12 Great Video Games That Almost Single-Handedly Saved Dying Franchises
It's practically impossible to create a video game franchise. We could stop right there, but it's even more difficult to create a video game franchise that receives universal critical acclaim and sells millions of units without ever producing a dud. Even the most successful video game franchises like Super Mario Bros. and Zelda have released games that just didn't connect with fans.
There are plenty of reasons why this might happen. Behind the scenes, a franchise might undergo a change in developers, and a new developer might have different ideas. Or, it might simply be a matter of time. Times change, gamers' tastes change, and what was once a beloved feature might become a tiresome chore.
Once fans' opinions of a video game franchise have soured, it can be difficult to win them back. But these games did just that.
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The first Doom game in 1993 established itself as not just one of gaming's first great first-person shooters, but also as a brand. According to Doom Eternal creative director Hugo Martin, the Doom brand has an irreverent, heavy metal sensibility that gives players a feeling of power. Doom II followed up its predecessor with more of the same in 1994. But by the time Doom 3 came around in 2004, it took things in a survival horror direction. It did have a robust 87% positive rating on Metacritic, but it was a departure from what Doom is all about.
Developer id Software began work on Doom 4 in 2008, but ultimately scrapped the game when it was decided it just didn't feel like a Doom title. The company then shifted focus to work on the first Rage game. When it returned to the Doom franchise after that, it made sure not to make the same mistake as the first time around. The 2016 Doom reboot is essentially a remake of the first game, with tons of new features like “glory kills” to make it even more awesome.
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The original Resident Evil games pioneered the survival horror genre, offering some of the first 3D video games that were genuinely scary. But after Resident Evil 4, the games increasingly relied on combat and exotic locales rather than atmospheric horror. Resident Evils 5 and 6 might have zombies in them, but few find them scary.
Luckily for fans, developer and publisher Capcom went back to the drawing board in 2017 with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. This game was all about the scares, and it even introduced a first-person perspective to make its scares more visceral and immediate. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard sits at an impressive 86% positive rating on Metacritic for PlayStation 4.
Brought the series back from the brink?In 2021, Mortal Kombat became the world's best-selling fighting game franchise at over 72 million copies sold since its inception in 1992. Most games in the franchise have been successful, so it was never really “dying." Even so, Mortal Kombat did struggle to make the jump to next-gen consoles with 2008's poorly received Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Forced to share the screen with superheroes, Mortal Kombat had to tone down the gory ultraviolence that made the games so famous.
But in 2011, developer NetherRealm Studios made the wise choice to give the fans what they wanted. The ninth game in the series, simply titled Mortal Kombat, was a reboot that combined fans' favorite elements and characters from the first three games in the series - including the blood and guts. It would go on to sell more than 3 million copies.
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The Tomb Raider franchise is a great example of how a video game franchise can adapt with changing times. Before the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, there were nine full console games, as well as three 2D handheld games, and the non-Tomb Raider 2010 title Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. While the games did offer plenty of swashbuckling, globe-trotting antiquities hunting and robust combat, they were also very much a product of their times. Lara Croft was almost always depicted in the most titillating way possible.
But in 2013, developer Crystal Dynamics ditched the male gaze and reimagined Lara's origin story, casting her as a young tomb raider facing her first violent encounters. The new Lara headed up two more sequels in 2015 and 2018.
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The Alien video game franchise has been around since 1982, but in the 2000s, it hadn't produced any hits because they were all in the wrong genre. Aliens vs. Predator (2010) and Aliens: Colonial Marines (2013) were first-person shooters, while Aliens: Infestation (2011) was a combat-heavy side-scroller.
But the Alien films aren't action films, they're horror films. They provide scares by creating tense, claustrophobic environments and populating them with characters who are woefully unmatched against the Xenomorph. In other words, the films have the perfect ingredients for a survival horror video game.
In 2014, Sega's Alien: Isolation took the Alien franchise in that direction, creating one of the scariest video games of the decade.
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'Wolfenstein: The New Order' Introduced B.J. Blazkowicz To A New Generation By Making Him An Actual Character
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Like Doom, the Wolfenstein franchise is credited as pioneering the modern first-person shooter. Although developer Muse Software did release two Wolfenstein games in the 1980s, id Software's Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 set the template so many other FPS games would follow. id Software also developed its 2001 remake, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which was the first game in the franchise to get released on consoles. But its 2009 followup, Wolfenstein, sold barely more than 100,000 copies in its first month. After that, rights to the franchise passed from id Software to MachineGames.
Usually, a new developer can spell trouble for a franchise, but in this case, it was an improvement. With 2014's Wolfenstein: The New Order, MachineGames kept the series' trademark action/stealth blend and Nazi-killing gameplay, but it also gave the games an actual story. Previously, protagonist B.J. Blazkowicz was really nothing more than an avatar who held the games' many guns. In The New Order, he was a fallen hero who'd failed to stop the Nazi takeover of the world, but still found a way to keep fighting. It's sold more than 1.6 million copies to date.
