Which game has removed the most features in it's later titles? - Because less is more, according to game developers and producers.

[Evil Peter Griffin]

Deus Ex Invisible War and Theif Deadly Shadow.

 

[Montalbane]

I think Bethesda's problem is they keep milking Skyrim with so many rereleases, I actually want them to hurry up and drop something new.

The devs are worse than the fans. Here's the latest travesty
In 2022, they patched out the Dark Elf slavery system and replaced it with stupid mana that can boost just three settlements, and hurt everywhere else.
Now, they are releasing a new faction using the old system, and charging 40% of the whole games price just to unlock it.

The entirety of total war warhammer reeks of laziness and greed to me.

They know the average warhammer fan is a retard who would buy HRT if it had the warhammer logo on it.
And it shows.
Not even the reload animations for guns.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Pokemon in particular is incredibly notorious for getting increasingly more shit over time introducing new features and removing them in the next game. The bright side is most of them suck anyway so you're not missing much.

The fact that it took the actual Pokémon being removed from the Nintendo Switch games, for people to realize features being removed from past games is a GF tradition, was baffling. And even with the removed Pokémon, the Nintendo Switch games still sold a TON of copies, thereby reinforcing the idea with TPC that removing Pokémon is now an acceptable thing to do with future games. Moves being removed in the Switch games also stands out, but people didn't make as much of a fuss about those, compared to the actual Pokémon being removed.

GT7 is definitely up there for this one. Battlefield as well. Iirc it was estimated that roughly 90% of previous battlefield game features were missing from 2042

Even after a year, Gran Turismo 7 still doesn't feel like a numbered GT game, and feels like either a GT Sport 2, or GT7 Prologue. And the fact that PD sold test demo games as "Prologues", and those games sold well, is also baffling.

And with Battlefield 2042, it's very pathetic that DICE touts features in past BF games, i.e. voice chat, an actual working scoreboard, classes (sort-of), and All Chat, as "free updates", and not things that should have all been in the game on launch.

I miss when the call of duty games had emblem designers.

Battlefield 4 also had an emblem designer too, which is yet another feature that was removed in BF2042.

Back to the topic itself, Dynasty Warriors 9 removing unique weapons for each officer, and re-introducing clones (i.e. Wang Yi using Wheels, which is a real WTF decision, given how the Trishulas were iconic), was another dumb decision, that was overshadowed by much bigger issues with the game, i.e. Koei Tecmo's failed attempt to make the game an open-world game, and the poor voice acting by the English VAs, since they were re-casted, and apparently KT shit the bed when it came to the VA directing. And they also sold some of the old unique weapons as DLC (i.e. Zhenji's Flute), but didn't even bother to re-add all of the removed weapons that way.

 

[StacticShock]

can god of war 4/5 join this list? because it became more of a escort quest mixed with ubisoft game than you know... action packed movie like the old ones.
not that ponies would ever admit to that though, i believe their brains are wired to never admit they have double standards.

Deus Ex Invisible War and Theif Deadly Shadow.

the sadder part of this is that these games became butchered because of hardware limitations since they downgraded from pc to consoles.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

idk maybe need for speed? newer games in particular. some of the older games have things i wish were still in the newer titles.

sports games probably rank up there too

 

[Level99Manchild]

Final Fantasy VI was open world for the entire second half of the game, and I'd guess it might have had the biggest open world of any SNES game ever made.

Then they go and make Final Fantasy XIII an enormous sequence of hallways. Couldn't even be bothered to add a single town.

Biggest bait&switch in vidya for me. Incredible how shit the actual game was, that trailer had me hyped like a motherfucker. Almost criminal how much from the trailer did not make it into the actual game. I get that stuff gets cut pre-release all the time but in Infinite's case the trailer shows an almost completly different game compared to the final version. Fucking scam.

