10 Great Video Game Sequels That STILL Killed Their Franchises

by Josh Brown

1. Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Splinter Cell
Ubisoft

Moving away from the style of the previous games, 2010's Splinter Cell: Conviction acted as a soft reboot for the classic stealth franchise, turning Sam Fisher into a Jason Bourne-type rogue rather than the calm and collected assassin he used to be.

While that game radically moved away from the core of the original titles, its sequel Splinter Cell: Blacklist attempted to merge the two opposing sides of the series together, and damn did it succeed.

Giving players the option to tackle levels in either the aggressive way promoted by Conviction or the more methodical approach championed by Chaos Theory, Blacklist should have been everything fans of the series wanted.

Sadly, potentially because fans were put off by the rebooted direction of Conviction, the sequel didn't attract the audience it needed to. Despite being a grand return to form for the series, Blacklist underperformed commercially and is rarely ever recognised as the great Splinter Cell game it is.

As a result the franchise has been on ice, undeservedly so, ever since.

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Contributor

Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked full time as a content producer at WhatCulture for nine years. In that time he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple channels, specialising in subjects such as gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 most listened to gaming podcast in the UK that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, covered breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.