10 Video Game Sequels That Look WORSE Than What Came Before

9. Mass Effect 3

mass effect 2 3
Bioware

Mass Effect is, at this point, a classical example of how to do things right. Bioware did so many things right with the series leading into the sequel and then into the third game. Now don't get us wrong, Mass Effect 3 is still a beautiful game - but there are clear cases where you can see that visual stimuli have not evolved along with the numbers.

Explosions are a noted grade lower than they were before. The character models seem to lack a bit of the polish that they had in ME 2, and in some instances the animations are lacking. A major complaint going around for a while was the the fact that Bioware seems to have gone the route of hyper realism by making everyone's faces gritty and dirty, rather than the stylized brightness apparent before.

What was once a beautiful and brilliant space opera was now a gritty space noir. That may not necessarily be a bad thing, of course, but you if you booted up the latest Mass Effect and got Mass Effect: Noir, you'd be pretty disappointed.

And speaking of disappointed we're ignoring Andromeda which could also qualify for this list, because it's low hanging fruit at this point.

In this post: 
Mass Effect
 
First Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Author of Escort (Eternal Press, 2015), co-founder of Nic3Ntertainment, and developer behind The Sickle Upon Sekigahara (2020). Currently freelancing as a game developer and history consultant. Also tends to travel the eastern U.S. doing courses on History, Writing, and Japanese Poetry. You can find his portfolio at www.richardcshaffer.com.