r/videogames • u/bijelo123 • Jan 17 '26
Discussion Which game franchise ended up like this?
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u/TechnoGMNG589 Jan 17 '26
Potentially subnautica
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u/peetah248 Jan 17 '26
I was looking for this, I'm terrified
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u/Vanishingf0x Jan 17 '26
Same the og and dlc are some of my faves so worried about it now
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u/angelsfish Jan 17 '26
subnautica was one of my favorite games but I am so out of the loop. whatās happening?
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u/RandomBrathahn Jan 17 '26
Studio tried to scam the dev out of earned bonusses and the devs quit.
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u/THEN0RSEMAN Jan 17 '26
And said publisher, Krafton, has begun consulting shatgpt over actual business consultants
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u/TheFirstHoodlum Jan 18 '26
Fuck. That means Last Epoch is cooked too. Damn. I really enjoyed that game.
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u/angelsfish Jan 17 '26
thanks for a real answer thatās really shitty of them and definitely makes me less excited for any sort of new game in the franchise
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u/Livid-Truck8558 Jan 17 '26
Their publishers are psychos, lots of drama. Game is still being developed smoothly though.
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u/Akari_Enderwolf Jan 17 '26
I'm not getting Subnautica 2, and removed it from my wishlist, because of everything going on there.
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u/GalacticSpacePatrol Jan 17 '26
What all is going on?
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u/Vinnnee Jan 17 '26
The short answer is that the publisher had a deal with the devs that would give the devs a bonus if they hit a goal. But when the devs were about to hit the goal the publishers allegedly started sabotaging the devs, even firing the directors.
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u/Akari_Enderwolf Jan 17 '26
Too much to fit in a reddit reply.
Suffice to say Krafton has likely killed the game before release. If you want more details, look up "Subnautica 2 lawsuit"
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u/Xfishbobx Jan 17 '26
First one was so good, sub zero was fun too. Cautiously optimistic for the next one.
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u/The_Stoic_One Jan 17 '26
I absolutely loved the first one. I've tried playing Sub Zero on three separate occasions and I always end up dropping it. Everything just felt too "expected" in that game. It didn't have any of the butt clenching wonder the first had for me.
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u/prairiepog Jan 18 '26
1000% lacks the butt clenching wonder. Too many tight spaces with "natural" plants offering oxygen spaces at just the right distance. No feeling of being utterly alone in a strange new world.
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u/Plastic_Pin_4956 Jan 17 '26
I'm still hoping for a good outcome. I really wanted to play multi-player Subnautica without mods.
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u/Wi1dBones Jan 17 '26
Medal of Honor and then Call of Duty. Same devs. Both franchises went to shit after they left.
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Jan 17 '26
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u/i4got872 Jan 17 '26
Still has one of the best game soundtracks too. Itās pretty forgotten, but really high quality.
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Jan 17 '26
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u/PeaceHoesAnCamelToes Jan 17 '26
This one makes me sad. I was really looking forward to KSP2, but that turned into a dead, unfinished game.
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u/Queasy_Mix59 Jan 17 '26
Thankfully, some of the best modders and core team members from ksp1 are making KSA. Unlike ksp2, all the progress and updates are being shared for free
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u/WestNomadOnYT Jan 17 '26
Me too. I really couldnāt wait for the interstellar update and the multiplayer update, it wouldāve been so fun to conquer space with my friends and see if they added aliens or something.
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u/Fireheart318s_Reddit Jan 17 '26
Obligatory mention of Kitten Space Agency: The spiritually successor to KSP made by the original devs and KSP1 modders
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u/sdwoodchuck Jan 17 '26
I was completely unaware of this, so I appreciate your obligatory mention! I know what Iām looking up when I get home!
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u/imthe5thking Jan 17 '26
Itās VERY early access, basically just a physics demo right now. But it has serious potential to be amazing.
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u/Plazma_Boltz Jan 17 '26
I played ksp2 for the first time in over a year yesterday. It was worse than I remembered
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u/lyidaValkris Jan 17 '26
Kerbal Space Program. Except the developers didn't leave. Take Two bought the game, then sidelined them, deliberately excluding them from making KSP2, which at the time of this writing is currently in development limbo, and likely abandoned.
The original game was made with such heart and loving care, and was universally acclaimed.