FFXIII was were i quit the franchise, XII was already iffy but at least fun, XIII is an absolute travesty in regard to being a JRPG and especially its predecessors. I remember people unironically saying "It gets good 20 hours in", i think i played around five hours before i wanted to kill myself from sheer boredom. The hallway design is one thing but what about that fucking battle system?! I swear it felt even less interactive than XII, it's almost unbelievable that they dumbed it down even further in XV (which was one of the many reasons for me to not even pick that one up in the first place). The constant cutscene interruptions also pissed me off to no end, too.
I didn't even know before your post that the game has no towns, i do remember the bare-bones weapon upgrade system, though, and thinking "Wait, this is fucking it?!". I won't even start to sperg about the dogshit character design and whatever the fuck the story was.
That game really drove the point home that my favourite vidya company is not even a shadow of its former self anymore. Massivly disapointing.

I also tried to like 13, but the endless trial and error you had to go through if you didn't have a guide wasn't fun. I lost count on how many times I died to the Odin fight because you're supposed to make Lightning feel more like a humbled bitch or something (Did anyone out of lonely weeabos like her and her back? She had no good qualities.). I stopped after getting all of Vanille's upgrades just to see that Aussie bitch die in one hit to a fucking turtle causing me a game over. With the exception of Sahz and maybe the first version of Snow, no one in 13 was likable. FF15....wasn't much better, and it felt more forced and contrived than 13. Lightning beats Noctis for the worst FF protagonist title, but not by much.

I have to agree that it's sad to see Squeenix fall apart.

 

[Becomemysoulreaver12]

Going from Disgaea 5 to 6 feels like going from Disgaea 5 to 2, 6 has so little content, and got rid of so many mechanics, it was very disappointing.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

Three pages and noone mentioned Fable. The first one. I am genuinely surprised

 

[Jeff_the_Thriller]

The Resident Evil 3 remake stripped out like 2/3s of the game and replaced it with Nemesis chasing you around. It's pretty damn obnoxious just how much was missing. It didn't even have Mercenaries mode.

It was bizarre to me that the game that started Mercenaries didn't have it in the remake. Instead we got that shitty hero based games as a service mode, Resistance. I don't know much about it other than I played it twice and decided it was shit. Capcom could have still had their obligatory multiplayer mode. Mercenaries had multiplayer since RE5.

Speaking of RE3 cut content. It would have been nice to see the clock tower. That area was one of the more memorable sections of 3. Mostly blinding Nemmy with the spot light and comically pushing him off the building. I can definitely live without the park section but instead of cutting it completely, replace it with something else. Everything about the game felt rushed, which is a shame since I really wanted to like it.

 

[A-Stump]

It was bizarre to me that the game that started Mercenaries didn't have it in the remake. Instead we got that shitty hero based games as a service mode, Resistance. I don't know much about it other than I played it twice and decided it was shit. Capcom could have still had their obligatory multiplayer mode. Mercenaries had multiplayer since RE5.

Speaking of RE3 cut content. It would have been nice to see the clock tower. That area was one of the more memorable sections of 3. Mostly blinding Nemmy with the spot light and comically pushing him off the building. I can definitely live without the park section but instead of cutting it completely, replace it with something else. Everything about the game felt rushed, which is a shame since I really wanted to like it.

Clocktower was cool, it was completely missing the park boss fight with the worm. Didn't have the gas station part which was one of my favs as a kid because the cinematic was kickass. A total misuse of Nemesis. The thing that made him scary originally was he could show up at any time and you were conditioned to know trying to fight was a waste of ammo and health. Turning him into an unskippable boss fight you knew was coming and little more than a QTE was baffling. Look at Mr X from the 2 remake. That was done right. Those heavy boots coming after you and knowing you couldn't do dick to him. Whoever was in charge of 3 should feel bad.

 

[Shining Wit]

Civilization/Firaxis/2K has also gone to the Paradox/microtransactions model wrt playable civs.

They release a bare bones base game with a dozen civs or so but most of the fan favourites missing.

Then they drip feed past civs back into the game with expansion packs, DLC and season passes, all the while introducing new bugs every update that their PR arm simply remains radio silent about even acknowledging.

The company is allergic to hotfixes (unless China calls them about their "incorrect" version of history) and bugs they introduced with paid content only ever get addressed years later if they decide to release new paid DLCs with brand new bugs and terrible QA.

I feel "game having features held back for later expansions" is a model as old as time for PC gaming

 

[jje100010001]

I think you could even extend this to long-standing games like Stellaris, which have gotten so many updates that the nature of the game has changed completely.

