10 Risky Sequels That Saved Dying Video Game Franchises

1. Rainbow Six: Siege

Rainbow Six: Siege is one of the best games of the entire generation so far, but it came so close to not even happening. After popularising the series in the mainstream with the two blockbuster Vegas titles, Ubisoft looked for a way to increase the appeal of the IP even further, attempting to move away from the tactical roots the games were originally built on in favour of a more straightforward, linear modern-military game.

Like every FPS in the late 2000s, it was an attempt to ape Call of Duty, and while the in-development Rainbow Six: Patriots looked very cinematic and pretty in screenshots, it didn't really feel like Rainbow Six. Ubisoft kept chugging ahead for years with no updates, until it canned the project outright in 2014, six years after the last game released.

The next time we saw the franchise was a couple years later with the new game, the multiplayer-orientated Siege. The direction of the new project was a stroke of genius, as while an online-only instalment initially seemed a bit like Ubi jumping on the bandwagon, it allowed the series to tap back into the high-stakes tactical gameplay that made it famous in the first place.

It could have gone so terrible wrong (and almost did, considering the game's state at launch), but Ubi were commited to their vision, and rightfully so.