10 Great Video Game Franchises People Simply Abandoned
4. Def Jam
The first Def Jam fighting game, Vendetta, was an odd duckling on its 2003 debut. It came, it went, it was alright. In this day and age, you'd expect EA to cut their losses on their hip-hop beat 'em up. Thankfully, they didn't, and Def Jam: Fight for NY was brought out just one year later. Pretty ballsy move, but it paid off.
Shifting nearly two million copies across various formats, it was even nominated for Gamespot's "Best Fighting Game" of 2004. That's quite impressive, in a world of Street Fighter's, Tekken's and Mortal Kombat's.
So logically, gamers would want more of the same, but better, in a next generation version. Stands to reason, really, seeing the latest round-up of rappers going up against the old guard.
Instead, fans (including yours truly) were given ICON. Whilst the positive takeaway was using the environments to pull off timed attacks to the beat, little else of the FfNY charm carried over. Fighters were more grounded than caricature, customisation was massively stripped down, complete with a weird "washed out" visual effect looming over it all.
Despite decent critical success, it failed to chart with fans and the series was dropped from the label.