20 Stupid Decisions That Destroyed Their Franchise
We'll never forgive these terrible choices for killing classic video game franchises.
The gaming industry has made a lot of bad choices over the years, such as letting the routinely abysmal LJN publish games during the NES era or forcing shoddy motion-sensing peripherals on players throughout the 2000s and 2010s. However, such disastrous moves rarely result in the complete annihilation of an entire franchise.
It does happen, though, and with increasing regularity and foolishness as creators and businesses bet on outdated and/or misguided trajectories with little awareness of – or concern for – how the interests and sensibilities of gaming enthusiasts have changed.
These transgressions can occur both within and outside of specific projects as well.
For instance, developers and publishers might: alter essential gameplay mechanics and perspectives; shift the series’ personality and tone; deliver a detrimentally broken experience; or greedily rely on trends that either don’t fit with a given title’s legacy or arrive long after said trend has become unappealing and oversaturated.
Regardless, and as the 20 cases on this list prove, it takes only one erroneous decision to destroy a franchise. Granted, the games themselves might not be bad, but the choices surrounding them did such irrevocable damage that their respective franchises have yet to recover.
Obviously, you might have mixed feelings about some of these examples, which is all the more reason to dive in and see how you feel about the arguments ahead!
20. A Live-Service Pivot - Ghost Recon Frontlines
Premiering with Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon in 2001, the Ghost Recon series offered a broader and more strategic/militaristic alternative to Rainbow Six’s close-quarters tactical tension. As with any long-running video game venture, its commercial and critical results have fluctuated since then, but the franchise nonetheless remained a worthwhile pursuit for Ubisoft.
Then came 2019’s Division-esque Breakpoint, which embraced one of the industry’s worst modern fads: live-service hijinks. That inclusion – plus forced NFTs, repetitious missions, copy-and-paste open-world design, and a lack of a central identity – led to disappointing sales and abandonment from discouraged players. True, the backlash against microtransactions eventually forced Ubisoft to remove some of them, but the damage was done.
Rather than reverse their increasingly formulaic direction and recapture their singular allure with their next attempt, they chose to fully jump the shark with the free-to-play live-service MMO battle royale monstrosity of Ghost Recon Frontline.
It was announced in October of 2021, and early glimpses drew disheartened comparisons to Call of Duty: Warzone, thereby highlighting how much Ghost Recon had moved away from its roots. The criticism intensified after footage of the early 2022 beta test leaked, and by July, Ghost Recon Frontline was canceled and the Ghost Recon name was further tarnished.
A new title might be on the way, but as the saying goes, seeing is believing.