While sequels are great and signs of a healthy IP, there are often times when a franchise can get completely killed by future video games. Regardless of the fact if it is a JRPG or an action game, death comes to all of these if they fail to stay relevant or produce relevant sequels.
In the list below, we will be discussing some of the video game franchises that were killed by their own modern entries.
Video Games That Destroyed An Entire Franchise
Saints Row (2022)
When Saints Row was first released, it was hailed as the direct competitor to Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto series. It had the makings of everything necessary to surpass the GTA series, and for a while, it actually did.
Moving forward to 2022, developer Volition decided to drop a new entry in the franchise rebooting Saints Row, and that’s what hammered the final nails in the coffin. The reboot was not positively received at all.
Aside from having bland and uninteresting new characters, the game didn’t really reinvent the genre. After this attempt, Volition closed down completely, sealing any chances for the franchise to ever come back.
Dino Crisis 3
Capcom in the 90s was moving the 3D console generation with some revolutionary horror titles. Of course, one of these was the birth of the Resident Evil franchise. The other one is the Dino Crisis series, which brought the horror of being chased by dinosaurs to the survival horror genre.
Fast track to 2025, and there are no signs of Dino Crisis, while Resident Evil is still thriving and getting new entries. Why is that, you may wonder, the third entry in the franchise pretty much killed Dino Crisis.
This game took everything that was great about the franchise and put it through the action sci-fi deconstruction blender. Taking the game’s setting up to space with new kinds of space dinosaurs, and as bad as that sounds, it really was not well-received either.
Medal of Honor: Warfighter
Way before Call of Duty and Battlefield dominated the first-person shooter genre with their campaign-based games, there was another franchise that sailed along with these games. This was the Medal of Honor series by EA Games.
But the competition was too steep, and failing to innovate further cost the franchise heavily. it all went down with the release of Medal of Honor: Warfighter, which was riddled with bad quality visuals and bugs.
Meanwhile, franchises like Call of Duty were performing in a stellar fashion. The pressure was too much, enough to cancel the franchise after Warfighter.
Duke Nukem Forever
The old era of video games is riddled with franchises that have protagonists who would be controversial characters in the modern gaming environment. The prime example of such a series has to be Duke Nukem, but you would be surprised to learn that it’s not what killed the games.
A lot of the time some game developments take a lot of time; some are of the view that the longer the time is taken, the more polished a game will be. But such was not the case with Duke Nukem Forever, which had a 14-year development cycle.
This game was riddled with developmental problems, and finally, when the product came out it was too late, because the audience had already moved on.
Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite
Capcom is well known for their crossover fighting games, one of the prominent of these being the Marvel Vs Capcom franchise. No one thought that Capcom’s video game characters would mesh well with Marvel’s comic book characters, but in the 90s, they actually did it.
Fast forward to the current era of Capcom fighting games, and we barely get any crossovers. This is because the last attempt at a Marvel Vs Capcom game ended in disaster.
Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite was the promised game that fans of the genre were hoping it would become. But unfortunately, it’s what killed the crossover franchise.
With the Cinematic Marvel universe having the upper hand, the game was used as an anchor point for promotion, instead of allowing for a good fighting game roster with classic characters like the X-Men. The game also severely lacked in the visual art style department, ultimately destroying it.
Crackdown 3
Saints Row was not always the only franchise that tried taking a jab at Grand Theft Auto, trying to make its own open-world city video game. Back in 2007, developer Realtime Worlds, along with Microsoft Game Studios as publishers, released a small game called Crackdown.
This was an open-world game based on fictional Pacific City, where you play as a law enforcer tasked with taking down powerful criminal lords. Crackdown came from the mind of the creator behind Grand Theft Auto.
The franchise was pretty successful, but it all changed by the time we reached the third game, which was not only delayed but also did everything wrong. Crackdown 3 was made without David Jones and by Sumo Digital. It was a disaster at launch, being riddled with glitches and bugs.
Beyond that, Crackedown 3 was another victim of failing to innovate on the open world genre, which GTA eventually excelled at, making this franchise obsolete.
Dead Rising 4
There are so many games about zombie apocalypse out right now that making your own mark in this sub-genre is getting difficult. No one is really trying to innovate, something that Capcom tried and got a bit of success with the Dead Rising franchise.
The developer was already good at it when they got the sub-genre right with Resident Evil. Approaching it with the mindset of a sandbox parody was the right choice a second time. Dead Rising is a really fun game, but everything runs its course.
By the time we got to the fourth entry, it was time to leave it behind. But little did we know that this entry would hammer down nails on the coffin because of how mixed the reception was behind it. Dead Rising did come back later, but it was just a remaster with no new entry in sight.
Mass Effect Andromeda
Mass Effect is one of the best sci-fi games you can get your hands on. It is BioWare’s magnum opus, and truly one of the best Western RPGs from recent decades. It follows the story of Commander Shepherd and several characters he meets along the way.
The story spans over three games, all of which have been put together into one collection with remastered graphics thanks to EA’s effort. But that’s where the good part ends, because the next attempt at a Mass Effect game went horribly wrong.
Mass Effect Andromeda is the game that eventually killed the game series and buried it forever (at least for now). The game was marred with visual bugs and glitches that made it receive a very bad reception online, which ultimately turned detrimental to the game’s reception.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
If there is a game that sets the tone of immersive sim and cyberpunk genre titles in the modern gaming scene, then it has to be the Deus Ex franchise. The original game, to be precise, was the most influential ever and is even getting a new remastered release, which as a mixed reception.
But remasters aside, Deus Ex did go on to have a healthy life with sequels that build upon the ideas and themes of the game. In 2011, we were introduced to a new protagonist, Adam Jensen, but his welcome was short-lived.
Because in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is what ultimately killed the franchise. The game was marred by poor plot points and endings that felt very lacking; more importantly, it was heavily criticized for its controversial pre-order system.
Castlevania: Lord of Shadow 2
Castlevania is one of the video games that was monumental in defining the metroidvania sub-genre of action games. But once we went past the era of 2D games, it was getting hard for the franchise to stay relevant in the 3D era.
So Konami had to make a decision, which was to reboot the whole franchise into a hack-and-slash game. Even though the first Lord of Shadow game was well-received, enough to warrant a sequel. It was the second game where things fell apart.
Lord of Shadow 2 was a mess of a Castlevania experience. Players went from side-scrolling action with spell casting to a forced stealth section. It eventually brought demise for the franchise, sealing the fate of this rebooted universe forever.
