10 Video Games That Could Sell Millions As A Different Genre

Some games evolve from their original genre into something totally different, like Fallout being a isometric tactical RPG and moving into a tactical FPS or Metal Gear Solid being a "Tactical Espionage Action" game and turning into a card battle game on a handheld device (remember "Acid!"). Dynasty Warriors was once a fighting game before it turned into an operatic hack-and-slash.

Sometimes these changes work, like Super Mario RPG being listed as one of the greatest video games of all time. Sometimes they are not well received, like XCOM's spinoff, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.

Final Fantasy Tactics is considered one of the best games in the franchise and sold twice as many copies in 1997 as Final Fantasy 14 did in 2010. Sometimes games need a changeover to a new genre, either in the main franchise or as a spin-off to keep fresh. Even Call of Duty and Battlefield have evolved in some ways, besides moving away from World War II settings.

Some genre shifts in a franchise go over poorly, but some go on to make millions for their publishers. Some are simply great ideas - like Overwatch 2 being a story-based PvE experience.

And there are lots of games that could really benefit from genre shifts more than Command & Conquer actually being produced as an RTS, again.

Honourable mention to Jagged Alliance being produced as almost anything other than what it has been, as we've previously mentioned here.

The general consensus about Fallout 76 brings the phrase 's**t-show' to mind.

For a moment though, let's ignore the recurring bugs, game crashing, reused assets, overpriced cosmetics, moldy helmets, and not-canvas bags. You still have the issue that long-time Fallout fans didn't get the narrative dream they were hoping for and MMO fans didn't get the cooperative experience inside a post-apocalyptic setting they were hoping for. In the end no one who wanted the game got what they were hoping for, really.

But what if - instead of a bland, emotionless landscape of PvP loot-grinding, Fallout 76 had instead been a survival horror game? Imagine if the story had, instead, been along the lines of - a Vault where irradiated, infected raiders and Scorched beasts made it into the Vault. You play as one of the few survivors trying to reclaim the vault by clearing it out, or escape a lost cause.

If we're going to have a Fallout game with no human NPCs to interact with, why not make it a dark, scary romp through one of the control vaults that is falling apart, right? Armed with insufficient ammunition and a pip-boy, can you survive The Vault?