Personally I think Stellaris could have gotten several separate release titles out of its patches, and it might have been better that way.

 

[skykiii]

Three pages and noone mentioned Fable. The first one. I am genuinely surprised

Someone mentiond Fable on page one.

One I'm a little surprised nobody mentioned is the Amnesia series. Dark Descent had built-in support for what it called "Custom Stories" (basically mods) and IIRC even came with an editor. I recall hearing people looking forward to this feature returning and being upgraded for A Machine for Pigs, Rebirth and even the technically-unrelated Soma.... and it never did.

I mean yeah, with PC games you can technically always mod them, but there's a difference between "the game gives the end user an easy, accessible way to do so" and "oh, hackers found a way."

Another one:

Remember when Smash Bros. had alternate modes where you did things besides just fight? Adventure Mode in Melee for example, or things like Break the Targets/Ride the Platforms/etc. I understand Ultimate couldn't come up with one for every character but I would be happy with just them including the existing ones as like a bonus mode or something.

...... And here is something that's sort of tangentially related.

Gaming compilations. More specifically, when a compilation on an earlier platform actually has more games or features than ones released later.

the Mega Man ones for example. Now admittedly, this is a bit of give and take... the Anniversary collections during the PS2/Gamecube/Original X-Box era had emulation issues so the modern Legacy Collections are better in that regard, but in exchange:

-You got more games in one package, including bonus games.
-You got special features like interviews, behind the scenes stuff, an episode of the cartoon, etc.
-the collection for Classic Megaman allowed you to turn on features from the Japanese PS1 versions.
-the collection for X used the Playstation version of Megaman X3, meaning anime cutscenes were now present.

Or how about Capcom Classics Collection 1 and 2 for the PS2, which included things like concept art? Granted you had to unlock it, but still. Plus, again, you were getting all these games in one package, whereas now you have to get them separately (though to be fair the Capcom Stadium version on the Switch often goes on sale and includes games that weren't on the Classics Collection).

Samurai Shodown Anthology for PS2 included from the first SS all the way to the SIXTH one, whereas the collection available on Switch only goes up to part five... though it does include three different versions (one of which used to be Neo-Geo exclusive and another is apparently an ideal perfected version... or something like that. I didn't quite understand the descriptions).

.........

And how about when different versions of the same actual game lose something in the transition? For example:

...I've been told some versions of The 7th Guest are missing the Microscope puzzle, entirely so it can be sold separately as a stand-alone game.

....Sonic Adventure DX on the Gamecube included all the Sonic Game Gear games as unlockables. Naturally, these are gone from every later port (though to be fair some of the unlock conditions are retarded and you'd be justified in just loading up an emulator... though that could be said for any compilation I've mentioned so far where the bonus features are unlockables).

 

[Dysnomia]

Clocktower was cool, it was completely missing the park boss fight with the worm. Didn't have the gas station part which was one of my favs as a kid because the cinematic was kickass. A total misuse of Nemesis. The thing that made him scary originally was he could show up at any time and you were conditioned to know trying to fight was a waste of ammo and health. Turning him into an unskippable boss fight you knew was coming and little more than a QTE was baffling. Look at Mr X from the 2 remake. That was done right. Those heavy boots coming after you and knowing you couldn't do dick to him. Whoever was in charge of 3 should feel bad.

They removed the clock tower and the gas station? That makes me a sad panda.

The only remake I played was the first RE. An that was really good. It looks like they lost momentum after that.

 

[Zman]

Every Total War title after Medieval 2 Total War has lost a incredible amount of features and depth with only minor often buggy additions to supplement. I am mostly focusing on Historical TW titles as a comparison since I don't really care about Warhammer.
1: Leader traits have had all complexity removed. It went from having characters with Influence, Command, Piety and Chivalry/Dread to just command and maybe the ability to do ambushes
2: Settlements had a lot of their complexity removed. In older titles you could build a plethora of different buildings in cities and evolve them as they got larger. Now the options are extremely limited regarding city customization
3: Convenience features such as having units stay in formation when you move an army somewhere and being able to organize the army to your own preference. Unit cards also having the actual unit on them was also removed in favor of fucking pottery drawings.
4: General speeches used to have significant complexity based on commander traits and who one was facing the actors were also high-quality. Now if the generals not speaking a foreign language you cant understand the speeches just come off as lazy and cringe.
5: Moddability has been completely stripped from total war after Medieval 2. In Medieval 2 you could mod basically every single aspect of the game to the point of making it an entirely new game such as The Elder Scrolls Total war. Now it's extremely complicated to do and what can be changed is very limited.
6: Factions were more unique with unit compositions and had their own playstyles. In Newer titles multiple factions are often exactly the same just with a different banner and starting location.