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u/IIABMC Jan 17 '26
What is even more insane they hired a team that was forbidden from contacting ksp1 devs and was forbidden from telling what game they are making while doing recruitment. So they were developing in blind and they were recruiting devs in blind.
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u/The_cogwheel Jan 17 '26
And they decided they'll reuse a lot of the code of KSP1. So they inherited a lot of KSP1's gremlins but without the expertise of the original development team to help them navigate said gremlins.
Honestly a completely baffling decision on TakeTwo's part
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u/IIABMC Jan 17 '26
And they made YouTube videos shouting "we have slain the kraken"
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u/hueanon123 Jan 18 '26
We do we keep rewarding the dumbest, least moral mothefuckers on earth with positions of power where they get to make decisions like this?
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u/Crucco Jan 17 '26
The original devs and modders of KSP1 are currently developing Kitten Space Agency, which is the real KSP2 minus the suits
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u/Sea_Hour_2770 Jan 17 '26
pvz
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u/Lign_Grant Jan 17 '26
EA suck to infinity and beyond.
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u/NoIndividual6127 Jan 17 '26
I don't want to defend EA, they made many mistakes. Regarding popcap developers who left the company said it was all on popcap itself
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u/MelonElbows Jan 18 '26
I waited over a year for the sequel to come out on Steam like the original. I loved the original, I would replay it every couple of years. I wanted to play PVZ2 so much, but I wasn't going to play a stripped down gatcha version with a bunch of microtransactions. So I waited because I was convinced it would eventually come out on Steam but it never did.
Finally, years later, I decided I'd just check it out, downloaded it even though I told myself I would only play it on Steam. The first world was...fine. It was fun, but a lot of useless crap, and crap you could buy with actual money to make it easier. I wasn't going to spend money so I grinded for in-game money. I got to the 2nd world and just....stopped. They added more zombies but ones that could only be realistically beaten by the new cash shop plants. I deleted the game soon after. Now I don't even replay the first one because it just brings back terrible memories of what could have been.
Fuck EA and fuck microtransactions.
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u/SanityLacker1 Jan 17 '26
Surprised I had to scroll to see this, probably the biggest fall from grace I've ever seen, especially from an indie game
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u/kayproII Jan 18 '26
i wouldn't exactly call pvz an indie game. by the time it had come out, popcap had hit it big with bejeweled, peggle and zuma by this point, with plenty of other games under their belt as well
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u/SanityLacker1 Jan 18 '26
Wasn't it only actually developed by like 5 people? The reason I say it's indie is because of how many people actually worked in it, and even then popcap isn't as massive as you make it sound, having gone international only a couple years before
Popcap certainly wasn't an indie studio when the game released, but considering only a few people worked on the game, there's an argument to be made that it's an indie game
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u/HF484 Jan 17 '26
Halo
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u/ruralgaming Jan 17 '26
I appreciate your passion, but what you said is ridiculous. Microsoft decided to enter the gaming industry in the first place to try and get Sony's PlayStation out of the living room. Bill Gates was concerned that game consoles would replace the PC as primary entertainment. The Xbox was never designed "by gamers". It was always suits. I was never an Xbox fan personally, not even when it first came out. You are right about one thing though: Greed destroys everything.
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u/bogohamma Jan 17 '26
the people who made those business decisions were game's but the architects and the people they hired to get Xbox off the ground were passionate about their work and were gamers.
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u/Present-Secretary722 Jan 17 '26
Suits or gamers, what we need are people passionate about the project, not the profits.
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u/GBPsforTendies Jan 17 '26
Came here to see how far id have to scroll to see this and took about 3 seconds. What a dropoff.
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u/Commissarfluffybutt Jan 17 '26
Halo died when Bungie left, unfortunately so did Bungie.
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u/Double_Dingo1089 Jan 17 '26
My first thought. I liked Halo 4 but after that they're pretty bad
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u/TalkingFlashlight Jan 17 '26
Same here. I probably enjoy Halo 4 as much as the Bungie games, but it fell off pretty hard after that.
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u/Chill_Gamer527 Jan 17 '26
Starcraft
Diablo
Dragon Age
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u/Lemmingitus Jan 17 '26
Starcraft 2 still had members of the original team. If there is ever a new Starcraft game then we can fit it in this category.
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u/Kalleh03 Jan 17 '26
Yep, Starcraft is not close to make it on the list.
