10 Video Game Finales That Totally Ruined Their Trilogies

2. God Of War III

God of War's base hack n' slash formula felt immediately timeless back in 2005, in a really "Why didn't anybody else do this?!" sort of way. Quick-time events and square, square, triangle combos rang true for the hefty 20-plus hour adventures that were God of War 1 and 2, with the latter hitting a high-point thanks to the perfect marriage of violence and a pacy narrative that saw Kratos' motivations match up with the Gods he was vying to take down.

Then... God of War 3 happened. Kratos had become a caricature of himself, an angry bald idiot who'd gut and flay all around him if it meant he got his way. The game had you throwing slaves into whirring cogs to solve puzzles, sleeping with another imprisoned man's wife and then killing him when he found out - across the board it was aiming for some sort of ultimate power fantasy, yet falling down at every turn.

At this point in the series' history we were all but completely desensitised to things being torn in half or innards flying everywhere, so it fell to GoW 3 to attempt to wow us through spectacle alone; a graphics-first approach that ended up being its downfall when you realised what was at the core, had been devoid of life for quite some time.