10 Video Game Developers Who Killed The Franchise They Were Handed

8. Hangar 13 - Mafia

Once a cult-beloved retro-themed answer to GTA. Mafia's charms came not from seeing how much chaos you could cause or how many crimes you could string together into one Hollywood-challenging police chase. Instead, though the criminal element was there, Mafia 1 and 2 in particular were concerned with telling great stories, paired with incredible world detail that made the little things matter.

Almost all of this was lost in Mafia III, a game that yes, improved aiming and upped the GTA factor, but lost almost everything that made Mafia distinct in the process.

Gone were the little touches like car repair, changing clothes to ditch the cops or full-on environmental destruction, and in was a story of meatheaded revenge. One that was well told and excellently scripted, sure, but gameplay-wise devolved into "go here, shoot X goons, go back" game design.

There was nothing less than a series of Assassin's Creed-lite combat encounters - ones that betrayed the otherwise stunning-looking surrounding world.