 

[St.Davis]

Total war is being skinned alive by the most retarded fanbase of all and it is a sad sight.

Thankfully Med2 still exists.

TW:WIII has admittedly been my favourite entry in the series since Med2. It has a lot of problems, but they have finally fixed a lot of the jank I hated about Empire-onwards. (Melee in particular actually feels OK again.). Obviously I have purchased 0 DLC because Cream.api is a treasure. I tried WH:II a year or two back and it felt utterly horrible, not actually sure what they changed.

I would like CA to make another line battle game, but I would really want it to be Empire++, and not a stripped down affair. Rumour is the next game will be Medieval 3, I'm praying it won't be terrible.

In 2022, they patched out the Dark Elf slavery system and replaced it with stupid mana that can boost just three settlements, and hurt everywhere else.
Now, they are releasing a new faction using the old system, and charging 40% of the whole games price just to unlock it.

To be entirely fair: The Chorf slavery system is very distinct from the Delf one, even from a technical perspective it doesnt work the same way. I absolutely agree that they need to go back and redo the Delf slavery system though, along with quite a few factions' mechanics. Chorfs are great, but the price they're asking is fucking ridiculous.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Would live service games that have removed or changed abilities as balance changes, count as removed features as well? If yes, then World of Warcraft would fit, given the amount times talents and abilities were changed, and how the later expansions added their own EP-specific systems to the game, where they are retired in the next expansion. Those include the Artifact Weapons in Legion, the Heart of Azeroth in Battle for Azeroth, and Covenants in Shadowlands.

League of Legends's champion reworks would also be another example, as some of them go as far as to changing almost EVERYTHING about the champion, as in abilities, visual looks, and even the voice actor, with the name of the champion being the only thing that isn't changed.

 

[Haseo]

Ace combat 7 as good as it is removed a ton of different features from prior titles that would’ve been immensely interesting.

Squad commands from AC5
Reduced from the usual 200ish named enemy aces with blurbs and custom skins to 20
No ace styles where the squadron boss fights and dialogue change depending on how merciful or cruel you play
No AC0 style squadron intros
No AC3 branching storyline
No changing squad members planes like in AC5
No skin editor like in AC combat cringerizon
No co-op campaign like Infinity

For the uninitiated the squadron intros are retroactively one of the most iconic parts of the series, I consider them to be absolute kino.

 

[Ser Prize]

(sees mentions about Bioshock Infinite)
Now I feel like screaming at the younger me for pre-ordering it. It didn't help that my graphics card at the time was so-so, so the game kept crashing toward the finale.

If we replace "later titles" with "early access releases" then good god Starbound. So much shit was lost apparently due to disputes with the writers, on top of how CucklefishChucklefish screwed over freelance workers (up to and including Toby Fox, who at the time was just the Homestuck music guy and not the lead dev of Undertale). All the race-specific backstories were replaced with a generic setup, so many structures were given the boot (I liked the abandoned human prisons, if only because the decorations looked nice). Mods exist, but they shouldn't be the crutch to what is lacking.

Starbound got rid of cool lore stuff, too, like how florans are other races converted by the mushroom people. That was supposed to be a cool thing you could find in some dungeons but that was cut.

 

[Raging Capybara]

Dark Souls III is a depressing game:

- Removed powerstancing
- Removed bonfire ascetic
- Removed ghosts and other features in the NG+ cycles
- Removed the weird torch mechanic that could have been expanded
- The game is absurdly linear, almost nothing is interconnected
- The hub area is disconnected from the rest of the world
- Removed hexes