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According to Bethesda Softworks' Todd Howard, who served as a designer on Fallout 3 and several Elder Scrolls games, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is the game that saved the company from bankruptcy. The previous game in the sprawling fantasy RPG series, The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, “did fine” with its sales, but afterward, the company spread itself too thin on developing games that just didn't fit its brand - titles like PBA Tour Bowling, XCar: Experimental Racing, and Skip Barber Racing.
When Bethesda became part of ZeniMax Media in 1999, Howard says that it gave the company a chance to reset and refocus on what it did best. “Once you get to that point, there was this element of no fear," Howard explained. "What's the worst that's gonna happen? We could go out of business. Well, let's go all in. This is the game. Let's put all our chips on the table. This is the game people want from us, this is the game we wanna do.”
Morrowind went on to sell four million copies in its first three years. Its successors, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, became some of the most popular titles of their respective console generations.
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The Hitman franchise began all the way back in 2000 with the PC-only title Hitman: Codename 47. At that point, its developer, IO Interactive, hadn't yet started publishing its own games. Agent 47 made the jump to consoles with Hitman 2: Silent Assassin in 2002, and continued with Hitman: Contracts (2004) and Hitman: Blood Money (2006). All of these console games offered the same basic concept: the player controls a chameleon-like assassin who's tasked with eliminating one or more targets in a crowded area. The player is rewarded for playing the game stealthily, and most levels offer dozens of ways to get the job done.
But when Hitman: Absolution debuted in 2012 on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, it featured more linear levels. The confined gameplay was a turn-off for fans of the franchise. It's also worth noting that Absolution is the only game in the series published by Square Enix. The rest were published either by Eidos Interactive, or IO.
Agent 47 returned in 2017 with Hitman, the first in a “World of Assassination” trilogy. These games brought back the franchise's signature sandbox-style levels. They were also released in chapters instead of all at once, which encouraged players to replay levels and discover their secrets.
Before 2017's Hitman, the franchise had sold 16.4 million copies worldwide. The Hitman trilogy has attracted 50 million players overall.
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The tactical JRPG Fire Emblem franchise began all the way back in 1990 with Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, which spawned numerous sequels across five Nintendo consoles. In the early 2000s, the franchise experienced an overall decline in sales. Former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revealed that 2012's Fire Emblem: Awakening was originally planned to be the final installment in the series, unless it sold 250,000 copies.
Developers added several new features to the game to make it more accessible to new players, like an optional first-person mode. Awakening went on to sell 1.57 million copies and spawned three more sequels.
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The Mario Party franchise let players play board games as their favorite Nintendo characters since 1998, but many fans point to 2012's Mario Party 9 on Nintendo Wii as the start of the series' downfall. It was the first game in the series not made by original developer Hudson Soft, with NDcube serving as developer instead. Mario Party 10 followed that up in 2015 with a dismal 66% positive rating on Metacritic, and Super Mario Party continued the trend with a not-great 76% positive rating.
But 2021's Mario Party Superstars reversed the franchise's fortunes, by going back to what made it successful - literally. It's a compilation game featuring the best games and features from the series more than 20-year history. The Washington Post called it a “return to form.”
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In the 1990s, the X-COM series was a stalwart in the turn-based strategy genre. All of them were variations on a similar theme: the player controls an elite squad of soldiers tasked with fending off an alien invasion. Between 1994 and 1999, publisher Microprose released four games in the series.
Problem was, strategy games as a genre have struggled to stay relevant in the 21st century - although there are some exceptions. The final game in the first iteration of the X-COM series was 2001's X-COM: Enforcer. After that, publisher 2K Games acquired the rights to the franchise. It decided to hedge its bets and develop two games in the X-COM universe - which it restyled as XCOM.
One was The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, a modern take on the concept, a third-person shooter set on the eve of an alien invasion of Earth. The other was XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a turn-based strategy title that offered updated graphics and gameplay features, but kept the same core mechanics as the original games.
Surprisingly, The Bureau was a flop, while Enemy Unknown became a modern classic. It has an intensity that few other strategy games can match. XCOM squaddies are highly customizable, and it's easy to become attached. But once they die, they stay dead. Heartbreaking.
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Since the Assassin's Creed franchise began in 2007, it's become one of the most successful of the 21st century. It's sold more than 155 million copies altogether. Even so, the series has nearly as many misses as it does hits, at least critically speaking.
The eponymous Assassin's Creed was buggy and somewhat empty gameplay-wise when it launched. Assassin's Creed II, which followed Ezio Auditore and spawned two sequels, is still considered the high watermark of the series. The Revolutionary War-set Assassin's Creed III followed in 2012 to lukewarm reviews, but 2013's Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag redeemed the franchise with its piracy-themed naval combat.
This is when the series began to stagnate. Ubisoft continued releasing Assassin's Creed titles every year, but Rogue, Unity, and Syndicate all underperformed in sales compared with their predecessors.
At this point, Ubisoft decided to slow down the development cycle and give an extra year to its next title, Assassin's Creed Origins. Released in 2017, the ancient Egypt-set title went on to sell 10 million copies. So did the followup, Assassin's Creed Odyssey.
Brought the series back from the brink?
