10 Amazing Video Games That Killed Franchises

2. Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time was the first mainline entry into the franchise in 12 years since 2008's Crash: Mind over Mutant, though was ultimately envisioned as a direct follow-up to the beloved original trilogy of games.

And despite developer Toys for Bob - best known for working on the Skylanders franchise - being a major question mark, Crash 4 ended up releasing to rave reviews, many feeling that it was not only a worthy successor to the original trilogy but one of the best games in the entire series.

Yet almost five years on from Crash 4's release, there's no sign whatsoever of a fifth game, which many have attributed to the fact that Crash 4 sold just a fraction of what  2017's N. Sane Trilogy remaster collection did.

Though Crash 4 sold 5 million copies by 2024, this was just 25% of the 20 million units that N. Sane Trilogy has shifted, and if Activision assumed that N. Sane Trilogy's success would make any subsequent Crash sequel a sales juggernaut on the same level, they were evidently proven wrong.

Last year a Toys for Bob developer, Nicholas Kole, confirmed that Crash 5 was indeed cancelled mid-development, with a report suggesting that Activision nixed it due to Crash 4's "underwhelming" sales, preferring to focus instead on live service projects. Ewww.