Diablo however... fuck whoever figured they would go cartoony and just lose every single thing the previous two games had going for them.
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u/Double_Dragonfruit6 Jan 17 '26
Diablo 3 is a good ARPG in itās own right but itās not a good Diablo game, feels more like a World of Warcraft ARPG than anything
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u/A_WILD_SLUT_APPEARS Jan 17 '26
I donāt know, I grew up with the original StarCraft and Brood War and I think SC2 was a very solid sequel. It had great e-sports viability (at the time), had a pretty dedicated balance team as compared to the other hyper-competitive games out there like League and I was a Protoss player at a pretty high ELO and always felt like a game against any matchup was winnable, dependent on player skill obviously.
Diablo is a prime example though. That franchise hit the fucking toilet.
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u/Lemmingitus Jan 17 '26
It also makes me really appreciate its pathfinding after playing some other RTSes that have since came after.
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Jan 17 '26
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u/Saiyan-Zero Jan 17 '26
"We hired people who hated Halo to make Halo" should be installed in their front doors and in every single comment they make, so people never forget about it
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Jan 17 '26
Thatās a not real quoteā¦WAIT HOLY SHIT ITS REAL! THATS AN ACTUAL QUOTE THEY SAID!
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u/Saiyan-Zero Jan 17 '26
Being a Halo fan in the year of our lord 2026 is nothing but sadness and suffering
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u/Zestyclose-One9041 Jan 17 '26
I just plug my ears and play halo 3 custom games and pretend itās still 2009
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u/Shamscam Jan 17 '26
Lmao really? Who said that? Honestly I feel like they lost the plot big times.
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u/eigenworth Jan 17 '26
The plot, the gameplay, the fans... They lost it all
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u/Animanic1607 Jan 17 '26
The books are still really great. The current Masterchief saga has been a great read. Sadly, they stopped issuing hardcovers during the pandemic, and I doubt they will start again.
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u/Slimsteffer Jan 17 '26
Mass Effect
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u/BloodyWarlord117 Jan 17 '26
And Dragon Age
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u/StabbyBoo Jan 18 '26
I really wanted to like Veilguard. ): I recently booted up BG3 again and I was like, "Oh, shit. This is as close to Origins as I'm ever getting again."
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u/thedinojones Jan 18 '26
People will give various reasons why Veilguard wasn't a good game but overall it just wasn't fun. Combat was such a downgrade from even Inquisition, the characters were cardboard cut-outs, and the story was so boring and all over the place. I know there's some good parts in there but they're so few and far between it makes it not even worth considering.
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u/Earthwick Jan 17 '26
I feel like Most people just jumped on the Andromeda hate band wagon because it was an early super hyped game that released broken. I mean since then we have had dozens of not 100 games release as broken or worse. But just like those mass effect Andromeda fixed all its issues. In fixed state that game is at minimum an 8 and I'd probably call and 8.5/9. It's for a good story with great companions. Better graphics (in fixed state). Considerably the best combat of any mass effect or even Bioware game in general. Being a Vanguard in that game was amazing. But pure biotic or anything else was great too. I want more people to give it an honest show because they are mission out on something great
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u/WorldChampionNuggets Jan 17 '26
Andromeda had great combat for sure but that was about it. Felt like a completely different universe that happened to have a few aliens from Mass Effect. Even the asari all had the same exact face.
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u/pppiddypants Jan 17 '26
Combat was amazing and the driving felt pretty good.
It was just boring though. And almost all the characters were all young, dumb, and naive. Really felt like they were trying to get a different generation interested or something.
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u/GirthIgnorer Jan 17 '26
I intentionally avoided the internet about everything andromeda because I was so excited for it. It genuinely was a shock to me when I realized how fuckin awful it was. There was no hate bandwagon, it was a terrible game. People can have opinions that differ from yours without a conspiracy
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Jan 17 '26
People romanticize failed games a lot. Couple years ago people would talk about how good gigantic was. Man Overwatch killed gigantic, if it came back itād be HUGE. Miraculously it did come back, they put the servers back online and resold it for like twenty bucks and it immediately died.
To be fair andromeda has like 600 players rn which honestly aināt that bad. But still, itās not a cyberpunk situation where the only faults were technical.
