10 Video Game Sequels That Made The Original Even Better

There are good sequels, and there are great sequels, and the difference between those two categories is razor-thin. To the point where the difference can seem downright arbitrary. Everyone's got their favorites, and their reasons, but what is the one real deciding factor that makes a follow-up truly great?

For my money, it is the same thing that makes ANY sequel great: It makes the original better by sheer existence.

A phenomenal sequel should be chapter 2/3/whatever of the larger narrative, giving the audience a clearer picture of what its creator is trying to say by building on and refining everything that came before. These game sequels did it best, taking what was already a great game in its own right and making it even better by having the sequel as a real companion piece.

Whether by complimenting gameplay, continuing/re-contextualizing the original's story, or just bringing it to a satisfying ending, these sequels make you look at the original and love it all the more.

The sequel to Knights Of The Old Republic had a lot to prove, especially since Bioware was no longer at the helm, but instead we got Obsidian Entertainment, the guys who would go on to make Fallout: New Vegas. And much like Fallout: New Vegas, bad project scheduling led to the game coming out rushed and missing a ton of content.

But even with the vanilla game, the story shines through as something that improves KOTOR in retrospect.

For one, it goes way more into Darth Revan's history, his reasoning for turning on the Jedi, thanks to the POV character being one of Revan's former soldiers, and one of your first companions being Revan's first master, Kreia. It also adds shades of grey to the light vs dark conflict seen in the original, which feels complimentary to what the previous game set up, rather than contradictory.

KOTOR becomes just one side of the story, the other side of which is provided by KOTOR 2.