Tom Clancy's The Division held it's open beta over the weekend, and Far Cry: Primal is out. Two Ubisoft games that are ultimately new entries in long running series, except not really. I'm not planning on buying Far Cry, and will probably only get it when it's super cheap, but The Division has piqued my curiosity (and a few million others) and I think I will get it on release, even at $80 Canadian! Both franchises have had entries every year for the past while, but I'm sick of one, and not the other. Why?

This entirely boils down to what these games are doing. Primal is another Far Cry game, complete with outposts, hunting and gathering, all that jazz, but with a new coat of paint. I think this largely comes from the fact that it is, after all, a series. To radically shift the way a Far Cry game plays isn't something Ubisoft has in the cards for the same reason they won't shake up the core gameplay of Assassin's Creed: the series has established itself on a certain kind of gameplay, and while they will play off of ways to present it, including setting, weapons and story, the game itself will remain what it is. Far Cry is a lot easier to relocate than Assassin's Creed, but even when shifting the setting radically, certain elements (outposts/checkpoints, wildlife, fire, basic gunplay, etc.) remain relatively unchanged since Far Cry 2 and 3.

The Division plays similar to other Tom Clancy games, but is radically different in other ways. There have been other third-person, cover-based Tom Clancy games before, but The Division is really only linked to them in that it is a modern military shooter. It's closer, in gameplay terms, to Destiny or Borderlands than it is to the original Rainbow Six or Splinter Cell. For all intents and purposes, it's a new IP. It's not based off of a novel, it doesn't share a universe (at least, not in any meaningful way) nor does it iterate on the core concepts of a predecessor. Despite its newness, it still fits as part of an established franchise, and has the name recognition that having "Tom Clancy's" in front of the title carries. The actual Tom Clancy had virtually nothing to do with this game, having sold his naming rights to Ubisoft years ago, and passing away only months after the game was revealed at E3 2013, but his name hanging on the box is enough to convince at least some segment of the audience of what this game is about.

I like the Tom Clancy franchise because it isn't a franchise. It's a name that evokes a setting and a general theme, but is otherwise irrelevant to what the game is. It tells you what the game is about, but it doesn't tell you what the game is. The Division isn't the only Tom Clancy game (potentially) coming out this year, with Ghost Recon: Wildlands slated for a nebulous 2016 release. Wildlands and The Division are radically different games that share a general setting/theme. You're working for the government in a near-future scenario. That's about it. The way Ubisoft has structured the Tom Clancy games is one of their biggest strengths, and might be one of their best assets. When tactical first-person shooters were all the rage, Rainbow Six was there to capitalize on it. Want to dip your toe into stealth games? Give Splinter Cell a try! Planes? Fuck it! H.A.W.X.! All of these games are drastically different, and are completely unrelated, outside of the occasional wink and nod. The words "Tom Clancy's" turn an experimental concept into an entry into an existing franchise, and that's a good thing.

We don't feel franchise fatigue for Yakuza since it takes 3 years for a goddamn game to come out over here.

Games, especially the Triple-A games that we expect from big studios, are ridiculously time consuming and expensive to make. If a new game doesn't do well, that's two, more likely three (or more!) years and millions of dollars in salary, marketing budget, software licensing, etc. down the drain. Anything that can mitigate those costs, while not directly impacting the vision of the game is good. That's not to say that taking a big gamble on a new franchise doesn't happen, look no further than Titanfall or Destiny to see that in action, but the problem is that these games just become another franchise. Titanfall 2 and Destiny 2 are already in the works. Even EA's experimental new projects last generation turned into pretty generic horror/action games or Fantasy RPGs. Hell, Assassin's Creed and Far Cry 2 were experimental projects from Ubisoft last gen, but the company has since ground those names into repetitive dust and pressed them into a disc every year.

Games are struggling with a repetition problem right now. It's risky to make a big game that is entirely new, and franchises have so much momentum that it's impossible to radically shift course, or completely change the tone of your game, if it's annual. Call of Duty is a good example of this. Every time one of the three developers working on a game introduces something popular, it takes two years for it to really be iterated on because it's too far in the cycle of the next installment to pivot. Ubisoft taking a break on Assassin's Creed is good, but it doesn't address the core problem with the series: Assassin's Creed games are a known quantity. The way they handle the Tom Clancy name is different, though. Games can be radically different with only the loosest connecting tissue. If one game doesn't catch on, the next one in the chamber can be something completely different. This gives them time to react, think, and build excitement for something different. Jeff's review of Far Cry: Primal laments that it's another one of those games, a short while after the last. The annualization of these franchises is by far the biggest reason why we're growing so sick of them, but still remain excited for the next Mass Effect or Uncharted. While having loose series that can experiment while still playing it somewhat safe doesn't solve everything, it's something that can strike a balance between pumping the well dry and trying new things constantly. It keeps a tighter release schedule, but doesn't crank out the same game every year. It breaks up franchise fatigue, but keeps name recognition. The Tom Clancy name isn't something that you see following "I'm so goddamn sick of" in that many sentences, and it's worth asking why, and maybe trying to integrate some of the answer into other series. Who knows, maybe we'd even see an established franchise turn into a kart racer.

