare "Fear 3" to the first game, it's like being on a different planet. "Fear 3" just was very much of the time, a very 2011-ass game with corny cutscenes, weird, cheesy characters, dumb over the top moments, shoehorned co-op elements that, yeah, you can say that some of those elements were actually kind of creative, but still, it wasn't really what "Fear" was.

And bottom line, it wasn't scary at all. I don't really know what they were thinking with this game to just go so far in a different direction and after being like, "Oh, that's what people like. " You just totally flipped the franchise on its head.

Okay. It wasn't like, a creative risk or anything. It felt totally half-assed.

And interestingly enough, the game actually has okay reviews. If you look at the Metacritic, I mean like, the review scores are okay, and the user scores, the actual fan scores, are much lower. People were really burned by this one, and I don't know if we're gonna see "Fear" ever again.

That was just like, a special point in time. Man, that original "Fear" game is just magic. Now, down to number four, don't get me started on this one.

I take this one extremely personally. It's "Sim City," the 2013 game just simply titled "Sim City" was kind of like, the harbinger of what was to come with the problems with modern games, and specifically a lot of the stuff that EA pulled. The lead up to "Sim City 2013" felt big.

The screenshots, the videos, everything coming out, the game looked absolutely massive and incredible, and it seemed like Maxus and EA were really going for it. It was seemingly going to be more dynamic, more detailed with more zoning, way more options, just a kind of different gameplay style, a whole new engine. And like, critically, at face value, some critics thought it was all right, but unfortunately, once it actually released to mainstream audiences, the game hit a lot of problems.

It was technically an absolute mess. It was buggy, it was messy, it was all over the place. And it also was one of the earlier games that were considered always online, and it was a game that you'd pretty much be playing by yourself, but EA wanted you to be connected to the internet.

And the problem was when "Sim City" launched, there were a bunch of network outages, so it was just kind of like, a huge perfect storm disaster. There was tons of crashing. You'd be sitting around waiting for the game to load to connect to EA's servers.

People were actually losing their saves, and it was just like, a disastrous launch. If you think modern game release launches are bad, "Sim City 2013" really kind of paved the way. This was like an early games of service game.

They wanted you online, they wanted you playing, and they wanted to keep updating the game constantly, and keep you playing "Sim City" forever. And you know what, that's admirable, but it didn't hit. Technically it was way too early for this type of content delivery, and ultimately, other developers showed how to do it right.

I mean, the "City Skyline" games and all their expansions are great. They have a great player base, a community, people that buy into these things because it's done right. "Sim City 2013" wasn't, and at this point now, what happened after this one?

Technically a section of Maxus closed down in 2015, and that was cited for the reason. And "Sim City" now at this point is kind of just reduced to mobile game whateverness. Whateverness, I don't know.

Whateverness is Sim City 2013, if you ask us. Next, over at number three, we have "Saints Row. " Yeah, the 2022 reboot was a pretty rough game.

We reviewed it, we put out a "before you buy" video, and we were not fans. It was technically an absolute mess, but also, it lost so much of the humor and charm that the original games had. Say what you will about them.

Some people love them, some people hate them, some people like the early ones, some people like the later ones. But "Saints Row 3" tried to make all those people happy, and ultimately, made none of them happy. The game was absolutely, completely lifeless, devoid of charm.

It had a cool city, but the stuff you did in it wasn't very fun. It was glitchy and all the characters that you hung out with were shockingly annoying. The game very quickly publicly failed to meet expectations of the holding company, Embracer Group.

And after that, Volition, the developers who had been developing the games since the beginning, got absorbed into parts of Gearbox Entertainment. And it's worth pointing out that "Saints Row" at a point had like a 60 on Metacritic, and like, a two and a half on user score. And credit to developers, they actually supported it post-launch.

They put out a little bit of stuff, but ultimately, nobody cared. It's such a shame because like I said, whether you like the early ones, whether you like the later ones when they went totally crazy, the "Saints Row" games were special. They were cool for a lot of people for a variety of different reasons.