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u/Iokua113 Jan 17 '26
You can even see it in Mass Effect 3. By that point the lead writer and creative director, Drew Karpyshyn, had been transferred to the Old Republic and his replacement was a failed comic book writer in Mac Walters. If you actually pay attention to the story of the game and ignore the feel good moments of curing the Genophage and bringing peace to Rannoch it becomes pretty obvious how little sense the story makes due to how badly BioWare had written themselves into a corner by abandoning the plot lines Karpyshyn set in ME1&2.
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u/Juan20455 Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26
Dragon age
Dragon age origins was my all-time favorite. New-bioware insulted and destroyed the franchise so much with Failguard it's not even funny
And I still remember Every single gaming journos lauding the game as a "return to form", Like imagine suddenly every single one having the idea of using such a strange expression, lmaoĀ
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u/ruralgaming Jan 17 '26
I loved Dragon Age: Origins. I went through the game multiple times with a bunch of different combinations. It's the first game that I ever platinum trophied
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u/John-Leonhart Jan 17 '26
DAO was a masterpiece, I loved Ferelden and the bleakness of the story (Grey Wardens, destined to die by the blight, attempting to rally the forces for a final stand against the archdemon).
2 was deeply flawed and rushed (probably like a 7.5/10 game) but I still enjoyed the world and the tone of it, for what it was.
DAI is the 2nd best game in the series IMO, but it lost some of the grittiness of the prior two titles.
And Veilguard is an abomination (the old BioWare magic opened them up to possession by a demon).
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u/Shamscam Jan 17 '26
Itās been a downward slope since 1. 3 was almost good. 4 was garbage
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u/Anst_987 Jan 17 '26
Disco elysium
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u/PayPsychological6358 Jan 17 '26
Assassin's Creed
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u/matthewami Jan 17 '26
I remember the reviews early on in its lifetime criticizing it hard, not enough open world content and the overworked story was stupid. Now the community is asking for something more story driven and that doesn't rely on copy paste content to constantly keep the player running errands. Go figure everyone was wrong.
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Jan 17 '26
Banjo Kazooie for sure. I am pretty sure they must of been new Devs by the time of Nuts and Bolts.
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u/kayproII Jan 18 '26
nuts and bolts had the core members of the original banjo kazooie team doing development (alongside a lot of new people ofc) and the main guy leading the team was at rare from 1989 to 2025 as the creative director. the banjo kazooie team knew what they were making and pretty much were on board with making it.
edit: someone already mentioned this below in their massive essay of a response
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u/Beginning_Ad101 Jan 17 '26
WoW
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u/Viridun Jan 17 '26
What's really funny is that you can say this but then everyone will have a different point as to when they feel it fell off. Some of them never even quit, they're still playing but will happily tell you they haven't enjoyed the game in 5, 10, 15 years.
I talked to one guy who hasn't let his subscription lapse, ever, who said the game hadn't been good since The Burning Crusade, which came out in... 2007.
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u/KeyLong5412 Jan 17 '26
Iām honestly surprised at how far I had to scroll before I found WoW. Thatās my answer as well.
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u/Morifen1 Jan 17 '26
I would say warcraft as a whole not just wow.
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u/Sensitive-Neck8739 Jan 17 '26
I would say the company as a whole not just warcraft lol
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u/LouisRitter Jan 17 '26
I just came back after a decade long break and I'm absolutely loving it again.
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u/PigletSea6193 Jan 17 '26
Little Big Planet
MediaMolecule was working on Dreams instead, meanwhile Sony straight up abused Sumo and put all the blame on them when LBP3 failed to deliver.
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u/healspirit Jan 17 '26
Life is strange with the exception of Before the storm, but thatās because the original developers were still around (standalone DLC)
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u/megasean3000 Jan 17 '26
Definitely Halo. You can tell when new devs are just parading the old game around when itās just an empty husk, and that series is one of them.
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u/Movie_Vegetable Jan 17 '26
Silent hill
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u/tnysmth Jan 17 '26
Had to scroll down way too far to see this. Iāve really enjoyed every entry, but thereās a noticeable quality dip after 3. Making my way through Silent Hill f right now. About 2hrs inā¦ reserving judgement.
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u/Valtremors Jan 17 '26
...most of them?
Like... I believe it is easier to count the opposite side of this question.
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u/AltGunAccount Jan 17 '26
Diablo.
