Dead video game series/franchises you refuse to let go

[Scream Aim Fire]

I wanna saw Neopets, for me at least. Jumpstart pretty much destroyed the game; getting rid of a bunch of classic fan-favorite stuff, shoving in a bunch of crap nobody wants, etc. That's not getting into a lot of the in-game issues, either, like the in-game economy being completely fucked, or the vast majority of old games being rendered unplayable after Flash ended up shitting down. The decision to start catering to troons and shoving a bunch of faggot crap into the game - after a massive, massive chunk of the original game was explicitly dedicated towards avoiding IRL crap like that - further put the nail into the coffin; seriously, sites like TVTropes act as if the game is doing fine and the troon crap is obviously a good thing, which... it really isn't.

Bit depressing seeing this old internet giant go down like this; Neopets was big part of my younger years. Thing is; the devs could easily fix the damn franchise, too; stop catering to troons would be a great start, put in some content that people would actually like, fix some of the old games up, etc. It doesn't seem like they've completely given up on the series as of yet; there were some reports of a Neopets animated series being in the works back in 2020 - nothing's came out of that, yet, but given some of the shit that went down then, it likely got delayed - and I heard that the game was (somehow) going to be coming to the Nintendo Switch.

At least we got some of the older games, even if they weren't the best...

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I still think someone could make a Sleeping Dogs game one day even if its by anothr company acquiring the rights and making a reboot. Set it in Macau (for a Latino Chinese Las Vegas vibe) or Singapore.

It also hasn't been THAT long - but still, over seven years - but Mad Max was fantastic and it deserved a sequel. Personally, I think that since there's only so much variety you can wring out of a desert (and it wrung every drop it could), the proper way to go forward would be a throwback to the original, more grounded first movie where it was more like bikers and cops in a society falling apart. Just something a bit between that and the goofy later Mad Max movies, so like society still exists, people aren't eating maggots and dog food, but vehicular warfare has already become a thing.

 

[Angel Dust 2]

Probably been said before but Banjo Kazooie

 

[TVB]

Probably been said before but Banjo Kazooie

While we're on the subject of Rare, not only Banjo, but also Killer Instinct, Perfect Dark and Viva Pinata.

 

[Roast]

Pretty much everything done by Wahoo Studios under the NinjaBee brand (Cloning Clyde, Band of Bugs, Ancients of Ooga, the Keflings series, etc)



They still seem to be alive, but haven’t done anything since 2018

 

[Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed]

SSX, definitely. Nearly everything under the EA Sports BIG label.

 

[Angel Dust 2]

While we're on the subject of Rare, not only Banjo, but also Killer Instinct, Perfect Dark and Viva Pinata.

Jet force Gemini had potential to be a great series. Too bad they never went further with it.

 

[Roast]

SSX, definitely. Nearly everything under the EA Sports BIG label.

That + the little EA Freestyle rebrand they from 2008-09 (Facebreaker, 3 on 3 NHL Arcade, NASCAR Kart Racing)

These and the Midway arcade-style titles (NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, etc) are the only sports games I truly enjoyed

 

[Cpt. Stud Beefpile]

Drop-shock.com - Still up by the grace of the one dev, even updated now after years of abandonment. My army will still be dropping as long as the site is alive, even though it's 20 years out of date with online gaming.

The Commander Keen series got the final trilogy finished by fans, decades after the commercial games and DOS itself were dead and gone. I still leave random notes in the alien alphabet for people to pick up and wonder about - once left one at a state building after a tour and it set off a brief panic because someone, somehow, mistook it for a Russian dialect.

IDK if you can call Nethack "dead" but updates are sporadic as fuck and it's very much an old-nerd community

The ZZT community is still showing sputters of life and even a website by Dr. Dos, we desperately need some new blood though.

 

[skykiii]

I'm not quite clear what this thread is about: franchises we're sad died/wish would make a comeback? Or just dead franchises we still like?

The one I always bring up is Myst. I love those games (though admittedly I only played the first two... they are mentally taxing and usually by the time I get to the third one my brain needs a break). These games.... I could almost call them gaming's answer to Tolkien (and probably something the man himself would like, were he alive). You feel like you're in a world that makes sense in its own little way, not just playing a game.

At the same time, I don't necessarily want there to be a new installment. From what I've been told the series ended on a good, bittersweet note--you get to revisit the original Myst island, but its clearly worse for wear due to being forgotten and uncared for, a sort of metaphorical reflection of the franchise itself. That's where it should stay though.... you don't want to pull a Galaxy Express 999 where every emotional beat of the narrative winds up undone by a sequel.

............................

One game series I kinda wish would be given another shot is Outpost. Now, I mentioned this in another topic too... Outpost was basically "Simcity in Space," but with the caveat that you were essentially playing as (as far as you knew) the last survivors of an Earth which had been hit by a meteor, trying to start a new life on another planet.

There were only two games in the series. The first had a turn-based structure, and to me is the better of the two titles... but also the glitchiest, and its the glitches that are the biggest hindrance towards actually playing it. The second game went a more real-time route, and gave you the option of either playing a story-driven campaign or just a free-form city-builder mode.... and while this game is okay in its own right and has a decent soundtrack, my heart is with the first game.

And thing is, the first game is one of those that had lots of potential.... it was just unrealized. I seriously think someone could do a remake or a clone game that is basically the game Outpost was always meant to be.

..............................

And finally.... to name another franchise that has "out" in its title....

