10 Most Mourned Sports Video Games Franchises

Although not a massive seller, Top Spin 4 is regarded by many of those who played it as a low-key masterpiece. The final 2011 2K release followed a pattern of consistently building on the successes of the series’ earlier games, offering well balanced gameplay, intuitive controls and a surprisingly well thought out career mode. The game was developed by 2K Czech (previously Illusion Softworks), otherwise famous for the Mafia series.

The Grand Slam Tennis and Virtua Tennis franchises would limp on for a couple of years longer than Top Spin but their games were met with a lukewarm reception. Tennis releases would almost entirely dry up in the 2010s, with Mario Tennis Aces for the Switch being a rare critical success but straying a long way from the realistic action that made Top Spin so popular.

2018’s Tennis World Tour is cited as the spiritual successor to the Top Spin series but was much more poorly received than its counterparts, not helped by a promotional campaign that promised online multiplayer, but ultimately never delivered.