And "Saints Row 2022" seemingly will quickly be forgotten by most people. Hey, if you had fun with it, that's you. We're not gonna judge you.

But it doesn't seem like Volition is making another one anytime soon. And they were good developers for a very long time, and it's a shame. (bullets popping) - [Drver] Knockin' 'em down.

(driver grunts) (motorcycle thuds) - [Passenger] Reload! Reload! (bullets popping) (cyclist screams) - [Drver] Okay.

Back in the saddle. From here on out, observe and report. - [Narrator] Now, coming down to number two, "Marvel vs.

Capcom Infinite. " Yeah, that was the last one. When was the last time you thought about "Marvel vs.

Capcom? " When was the last time you thought about "Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite?

" Well, the sixth mainline entry in the series, which was released in 2017, just pissed off a lot of players, and there was just a lot of bad PR floating around about it, I mean, specifically with what we've talked about with a lot of games in this video, a lot of the core elements of "Marvel vs. Capcom" were diluted, watered down. Stuff was taken away, and ultimately, the game was considered playing it safe.

Now, as someone who's not an experienced fighting game fan, I found it kind of just cool to pick up and play and punch some people. But the hardcore fighting game community, man, these games live and die by those people. And if they're not happy, that's it for the game.

And that was the case with "Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite. " Not to mention all the other stuff that they pulled with this, like, certain locked characters, microtransaction stuff, I believe a really crappy collector's edition that a lot of people felt they got ripped off.

There's a lot to this one in the news cycles, but ultimately, the game just kind of came and went, and that's how these go. Are we gonna see another "Marvel vs. Capcom" at any point?

I don't know. It seems like Marvel is really down to clown with some cool video games again, so maybe, but it has certainly been a while. "Marvel versus Capcom" has been dead since "Infinite.

" Now, down to number one, we have "Drver 3," or as I like to call it, "Drv3r. " Yes, this was the time where we were putting the numbers in the titles of the games and movies. This was very normal at the time if I'm being totally honest.

But still, "Drver 3" followed up a pretty fantastic series. The original game was completely unique for the original PlayStation, and "Drver 2" kind of oh, introduced some like, open-world, get out of your car type elements, and they really felt like they were onto something. But after that, the rise of "Grand Theft Auto" came, and "Drver 3" really was kind of chasing at that game's heels.

There was a time when we had like, "Grand Theft Auto Vice City," but then also 2004's "Drv3r," and I mean, if you compare the two, yikes. I mean, where "Drver" is a little bit more realistic and like, a little bit more gritty with some cool car mechanics and physics and stuff like that, it was still a total mess. I mean, the shooting third person, at any time you were on foot as Tanner, it was totally lame.

The game was a technical mess, and a lot of people didn't really care, and "Grant Theft Auto" ultimately ate its lunch. (intense music) (bullets popping) (cutouts creak) (bullets popping) (cutouts creak) (bullets popping) As a longtime fan of the "Drver" series, since the original game, I forced myself to really like "Drver 3. " I still think there are some redeeming elements to it, but ultimately, it didn't do enough to really blow away mainstream audiences.

And it was a technical mess. Like, if you go back and play it now, it's like, unplayable almost. Now, to be fair, the "Drver" series did continue after this.

We had the great "Drver" game that like, took place in the 70s. We had the really underrated "Drver San Francisco," but nothing really reached the height of those original "Drver" games. And "Drver 3" kind of kicked off what would be a very, very slow years long decline to the point where now we're probably not gonna see anything from "Drver" ever again.

Again, I wanna point out, "Drver San Francisco" is very cool. It is totally different, they changed up the series, but it's a unique driving game that you should still consider checking out, and you should especially check it out because it might be the last "Drver" game. So those are some games that killed whole video game franchises, at least in some way, shape, or form.

Now, let us know what you think in the comments about this video because to be frank, there are a lot more examples that we couldn't fit in this video, and you probably have your own suggestions in the comments. So hit us up, and we'll make a part two. Now, if you just like talking games with us, just yapping every day, clicking the like button's all you gotta do.

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We'll see you guys next time.