Name a game franchise that was ruined by there own developers..

those would be my top 3 too.

Mass Effect had so much potential after the first game. It could have been an epic space exploration RPG with some hard science & thoughtful themes as a foundation - more like star trek but without all the baggage. Instead dumb hallway shooter with cartoon villains. Seriously, space ninja fight in #3?! God damit bioware.

Dragon Age. Yeah. Just poor execution and 100% uninteresting design in #2.

Diablo. systematically wrecked everything cool about the second game in the name of online cash market.

vidjagames. sometimes it just feels like this industry wants to fail.

Sorry to disappoint someone above, but Metal Gear Solid. MGS4 was, along with Heavy Rain, the GREATEST disappointment I've ever experienced with a game. The whole thing totally fell apart after Chapter 2. By the end of Chapter 3 I already wanted it to be over.

I mean, it was a Metal Gear Solid game, so I played it in one setting over a 12ish hour period, and the gameplay was probably damn fine if not the best the series has seen. But that story was so COMPLETELY godawful, and the way they told it SO nonsensical, I just had to tap out and accept that MGS had suddenly decided to lean way too heavily on the absurdist and fantasy elements, the two things that always felt least comfortable in the MGS world to me.

Compared to the torture scene in MGS3, Snake crawling through those microwaves was tremendously trite to me.

Right? Crackdown 2 was garbage. I had a good time with the original, but man, they really screwed up the sequel. I think there's still hope for the franchise to turn around. And while I'm talking about the game, I'd just like to say that I really hated returning to the same cities in sequels this gen. One of the biggest offenders of this trend was Skate 2, another incredibly disappointing sequel to a good game with loads of potential. It's understandable for developers to want to reuse a city they already spent so much time creating, but it just comes off seeming so lazy. At least GTAIV handled that aspect quite well and really made solid re-use of the amazing Liberty City. Leave it to Rockstar to show the rest of the industry how to do things right.

Oh, I though this would be about franchises ruined by their own developers like the title says but the OP is completely different.

@thegreatguero: Yeah, doing the same city in Crackdown 2 was silly. "Same city but ruined" should be limited to DLC packs, not sequels. It was more like Crackdown 1.5 with significantly worse progression through the storyline, honestly. inFamous is a far better open-world superpowers game, in the end.

It's hard to say if certain franchises were ruined by the developer, or the publisher. Look at Bioware for example: When EA bought Bioware, Mass Effect 1 was done, Dragon Age:Origins was almost done and development on Mass Effect 2 had begun. Development on Dragon Age 2, KOTOR and Mass Effect 3 all started after EA bought Bioware. I consider both Dragon Age and Mass Effect to be ruined at this point and I blame EA for this.

Dead Space. Dead Space was released back in 2008, back when EA encouraged developers to make new franchises. I liked Dead Space, but I never thought it needed to be more than one game. A lot of people like DS2 and there's an awesome section in the game (towards the end, you know which one I mean), but on the whole I thought EA put way too much stock in this franchise. Dead Space 3 was just a mictrotransaction mess that EA seriously thought would ship 5 million copies.

Resident Evil. Oh man! Look at Resident Evil 4 to 5. Holy crap. Putting co-op in a survival horror is a terrible idea (Dead Space 3, looking at you as well). I loved the new direction Resident Evil took with 4. All ruined with 5 and it's certainly not getting any better!

Gran Turismo. Gran Turismo is very dear to me and it breaks my heart to see the state it has ended up in. Gran Turismo 5 is just a big fuck you from Polyphony. GT used to be uncompromised quality with a sleak look that made everything else in comparison look like crap. GT5 on the other hand, felt rushed, despite it's long development time. The PS2 assets are just unforgiveable and the constant updates is a testament to how unfinished it was, rather than how nice it was of PD to keep supporting the game. From everything I know of GT6 so far, it sounds like GT6 will continue this bad legacy. I think Yamauchi should step down and let someone else make GT.

Hitman: Absolution was a definite turn for the worse in a series that continued to get better with each new iteration.

@rorie: while I agree that inFamous 2 is definitely an overall better product than Crackdown 2 I think they're very different games and both fun for different reasons. I liked Crackdown 2 a lot but I was mostly bummed out by small stuff like the cars not transforming when you get in them. It was still a great mindless romp when you got a friend in. inFamous was a lot more controlled and slower paced.