E: Borked some images when I reformatted things, fixed that up

I got sick of them when Vegas ruined the franchise.

Boring brown game vs exotic worldwide locations of the earlier games.

You said to insult you so here you go: Drongo.

@captainnovolin You also forgot one voice-controlled real-time strategy game.

I remember the voice recognition working quite well in the demo when I tried it.

Because, as you say, there's only the vaguest connection between Tom Clancy games. To consider Tom Clancy games in the same way you consider a typical game franchise would be bizarre. The brand gives you at best a slight hint as to the tone of the game; it tells you nothing at all about what the game will be. You're right that this gives the brand more resilience from being tarnished by a weak game bearing the name, but I'd say that's only because everyone recognises the relative meaninglessness of the brand in the first place. While there's no doubt some nominal benefit from the name recognition, I personally doubt that Tom Clancy's The Division would significantly suffer if it were simply The Division.

The Far Cry games are of course a lot more closely related than that, but it's still an oversimplification when people say 'it's another Far Cry game' as though the series started with Far Cry 3. FC 1 and 2 were significantly different from each other and from the games that have followed since then. The Far Cry brand (or Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect etc. etc) is obviously far more susceptible to franchise fatigue or being tarnished by a bad game than the Tom Clancy brand is, but they also carry far more clout in the first place. People understand that those brands mean something -good or bad- while the Tom Clancy brand is virtually meaningless. The Clancy model isn't better, it's just branding lite.

I don't believe it's Far Cry that people are fed up with per se, but rather the fact that Ubisoft have blatantly been tracing over the same outline across multiple franchises since about ~2010. It's not a minute-to-minute gameplay issue so much as a game structure issue. As soon as they realised they'd hit on a popular structure they went all in on it across their AAA development and milked it to death ASAP. Ubisoft aren't shy about experimenting with the minute-to-minute gameplay either within or across their franchises, but they're absolutely terrified about moving away from their proven structure now.

Ubisoft are fucked if they don't realise they need to rapidly diversify away from this blueprint before the market decides they've had enough of it. Likewise fucked if they misdiagnose the problem as people being 'fed up with AC' or 'fed up with Far Cry' and spend too long trying to treat the symptom rather than the cause.

The "diversity" of the name is because Tom Clancy is barely any kind of cohesive brand. Like you said, it's not really even a franchise.

It's pretty much a micro-genre of vaguely military (or paramilitary) action, with no guarantee in terms of consistent design or quality. There's some freedom in that but there's also barely any allure or attachment.

Tom Clancy games have absolutely nothing relating them other than a name and that they'll be about military or counter terrorism combat. Tom Clancy isn't the series, Rainbow 6 is, Ghost Recon is, Splinter Cell is.

On a related note, I do wish said franchises would go back to being good, and tactical. Especially Rainbow 6, all I want is a tactical R6. Vegas ruined that shit.

The closest thing to an actual Tom Clancy game these days is ARMA.

I would argue that there hasn't been a "true" Tom Clancy game since Rainbow Six 3, and maybe the first Ghost Recon. Tom Clancy games to me are games made with an ultra-high level of tactical realism, as much as was possible at the time. Tom Clancy games haven't been made like that in a long, long time.

I enjoyed that The Division beta, but I almost feel like Clancy would be rolling in his grave over that game. I've read that he used to have to approve every major "thing" included in the games that bore his name. Sam Fisher's iconic goggles almost didn't get into the first Splinter Cell because Clancy thought they were too unrealistic (or so I've read, at least).

And now we have a game where headshots usually don't kill, and if you catch on fire you put it out by eating an energy bar. No, really, energy bars remove status effects in the game, one of which is FIRE.

Yeah, I've been feeling pretty similarly about Tom Clancy's The Division, in other words. It seem fun, and I'm sure I'll play it at some point, but I kinda wish they hadn't slapped the Clancy name on it.

Ubisoft bought the Tom Clancy name they'll put in on everything they can to sell copies, if Sega had the cash we would see Yakuza at more regular interval. Assassins Creed was always planned as a franchise from the start yearly games always bring franchise fatigue, the only reason AC is taking a break is because Watch Dog is being prepped to take its place.

I had written some long winded rhetoric about the appeal of patriotism and patronage, but as the comments mention above, the correct answer is probably that the Clancy name is more of badge than a franchise.

I don't know, if you go back to old R6/Red Storm stuff then you'll see the emergence of the ethos and brand. Even in the early, low fidelity days it was all about people who cared about the military fetishism the same way basically all sim/semi-sim/"realistic" car games are sold today: this gun is in the game because someone on the dev team really likes to play with the actual weapon or piece of equipment.