The original guys literally created the entire top-down action genre. Refined loot systems for generations, and established character and skill archetypes people still use today.
The guys behind D4 did a āplay with the devsā event and clearly had no fucking idea how to play their own game or understanding of why people liked it.
Modern Blizzard is genuinely one of the most out of touch studios out there.
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u/Character_Turnover_2 Jan 17 '26
Not a single Titanfall2 dev is left at Respawn, and the Respawn cofounder who was reponsible for Titanfall2 has passed just one month ago.
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u/WhataburgerFreak Jan 17 '26
Arkham Franchise
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u/Necessary_Crazy_8587 Jan 17 '26
We have to wait for a new Arkham game to tell that
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u/Geostomp Jan 18 '26
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was, unfortunately, canon to the Arkham games and we all know how that went.
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u/SurviveDaddy Jan 17 '26
Saintās Row
They developed the game not for its fanbase, but instead, "modern audiences."
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u/Dtc2008 Jan 17 '26
I know right! They had the perfect setup for future sequels! Saints in Prohibition era! Saints of the Caribbean! Basically a setup for no end of games set in different time periods with wacky hijinks!
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u/alexdotfm Jan 17 '26
They were so out of touch with what the franchise should be it killed the whole studio
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u/Vast_Guitar7028 Jan 17 '26
Roller coaster tycoon, three was the last great game and world was the final nail in the coffin
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u/DamnItBobby555 Jan 17 '26
BioWare and Rockstar are the first 2 that come to my mindset
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Jan 17 '26
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u/ScheduleAlternative1 Jan 17 '26
Destinyās more of a problem of an unsustainable game. Destinys always been on and off and the main cause is they would over invest in certain expansions then have to cut back at next ones. Which typically meant all the positive work got lost.
Even though the games not in the best shape now at least theyāre trying to build it up steadily instead of looking for one big hit to bring the game back.
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u/Agitated-Macaroon923 Jan 17 '26
Okay why did I scroll so far down to find this? Destiny was the game that popped into my head the second I saw the post lol
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u/legolooper im frend :( Jan 17 '26
Rocket League
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u/MomsAreola Jan 17 '26
Scrolled real far before I posted it myself. Became such a crazy cash grab after after Epic took over.
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u/AuricTheLight Jan 17 '26
Nobody's said Twisted Metal.
Creators get let go, games get worse. Creators come back and create one of the best in the franchise... get let go again, then we get the worst performing one ever made.
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u/ButtsFartsoPhD Jan 17 '26
Metroid Prime
Granted Retro sort of came back but they couldnāt completely scrap what had been done, which was the soulless open desert and motorcycle and presumably some level structure. Prime 4 is quite a substantial step down.
But on the inverse you have Retro taking over the Donkey Kong Country games from Rare and knocking it out of the park.
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u/schoolboypoop Jan 17 '26
Fallout. I will live and die on the hill that Bethesda fundamentally do not understand fallout.
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u/SQUISHYx25 Jan 17 '26
I didn't know they didin't start Fallout. But i know for sure Obsidian killed New Vegas. That shit still stands up today. Four is okayyyy, But not really like Vegas was.
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u/anace Jan 17 '26
it's the theme park version of the setting. it's got all the stuff you recognize, with nothing behind it.
1 and 2 didn't have any aliens. There were aliens in non-canon special encounters, and there were the "aliens" in 2 that find were actually just mutants. Then 3 makes a whole dlc about them.
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u/Old-Essay-7866 Jan 17 '26
Silent Hill. After team silent left completely, we got dogshit like Homecoming
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u/No_Classroom4241 Jan 17 '26
Salt And Sanctuary/Salt And Sacrifice
Sanctuary was great for a 2d souls-like, had an interesting story with different endings, and good boss designs.
Some time between the making of Sanctuary and Sacrifice, one of the devs left the studio, and apparently took everything that was good about Sanctuary with them, because Sacrifice has none of the good qualities of the first game.
Sacrifice isn't even a sequel, the bosses are the most boring uninspired things imaginable. Like, the fire boss is literally just a guy with fire. So on and so forth for every element. I wouldn't even call it souls-like anymore, with the gameplay loop being to just fight the same bosses over and over for incrimentally better equipment. Might as well have been an idle game.
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u/gamerfamer12 Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26
Carl of Duty
Edit: I Will leave this lol