My favorite racing game of all time is Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, and while I don't necessarily want a new Outrun game, I do wish this exact game would get ported to the Nintendo Switch (and other platforms too). The only holdup as far as I know would be the Ferrari license, but I would be fine with them replacing them with copyright-safe alternatives. The only thing it would absolutely have to keep is two things:

One, the music. Unlike most people my favorite Outrun 2006 songs are the ones that have lyrics. I gotta keep on believin', DREAMIN.....

Two... well, what makes Outrun so great is basically how paradoxically relaxing it is. Despite being a fast and speedy racing game, you play as a man and a woman on a cruise who absolutely do not give two shits about anything. Seriously, they see ghosts and their first reaction is "lets run them over!" Nothing bothers these people. They are almost godlike in how absolutely nothing will come between them and the joy of driving.

The easiest way to ruin Outrun would be to try and give it a storyline with, like, stakes and stuff. Which is why I'd be happier having just a port of the best game in the series rather than getting a full sequel.

(Although I would also like to see Outrunners get a home conversion too).

 

[sasazuka]

And finally.... to name another franchise that has "out" in its title....

My favorite racing game of all time is Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, and while I don't necessarily want a new Outrun game, I do wish this exact game would get ported to the Nintendo Switch (and other platforms too). The only holdup as far as I know would be the Ferrari license, but I would be fine with them replacing them with copyright-safe alternatives.

You could replace Ferrari in the first OutRun since the game never really had the Ferrari license to begin with (not counting the arcade port of the original OutRun that was a bonus on some versions of OutRun 2, which did have the Ferrari license) but OutRun 2 was built around the Ferrari license and wouldn't quite be the same with "Great Value" generic sports cars.

An alternate scenario would be that Sega partners with a console manufacturer to port OutRun 2 to a modern console and Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo pays for the Ferrari license in exchange for platform exclusivity.

 

[56 others]

Command & Conquer. It's not that they let the series die or just stopped producing games, they genuinely murdered the series with Tiberium Twilight. I've tried to beat the game, but I can't fucking stomach it by the 4th level

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Technically, both of these games are still alive - at the moment - but the shit the devs of both games have pulled has made them both dead to me; Warcraft and Guild Wars.

For Warcraft: do I really need to bring up the amount of shit that Blizzard has done with WoW? I admit, I was never the biggest player of the game - I only really began showing an interest in the franchise when Cataclysm dropped - but Blizzard has fucked the game so badly at this point I'm legit surprised it's still going. From banning people for idiotic reasons, to getting rid of any references to gender and race uniqueness for the sake of "muh inclusion and dieversity", to seriously mishandling the story - the Horde in general and the Tauren in particular - Blizzard has pretty much destroyed their once-rather-solid IP in favor of wokeshit.

Guild Wars is gradually progressing towards a similar state of affairs; again, I didn't jump into the franchise until well after GW2 was out, but I've done my best to catch up and keep up with the franchise, and... while I do like some of the changes the second game brought - I'm a fan of playing as the Charr, despite the amount of furfags that I've dealt with - it's safe to say that the first game was just outright better. The story is a big part; it has some great set-ups and plot hooks, but ANet constantly shits itself and ruins good stories for whatever reason - the Icebrood Saga is a prime example, having some solid antagonists and potential plot lines that got severely shafted in the storytelling department. End of Dragons is another example; every character was made out to be either "strong independent woman" or "weak idiotic man", like the Cantha Emperess publicly mocking and humiliating her chief security advisor when he - rather reasonably - pointed out that opening the nation's borders during a crisis is a bad call. Forcing wokeshit into the game is rotting it from the inside-out; the game itself is doing alright, last I checked, but the devs forcing wokeshit into the game - not helped by some fans rabidly defending their every move - is likely going to result in the game tanking eventually.

 

[TVB]

Command & Conquer. It's not that they let the series die or just stopped producing games, they genuinely murdered the series with Tiberium Twilight. I've tried to beat the game, but I can't fucking stomach it by the 4th level

I mean, they at least got Ric Flair in one of the newer games back in 2009

But yea, that franchise having to be massacred still hurts me inside.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

If you seriously cannot guess which one mine is by now, you either are new here, or need to lurk moar.

Edit: it warms my heart to see others have already mentioned it ITT.

 

[Leftists=Pedophiles]

RIP Conker, you deserved better.

 

[TVB]

I said this time and time again, but Tomb Raider. When Squeenix purchased the franchise, it automatically died. And 2018 was the year that broke me, even as a Tomb Raider fan, with a shitty Vikander movie and the third awful entry in the survivor game trilogy (which is basically Squeenix literally ripping off Uncharted, but still keeping the Tomb Raider name brand for consoomers to flock down and buy or defend). And it's now getting worse even after Embracer purchased both Eidos and Crystal from Squeenix by making it a capeshit series.

There will never be another 2000s ever. It's the equivalent to your favorite football team that stopped being good for a decade and a half. Throw the towel away, you're done. I feel like J.K. Simmons' character in the movie Whiplash where in the near end of the movie the poor student couldn't drum anymore with his hands all bloody and sweaty, and then J.K. walks up to him and says, "you're done." That's exactly how I feel about the series nowadays. It's over, you're done.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Atlas Reactir was sucha good game

 

[Duiker]

For me it will always be the Might and Magic series, specifically 6, 7, and 8. But even more specifically, 6. I still love that game and know every inch of it. Its almost a comfort food, iam sure that a decade from now Ill boot this back up and play it....and get the

Spoiler

Flute

everytime.

For consoles, the Xenosaga trilogy.

 

[Toutestu Yuuma]

Wario Land, there was something so charming and exciting about playing a game where Wario is the protagonist to my dumb retarded child mind that carried with me into adulthood, still replay Wario Land 4 from time to time.