10 Video Game Sequels That COMPLETELY Changed Genre
3. The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
In the ever-expanding strategy genre, more and more franchises are finding success by the day, yet none wield a name as revered as XCOM. It's as synonymous with strategy as Peter Molyneux is with broken promises, and as such is placed under immense scrutiny whenever it decides to make a change to its winning recipie.
Other than the protagonist's superb name (though that was a personal surprise), XCOM Declassified stunned fans of the franchise with a third person shooter perspective to serve as the prequel to 2012's Enemy Unknown, a more traditional approach to gameplay that XCOM 2 later resorted back to.
That's not to say it completely ditched the strategic elements of games past, and it's not as though it'll be mistaken for Uncharted 2 any time soon, but the cover-based gunplay was certainly a startling change from the top-down perspective of most other entries in the series, and left a lot of existing fans wondering how their appetite would be satisfied.
The risk proved critically redundant, as it garnered a mixed response from reviewers. A far cry from the lofty heights of its predecessor and indeed the 2016 sequel to Enemy Unknown.