Video game franchises need to change. That’s how they stay fresh; Developers don’t want players to get tired of playing the same game over and over again. Change is how some of gaming’s most iconic franchises have remained; They make smart improvements to their formulas, while still maintaining the special elements that made them worth following in the first place.
However, some franchises go a long way in trying to turn things around. They eventually lose sight of themselves and, in some cases, never fully recover. Even if a new entry later receives a positive reception, the franchise will always be viewed with skepticism, thanks to those bad moments. Here are five such franchises who themselves got caught in their attempts to change.
guitar master
Image Source: Activision
Granted, Guitar Hero may have been a lost cause at the time of its surprise return in 2015, but if 2009 was the year the franchise was put to the grave, then 2015 was the year its coffin was sealed. After a glut of rhythm games in fall 2010 and a series cancellation in 2011, Guitar Hero Live just returned to put the final nail in the franchise’s coffin.
While changes to the guitar controller were welcomed in the way they added new complexity to the game, almost everything around Guitar Hero Live felt off-putting. A cheesy, live-action video presentation mixed with a decidedly non-rock-oriented soundtrack took on too much for a promising revival.
Perhaps the game’s biggest sin was its GHTV mode, which allowed gamers to play streamed songs as opposed to download them to the console. Between the reliance on micro-transactions and the inability to actually own the songs, GHTV’s instability would be the game’s biggest downfall.
Activision sold Guitar Hero Live’s developer, FreeStyleGames, to Ubisoft in 2017 and shut down the GHTV service in 2018. This meant that a soundtrack that once contained 484 songs would now be cut to the base number of 42 on the disc. Needless to say, Guitar Hero Live was a mess, and a series the series will probably never return to.
metal Gear Solid
Image Source: Konami
Metal Gear Solid is one of the most respected and beloved video game franchises ever created, and it would be extremely hard to pull off what the franchise has achieved over the years. The idea may also coexist that Konami ruined one of gaming’s all-time greats, and the lack of a new game over the years is a direct result of the company’s failures to take the series in a new direction. .
The franchise proved in 2013 that it could handle a change of direction with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which pointed to a bright future for the series after the completion of Metal Gear Solid V. However, gamers won’t be considered for that bright future, as the infamous feud between Konami and Hideo Kojima led to the release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain with an abrupt ending in an unfinished state.
“Sure, it couldn’t be worse,” thought gamers as Konami laughed in the background (while playing Pachinko) and introduced the world to Metal Gear Survive. Not only did Konami turn Metal Gear into a generic zombie survival game, but the publisher’s greedy business strategy permeated the game. Look no further than games that give you money to save slots… one of the tiniest things to charge gamers, and you did and did it anyway. Bravo, genius.
Konami never reported its sales figures, indicating that it did massively poorly in sales. This disgrace of a game is also the most recent game in the franchise, as Konami hasn’t touched Metal Gear at all. While it’s probably best that Konami stayed this far, it’s really a shame that this is where one of the most iconic franchises in gaming had to come close.
paper mario
Image Source: Nintendo
While Paper Mario has started to see a boom, the series has still had some trouble shaking off the demons of its past. Once an incredibly promising RPG series, 2007’s Super Paper Mario began the franchise’s move away from RPG elements, but still managed to be a well-received game. 2012’s Paper Mario: Sticker Star, however, didn’t perform nearly as well.
The first handheld entry in the series, Sticker Star moved so far away from traditional RPG mechanics, such as party members and experience points, that fans hardly recognized it as a Paper Mario game. In addition, the game’s major new mechanic, the sticker system, was criticized for how much backtracking it created and the game’s lack of inventory space to work around it.
Nintendo has noted on the record that the Paper Mario series should be constantly changing, not just trying to create new versions of 2004’s Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. That’s totally fine, but removing so many of the elements that made The Thousand-Year Door the franchise’s creation will definitely fall apart.
To be fair, 2016’s Paper Mario: Color Splash and 2020’s Paper Mario: The Origami King took some steps to improve upon what Sticker Star didn’t do. However, despite these improvements, the franchise can’t help but shake the feeling that it doesn’t quite live up to the original titles. One can only hope that the series has not gone too far to return to its roots.
Banjo-Kazooie
Image Source: Xbox Game Studios
Banjo-Kazooie is a truly sad story among the mascot platformers of the past. The original 1998 game is still a classic among classics, but it still feels like the only entry in the franchise to completely get it right. 2000’s Banjo-Toei was a stellar follow-up, but felt offbeat thanks to its big world and frequent retreats. When developer Rare was sold to Microsoft, no one could see a change in the direction of the franchise.
Enter 2008’s Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, the long-awaited third entry in the franchise that moved away from platformer roots in favor of a more action-adventure, vehicle building-based gameplay style. While a great effort to change things up, it resulted in a much weaker reception than the two classic titles.
In general, Nuts and Bolts wasn’t exactly “bad”, but it was the kind of game that would have been better if it didn’t have a banjo-kazooie name attached to it. As a new IP, it could have been promising, but as the long-awaited follow-up to a famous Nintendo 64 franchise, it felt like an identity crisis.
It did a massive loss because, despite solid sales, Microsoft and Rare didn’t see the banjo-kazooie series revamped with a new game. While Banjo and Kazooie returned as playable characters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, that inclusion did not bring any news about the new entry. If it were to return, we can only hope Microsoft doesn’t go back to what Nuts & Bolts did.
Tony Hawk
Image Source: Activision
It is extremely rare that a gaming franchise gets ruined multiple times. When a series hits rock bottom, the general thought process is there’s nowhere else to go but up. The Tony Hawk franchise took this ideology and, like a skateboard from an angry skater who messed up a trick, broke it in half.
Already going through a short down period from the mid-to-late 2000s that were more “decent” than “great”, Activision introduced Tony Hawk: Ride in 2009. Riding the wave of peripheral-based video games at the time, it provided the opportunity for players to use skateboard peripherals to stay immersed in the action. It did not work, nor did its sequel, 2010’s Tony Hawk: Shred, and poor sales led to the franchise being put on hold.
By the time the series returned to its roots with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 in 2015, the bar was on the floor. Activision brought a shovel. Between dated graphics, which felt worse than the franchise’s PlayStation 2 outing (in 2015, mind you) and buggy, poorly-designed gameplay that hardly resembled its predecessors, Pro Skater 5 ditched its developer Given and, seemingly, the franchise came with it.
Even its incredible comeback of 2020 with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 didn’t last long; Following that game’s release, Activision absorbed developer Vicarious Visions into Blizzard Entertainment, canceling Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 release in the process. The Tony Hawk franchise deserves far better than the treatment it has been given by Activision over the past decade, especially after such an incredible remake reminded us what makes this game so special.
These are just some of the game franchises that were ruined by their decisions to change direction. If you have any other franchises that you thought were ruined by the design change, let us know in the comments below!
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