As I mentioned in one of my previous articles, the year 2015 will see many good releases, many of which will be franchise entries. Before I look further into the future, I feel that it’s especially important to look to the past, at some of the video game sequels that attempted to build on the glory of previous entries. Many sequels, in that aspect, are widely successful, including (of the games I’ve personally played) Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls, The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings, Dead Space 2, and Saints Row IV. However, this article is about some of the bad, ugly, and controversial video game sequels.
Duke Nukem Forever, the long-awaited sequel to the popular ’90s first-person shooter, was a huge disappointment for everyone involved. After the initial success, Duke Nukem was definitely in the works for a sequel. Delays, upgrades, and complications ensued, and the game was in development for over 10 years. By 2013 standards, the game was an amalgamation of impressively bad acting, uninteresting mechanics, outdated graphics, and overall low-quality content. The game was so far below expectations and standards that many fans ended up regretting that the game had finished production.
On this topic, it is impossible to not mention the Assassin’s Creed series, one of the most widely criticized franchises. Personally, I enjoyed some of the more successful sequels, such as Assassin’s Creed 2 and Revelations, each of which was able to build on the previous game while introducing new and exciting elements, an interesting story line, and exhilarating and refreshing content. On the other end, after some well-celebrated success with Black Flag, Assassin’s Creed Unity became one of the biggest disasters in the video game industry last year. Featuring the most unexciting and unremarkable story in the series, Unity also had buggy mechanics, weaker controls, and numerous bugs that persisted patch after patch. I have never seen an AAA game with an average user score lower than a 4 on Metacritic, until Unity.
What made Unity worse was Ubisoft’s strategy regarding the game. Even when some of the less popular games in the series such as Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and 3 came out, Ubisoft had nothing to hide. However, Unity was deemed too important and big to fail, as all original deadlines were adhered to while the game was in no shape to be released. Additionally, Ubisoft embargoed reviews of the game until after its release – which is almost exclusively done only if a game is expected to perform miserably. Despite the various patches and fixes after the game and the promises that Unity will “shine under a new engine”, the publicity damage was already done and fans everywhere were disappointed.
On the other hand, one of the most controversial franchises is Call of Duty. Since Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the game development duties were split between two developers, Infinity Ward and Treyarch, taking turns on a new addition to series each year. This produced, in the following order starting with Infinity Ward, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, World at War, Modern Warfare 2, Black Ops, Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops II, Ghost, and most recently, Advanced Warfare. To this day, every Call of Duty game was able to break the sales record of the previous one, and was still regarded as one of the most profitable video game franchises of all time. Each additional installment brought some novelty to the game and minor changes to gameplay, and was well-received enough for its overall fan base to steadily increase.
The controversies of the Call of Duty series, however, did come in as many questioned the franchise. A new game every year can be financially straining, and, despite providing novelty and frequent changes to gameplay, extended periods of play became punishing. The frequent need for players to move on and “restart” their entire campaign and leveling up process was painful, and cost of some loyalty people had for the genre. On the other end, some argue that such changes would bring fresh ideas to the table, and were imperative for the game to constantly grow. Regardless of which opinion held more sway, I am at least happy to see that the latest installment, Advanced Warfare, is performing well.
2015 is filled with promises for high-quality sequels. However, as we can tell from the past, it is important for us as gamers to hold appropriate expectations and be ready to be disappointed sometimes; the disappointments above were far from the only bad examples I could find. On the bright side, there are always good games to look forward to and sometimes, cliffhangers can be resolved.
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