Almost forgot about Absolution I was very disappointed with that game. I'm a fan of the Hitman series, and Absolution lacked what the other hitman games had.. Then again it is made by the same people would made Kane and Lynch.

Kane and Lynch gets a really bad rep unfairly I think. K & L 2 had some interesting things going for it. It certainly wasn't an awful shooter, just fairly short and uninspired in gameplay but visually it was pretty interesting and the whole 24 hours to get the hell out of this place aspect was neat.

I honestly would be interested in seeing Kane and Lynch 3.

I liked the gritty vibe for both games, and like you said both had interesting concepts. Especially their multiplayer mode, but both games was short and could have been made better. If Kane and Lynch 3 does get made, I hope the devs can make it standout more.

Resident Evil - After 4, they really let up on the 'horror' component of their 'survival horror' franchise. I'll be honest and say I didn't play much of 4, but the parts I did play seemed ok. They at least kept a tone consistent with the rest of the series, even if the gameplay had changed significantly. It's a shame, as the original concept of the series was great, but it's slowly morphed into something I don't even recognise as taking place in the same universe any more. I pray that Capcom realises that they need to think again about what made the original three games such classics. Updated tech based around the original atmosphere and gameplay would be great. Bring back the shufflers, lickers, hunters and crows; none of these chainsaw wielding, tentacle headed mutants.

The series as a whole is subjectable. People either embrace the Survival-Horror or Action side of Resident Evil. For me I embrace the Survival-horror aspects of the series. I'll list a few Reasons why I find it more thrilling and enjoyable.

1. Using limited resources to the best of my advantage to overcome certain situations excites me.

2. Trying to figure puzzles with my own knowledge feels aswome.

3. I must be wise when its best to engage battle or not, else I'll get fucked.

4. I embrace the creepy atmosphere, and keep pushing forward even though the odds are against me.

(Perfect Example of when or when not to engage battle)

The survival-horror RE games also required abit more of a thinking process. I know people will disagree, but its only my opinion...

Oh hey, it's the same half-dozen modern games people always trumpet out when threads like these pop up. Has no one remembered that Deus Ex Invisible War was developed by the same team who made the first game?

@falserelic: You see, I agree about survival horror in theory, but here's the thing: Most Resident Evil games drown you in ammo by the end of any given playthrough. There are exceptions (REmake and Zero are quite stingy with ammo, not to mention the whole "Burn Corpses" thing that you have to do in REmake), but I think people who haven't played those games recently overestimate how much ammo conservation there really was.

Resident Evil 6 and Dead Rising 2.

And i think it's very cheap to do the same city in Saint's Row 1 and 2,3 and 4 and Crackdown 1 and 2. There should be a law against using the same landscape for 2 games in a row.

I fucking hate it when they do that.

That´s why is love GTA so much, they don´t use the same city/landscape in a row... ever.And before you start, GTA 5 is not the same as GTA San Andreas, It´s allot bigger.

I can't really say it gives too much ammo. I can understand if it was RE4,RE5,RE6, or RE: Operation Raccoon City. It also could depend on how people play the game aswell, like for me I save up as much ammo as possible, and by the end I'll have a good abundance of ammo.

Sonic

Final Fantasy

Resident Evil

Final Fantasy

Dino Crisis is another series ruined by the developers..

Though it was Resident Evil with Dinosaurs it was still a fun Survival-horror, it had a unique charm that stood out about it. After the first Dino Crisis the series went to hell. The sequel ditched the survival-horror aspects and went straight action.

Though Dino Crisis 2 was alright. I didn't enjoy it as much as the original. It was short and the ending was sad and awful. If that wasn't worse Dino Crisis 3 took it to a new level.

Now the game said fuck it and decided to go full blown action, sad part is that it takes place far into the future somewhere in space, and its got nothing to do with the previous installments. So people who was curious of what happened after Dino Crisis 2, will get completely bum the fuck out.

Overstrike

Yeah fuse could have been great, but fell into that generic cash grab routine. Don't know what made the devs jump ship, when the game already seem to have a cool premise at the start.

Everything after Crysis Warhead, everything after Assass Creed Brotherhood and Battlefield 3.

