10 Huge Video Game Franchises That Are Doomed To Fail

There are very, very few video game franchises that are truly too big to fail in any grand sense - Mario, Pokemon, and Grand Theft Auto for sure, but most others aren't above taking a catastrophic hit if their new release isn't up to snuff.

Now, no game franchise is perfect, and most of them have at least one dud entry among the lot, but sometimes a series suffers enough critical and commercial indignities that its future begins to be cast into doubt.

That's certainly true of these franchises, which despite their enormous visibility and brand identity feel fated to end up flaming out sooner rather than later.

Whether throwing away their strongest developmental partnership in years, enduring poor sales of several recent releases, or showing blatant desperation by cashing in on current gaming trends, these AAA franchises are all circling the drain as we speak.

It's certainly possible that some of them could return with an inspired reimagining that finally perks players and critics up, but history dictates that publishers are far more likely to just drive their IP into the ground until there's no money left to be made...

The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is one of the most commercially successful video game IP in history, but let's be honest, the series has been on the skids for years now.

Well it was, at least, until the release of 2017's Sonic Mania, which after about 15 years of mostly-mediocre Sonic titles was a major breath of fresh air - a nostalgia-tinged love letter to the franchise's better days that in turn received the series' best reviews in 25 years.

With Sonic Mania's critical and commercial success and the presumably instant greenlighting of a sequel, then, it seemed like Sonic was back on firm footing.

But after years of speculation about Sonic Mania 2, a rumour recently did the rounds that the sequel was scrapped after Sega failed to make an agreement with the first game's developers, who were largely members of the Sonic fangame and hacking community.

Since 2017 things have basically been business as usual for Sonic, the various spin-off titles scoring wildly mixed reviews from critics and suggesting Sonic Mania was less a new direction for the series than a flash-in-the-pan success.

While it's unlikely that Sonic will ever do something bad enough to lose all of its faithful hardcore fans, the mainstream goodwill rustled up by Sonic Mania has basically evaporated once again, and there's little sign of it being regained anytime soon.

Basically, Sonic can go back to being a critical punching bag largely ignored by casual players.