10 Best Gaming Reboots Ever
Doomguy needed a LOT of work.
Sometimes, a video game franchise needs a change.
Maybe the story of the series had hit a natural stopping point, the gameplay of the previous version wouldn't mesh with today's gaming market, or maybe the series hasn't been seen in ages and needed to come back in a big way.
Which is where the reboot comes in; a way for developers to switch up a long running or well known franchise so a new batch of people could get introduced to a series.
This doesn't always work out of course. Reboots can be a tricky thing to get right, and when it goes wrong, it can be devastating. Making a reboot in a way to please fans new and old can be a tightrope walk, and failing at that can make both crowds disappointed. But when a reboot works, it can reach some fantastic heights.
These reboots are fantastic games that created new directions for their franchises, whether that's from a new story, new types of gameplay, or just giving a complete update to games that worked in the past. But one thing they all have in common, is that they breathed new life into their respective franchises.
10. Hitman (2016)
Hitman as a franchise is best known for its wide-open levels and it's fantastic variety on how best to eliminate your targets. This is exactly what it delivered when Blood Money came out in 2006, and it immediately became a fan favorite. This was then followed up a few years later with Absolution.
A game that only had a handful of open levels, replacing most of them with linear sections where you barely had any choices on how to proceed through them.
Despite the title being solid enough, it just wasn't Hitman. IO Interactive decided to rectify their previous mistakes, rebooting the series completely in 2016.
Starting a brand new story of Agent 47 and Diana Burnwood dealing with a huge assassination conspiracy, Hitman 2016 released huge, sprawling levels filled to the brim with NPCs, weapons, and multiple ways to eliminate your targets. With an episodic release schedule, fans of the series praised the game, and that praise caused two more sequels to be released.
Luckily for us, 47's reboot put him right back on track.