Dragon Age. Never have I loved a game so much only to hate the follow up so much.

this is a hard question because we don't truly know who screws up a game. It's not always the developers fault.

Choosing those feels like cheating. Anything that has that many iterations out is going to become shit

@falserelic: Dino Crisis is a great shout, I was talking about this game at work the other day. The first one was a great survival horror game, with plenty of scares. It was more of a balls-to-the-wall jump fest than Resident Evil, which favoured a slow, creepy build up. The sequel was more action based, but still a very fun game, but Dino Crisis 3 jumped the shark.

Agreed, Dino Crisis 3 was on crack 2.0, it was a sad final installment. Tragic end to a survival- horror series that had potential.

As someone who recently finished Metal Gear Solid 2, yeah, I understand. I still love Metal Gear Solid 4 to bits, but I can definitely see why it would disappoint/anger fans of the series who had started the series before it existed. Say what you want about the long cutscenes in 4, but I definitely now see how it goes off the deep end in terms of it's own fiction. And the ending of 2, chronologically, would have been a nice speech to leave the series on. Still, I am not sad that we live in a world where Metal Gear Solid 4 exists, and I am still adamant that there hasn't been a bad mainline Metal Gear Solid game. I can't say anything for the likes of Acid or Portable Ops.

Thinking about it I kinda want to say Duke Nukem. 3drealms had a fun aswome shooter that is Duke3D, but as soon as development for Duke Nukem Forever started. It became 3drealms biggest downfall for the whole company.

In someways its sad how much time went into DNF, just to have it be a failure in the end. At the sametime it was the developers fault why DNF failed. DNF had so many re-imaginings because of them.

Mercenaries. That second game bums me out just thinking about it. Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction is such a great game.

@herbiebug: I completely forgot about those games. Yeah, that series could have been something special.

Mass Effect(3) , Dead Space(3), Hitman(absolute shit), Final Fantasy(10 and onwards). The list goes on...

Yeah, Dead Space 3 really ruined the series for me. The first game was great, second game was alright, then the 3rd fucked it up for me. I never bought it because the devs went all out action, and I've seen the conclusion of the whole story and wasn't pleased.

Splinter Cell, Hitman, Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon.

i think the worms series is a pretty good candidate for this. nothing has really come close to capturing how good worms armageddon was, they sorta tanked for a long time after worms 3d.

Just came here to post this, and it's the most recent reply. I couldn't agree more.

The better question is which franchise that has more than 2 iterations wasn't ruined by their own developer?

@rorie:

Oh Crackdown. The first was a great proof of concept and a lot of dumb fun. I couldn't wait to see what they did with the sequel and then they did basically the same exact game. Talk about dissapointment.

@falserelic: re: Mercenaries series. It's not quite dead yet as there is a new one being made by some of the displaced members of Pandemic right now. We shall see what we shall see. fingers crossed for goodness. :)

Most of the Capcom games

Power Stone

Viewtifull Joe

Okami

Darkstalkers

Final Fight

Capcom just abandoned these franchises

Soul Calibur

That's surprising, I didn't know another one was in the making. Hopefully it turnsout better then the last installment. The series has lots of untapped potential.

How about GUST. That third Ar Tonelico game was a mess.

It would be cool to see another Final Fight game. Maybe there might be a remake for the next gen console...

First time I've heard of that company, but I heard of ar tonelico from a friend. He seemed to have mixed feelings about the game.

@aetheldod: Yes I agree sir. As my favourite R.E would have to be Resident Evil Code Veronica. So I'm curious what is yours?

splinter cell

rainbow six

ghost recon

halo

mass effect

skate.

• Final Fantasy (I specifically dislike 12 and 13.)
• Assassin's Creed
• Dragon Age (I though 2 was alright but I don't think that franchise will be able to recover any fans it lost)
• Resident Evil
• Diablo (Again I didn't mind it but they can't recover from the reaction to 3)

I remember people being pissed about dragon age 2, but I don't know if the devs can fix the damage of the series.

Personally Uncharted, take out the set pieces in 3 and you have a mediocre game and I prefer 1 to 2.

I got bored with Uncharted 3 quickly. It started off very slow, and things didn't get interesting until the desert section.