When you look at those Tom Clancy's The Division: Agent Origins videos Ubi did to promote the game, even if you've never had any interest in real guns and only played the game then you'd see the weapons being held by the actors and recognise them from the game. I think the Clancy name still stands for that kind of real-world grounding (even when going into SciFi areas of speculative fiction, which I think extended to his writing - although I've barely read more than a few of his novels) where you could, if you wanted a very rough idea of how the guns in the game will be different, go look at the Wikipeida pages for the real weapons and get an idea of how they are different. Yes, the Division is an RPG and it's all stats ranges and dice rolls with perks and special effects that differentiate several guns that are based on the same real-world weapon but they also start from the real guns. And yes, it's an RPG so bullet-sponge designs to denote group mobs (and in the full game I expect that to get a lot more pronounced if you ever walk into a lvl 30 mob and shoot with a lvl 6 gun) and so on - headshots are not always fatal and so on because it's not a shooter. But I still think the ethos is visible in the game.

And that military, counter-terrorism, sleeper agents, and so on... America on the brink of collapse from enemies without and within. It's far more than just a label Ubisoft stick on all their games with guns or military vehicles.

Just wait until division 6, you can already see the ubisoft open world injecting itself into tom clancy titles. I would say Division has the least to do with Tom Clancy than any other game with the name, and is probably a good indicator of where they will be taking those games in the future. So... prepare to get sick of Tom Clancy Games lol

I always thought that it was a pretty good trade off. Companies feel safer in their investment by slapping on a name, developers get to divert quite a bit more in their creative endeavors, and we get to experience something pretty different and fresh. I guess you don't feel the same about FF games but I enjoy them because they get to change it up so much from game to game under the FF banner.

The Tom Clancy games are different from each other, even if they come out often. Far Cry has been the same game for 4 games straight. The Division, for as much as I like it, is the least-deserving game to receive a Tom Clancy name.

I'll be interested in seeing how many people end up buying this game, if 6.4 million played the beta. That's my take-away from this.

This. Also, I miss those days. Rainbow Six 3 is still one of my favorite games ever made, along with some of the early Splinter Cell games. Those games did Clancy proud.

Because I rarely play Tom Clancy games. Last one I played for any significant length of time was Vegas 1 (which I liked a lot). The Division doesn't need the Clancy name on it, it's not like it feel like any of the older Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six games. Aside from how (some) of the guns feel there's next to no connection between any previous Clancy games and this one, that I've seen.

FWIW, I'm definitely buying the Division. Loved the beta.

And you know what at least it's Ubisoft doing something marginally different from Assassin's Creed or Far Cry.

I will say there is a certain level of craziness that comes with being a Tom Clancy game and that's ultimately what I play them for. I'm one of those guys who liked Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier so take that how you will.

You drop from the rafters, grab a man from behind, shoot his pair of friends, and slit his throat. Not you hope to or if you get the buttons right. You do. And for me that makes every visit to Clancyland, at least the Splinter Cell Terrorarium, always welcomed for its buttery smooth murderman controls.

I don't think I've paid attention to the "Tom Clancy's" part of Ubisoft game titles for quite a while. I never use it as part of talking about games and my my mind The Division is just that and the same can be said for both a lot of previous games. But that's probably also because I have very little to no connection to Tom Clancy as an actual writer. So I guess I've always compartmentalized them all as completely different franchises (and even taking the name into account, that still works).

Also, I don't really say "Sid Meyer's Civilization" either.

But let's ignore all of that and I'll just say that the reason I still buy "Tom Clancy" games, comes down the fact that a lot of them are of a decent quality worth playing.

Yes, The Division and Far Cry Primal are comparable.

I like the Borderlands series and loot. I heard this game is like that and so I played the Beta and got loot. I want more loot. GIVE ME LOOT!

The Tom Clancy brand on video games has never meant anything of real substance and even more so now means nothing now that the man is dead.

The Tom Clancy name is so frivolous that I practically don't notice it. It pops up in so many titles, but means so little that it has become, to me, sort of background noise. I know it's there, but unless you point it out to me, it is merely an afterthought.

So getting tired of Tom Clancy games is hard to justify, unless you simply don't like the modern military context, which would not really be an issue with the brand but with the current video game climate.

I always wondered who exactly the Tom Clancy name appeals to honestly... Like a dad who reads those books but doesn't play games would see the game and think "oh man! I love Clancy!" Does that happen?

You go through a lot of the below in your OP but here are my thoughts:

I would just say Tom Clancy "games" aren't really a thing, first and foremost, in the way Final Fantasy, Far Cry or Assassin's Creed is. The right level of comparison is Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, etc.

Then I would say that while Assassin's Creed and many AAA games are on a yearly release schedule, none of the Tom Clancy games are, or at least have been, recently. This is probably the biggest reason for any type of genre fatigue. Obviously your playing habits matter a lot too..

Then on top of that I would say that both FC and AC games (and similar) tend to be hilariously massive. Each game will have many, many events (save guys, kill guys, find items, chase things, deliver other things) that repeat dozens of times (at minimum). These events, from game to the next, aren't really that different. Tom Clancy games tend to be tighter, more focused and linear experiences.

I'd like to talk about this via sandwiches right now.

Playing Assassin's Creed is like having a Subway built into your apartment building, and you go there every single goddamn day and you get either a Cold Cut Combo, or a Ham & Swiss. Good value, tasty, but repetitive.

Playing Tom Clancy games are instead like going to a new restaurant, realizing you like it, and then having dinner there 2-3 times in a week, then not going back until you hear there's new management/chef/menu the next year(s).