15 Video Game Franchises That Tried Something Wildly Different (And Failed)
These video game franchises tried something completely different, but it didn't quite go to plan...
Creating a successful video game franchise is a tough task. Building a world and characters that players can become invested in, while carving out a specific style of gameplay that gives the whole thing a unique identity, takes years of refinement and cultivation from a developer.
Franchises like Dark Souls and Final Fantasy have built strong fan bases, with each of them known to be the absolute best-in-class for their specific genre. So when a developer occasionally takes a bold swing and moves a franchise in a completely different direction, this often catches fans by surprise. Sometimes, like when Yakuza became Like a Dragon and moved from beat-em-up to turn-based RPG, this can be just what the franchise needs to stay fresh and relevant, and it proves to be a masterstroke.
For these 15 entries, though, the shift in direction didn't have the desired effect, either alienating the fan base completely, proving to be commercially unsuccessful, or just moving too far away from all of the things that made it successful in the first place...
15. Bomberman: Act Zero
With his cutesy design and brightly coloured costume, Bomberman was an easily recognisable video game character in the 90s and 2000s. By then, the Bomberman series had developed a reputation as a colourful, family-friendly set of games perfect for multiplayer fun. The games featured a top down camera where players had to navigate maze-like arenas, using bombs and other power-ups to kill their opponents.
In 2006, the series was bizarrely rebooted as Bomberman: Act Zero. Gone was the cutesy, colourful tone. In its place was a gritty, sci-fi aesthetic that the studio was hoping would appeal to a more mature audience. At the time, games like Gears of War were all the craze, and developer Hudson Soft clearly felt it could get in on the act with this new look.
The core gameplay retained some familiar elements, but it took place in otherwise unrecognizable, bland industrial arenas. Bomberman himself was an unnamed cybernetic soldier, and his enemies were clones. The franchise's identity had been completely stripped away in an instant, leaving fans wondering what the heck the developers were thinking. Judging by the reaction of fans and critics after it was released, pretty much everybody agreed, these changes were not wanted or needed.
It came as no surprise when the next Bomberman game dropped the entire sci-fi aesthetic, and returned the series to its roots. Bomberman: Act Zero was written off as a one-off experiment which failed miserably, and today, fans of the series remember it as probably the darkest time in the franchise's history.