Game Series that Fizzled and Died

Game series seem to go on for far too long these days. With rising development costs and a market that seems to reward the familiar in favor of the new, publishers want something that they can continuously count on year after year. With annual releases of titles like Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed, just about every publisher has a franchise to fall back on. However, not all game series are able to become blockbuster franchise; sometimes they go on for so long that developers run out of ideas (Tony Hawk) or sometimes they just don’t find their audience no matter how great they are (Shenmue). Here are 5 games that were set up to be major franchises that ended up going nowhere.

Lost Planet

One of the earliest ways for any Xbox 360 owner to show off their new system, Lost Planet was a marvel of what could be done with the new console. Giant boss fights, huge environments, and a frantic multiplayer mode all added up to one of the most fun experiences on the 360 during its early years, and excitement was high for Capcom to announce a follow up. The sequel revised major elements that made the first game stand out: snowy landscapes were traded for thick jungles, an interesting campaign was traded for an experience highly mirroring Capcom’s mega hit: Monster Hunter, and the multiplayer shifted its focus to a more co-op centric approach. Lost Planet 2 fared well in terms of review scores, but its fan base had moved on to other shooters to fill the void by the time the sequel hit shelves. The third game released last year attempted to bring back key elements of the first title in the series but was met with lukewarm reviews and nearly no fanfare, so it’s unlikely another entry in the series will reach the excitement garnered by the initial installment.

The first game may not look great now, but it was pretty impressive in 2007.

The 3rd game was pretty, but underwhelming.

Chronicles of Riddick

It’s impossible to discuss the Chronicles of Riddick game without discussing the film universe upon which it’s based. Director David Twohy created the fantastic antihero of Riddick in the film Pitch Black. The film gained support among audiences and generated enough revenue for Twohy to pitch a film series based around the universe of Pitch Black, so he began work on the film Chronicles of Riddick; however, Twohy commissioned an animated film as well as a game based around the character in order to flesh out the universe and build up anticipation for the upcoming film.

Platforming sections were surprisingly fun.

Enter developer Starbreeze who made one of the few movie tie-ins to be better than its Hollywood counterpart. At first glance, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is a generic Xbox era shooter, but actually playing it is a different story altogether. The game focuses around stealth, some puzzle solving, and a few RPG elements to make a truly deep experience that can change with each playthrough. The game goes into interesting elements of Riddick’s history and answers a few questions raised in Pitch Black. While the game was critically praised, the film was more than a little disappointing to both critics and audiences alike, and ended up killing chances for the film franchise to continue for 9 years. Starbreeze took another stab at the Riddick universe with the follow up: Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena, and despite having one of the coolest names of any video game, it was released to middling reviews and little demand from players, so even with last year's Riddick, it seems unlikely any more games will follow.

Stealth was a major aspect of Butcher Bay.

Assault on Dark Athena was pretty but not as interesting as Butcher Bay.

Mark of Kri

Back when Sony was king of the console market with the PS2, they were in a position to take some really interesting chances with their first party games. Sure they had their safe bets like Jak and Daxter, but they also published games like Jet Li’s Rise to Honor and the strangely violent Mark of Kri. The idea behind this particular game was essentially to play an extremely violent and bloody game whose art style strongly resembled a Disney movie. The cartoonish character designs and colorful environments in the game clashed wonderfully with the gory decapitations and lopped off limbs in the game (stealth kills were especially brutal). However, the game wasn’t all about mass murdering; the mechanics themselves were well crafted and engaging, the characters were well written with a good amount of personality and the world was beautiful and immersive.

I don't think you need me to tell you which game this is.

The violence contrasted well with the gorgeous visuals.

For the follow up, the developers would surely keep the colorful palette and quirky characters, right? Well, no actually. The Rise of Kasai was the ill conceived successor to Mark of Kri. Where Kri had lush greens and sparkling blues, Kasai had…grey; where Kri had fun characters and an interesting story, Kasai had…grey; and where Kri had fun and interesting gameplay mechanics, Kasai had…grey. All that grey led to poor reviews and a whole lot of people skipping The Rise of Kasai, and Sony hasn’t said a word about resurrecting the series which goes to show that not everything needs to be grim and gritty to be successful.

Even the enemies were monochromatic.

Seriously, this looks like a Sin City scene.

Nights into Dreams

Back when the Sega’s name still demanded respect, Sonic Team’s name meant even more. The developer behind the blue blur’s original 3 outings could do no wrong, and all eyes were on them to produce a game that could help solidify the Sega Saturn in a market where the console was deeply rooted in last place. Naturally, everyone expected a 3D Sonic game since Sony had a burgeoning stable of would-be mascots and Nintendo quickly perfected the platformer for the 3D age in Super Mario 64. However, Sonic Team revealed that it was working on an entirely new franchise: Nights into Dreams. The game released with glowing praise from critics and even though it was the top selling game on the Saturn when it released, it wasn’t enough to save the Saturn or generate enough interest in the game. Sega attempted to drum up interest for the series by re-releasing the first game several times on various consoles, but Nights never gained the traction Sega hoped for. When a proper sequel finally came out nearly 12 years later, it was released so near the holidays that many people passed it over in favor of 2008’s other big hitters. It seems safe to say that Nights just didn’t have the same pull as Sonic, since Sonic Team has all but abandoned this would be franchise.

The original title was great for high score battles.

The Wii title was extremely pretty but not as good as the Saturn original.

Modnation Racers

After Sony's successful mantra of "Play, Create, Share" with the LittleBigPlanet series, the company attempted to expand the idea into being a brand-wide initiative. Where LBP allowed user generated content to keep things going in the 2D platformer realm, Modnation Racers was meant to do the same thing for the kart racing genre. In fact, one of Sony's most impressive showings at E3 2009 was the developers from United Front Games showing off how simple it was to create a brand new track in the first Modnation title. Upon release, however, the game suffered from long load times and a less enthusiastic online community than LittleBigPlanet's. Despite these problems, Sony was unwilling to give up on the franchise, releasing a PSP title with many of the same features intact. Many of the same problems with the initial game persisted in the portable outing, and Sony fell silent on the series until the launch of the Playstation Vita and the release of Modnation Racers Road Trip. Road Trip seemed to put the final nail in Modnation's coffin as it was met with excessively poor reviews and severely stripped back functionality. Indeed, it was one of the worst reviewed launch titles for the system and is probably the reason we're unlikely to see another entry in the franchise.

Track creation was the series's strong suit.

And the actual racing was fun too.

The Vita game brought creation back albeit in a more limited capacity.

The racing was strong, but with no online support, it could only go so far.

There are so many more games that didn't live up to their initial franchise potential, and this is only a handful. What series were you interested in that never really went as far as their concepts?