12 Abusive Video Game Sequels That Completely Missed The Point

10. Call Of Duty: Ghosts

After three competent yet niche first person shooter titles, Call of Duty became undeniably mainstream with the release of the fourth game, Modern Warfare, which dazzled players with its addictive, rank-based multiplayer suite, while at the same time boasting a cinematic (if relatively brief) single player component. It was a sure recipe for success, and subsequent games attempted to build on it in various ways, such as adding vehicles and explosive new online modes, and in honesty, making the single player feel less and less relevant. Hardcore gamers have been ragging on the CoD franchise for quite some time, that it's basically the same game re-skinned every year, though those complaints were somewhat shut-up by Treyarch's Black Ops II, which introduced an impressive branching narrative into the single player, alongside an optional, strategy-esque Strike Force mode, even if the multiplayer was still business as usual. However, the latest entry, Ghosts, proved to be the game that finally broke the franchise's streak of record sales, and it wasn't just because of the next-gen switch over. Ghosts is the first game that, to me, truly felt like the developers coasting beyond what could be considered reasonable. For one thing, the campaign can be beaten in little over 4 hours, which makes one wonder why they even bothered including it in the first place. The multiplayer introduction of new modes such as Cranked was a smart move, but the core gameplay has really been pushed to a point that there's not much left that can be done to it on the current, hugely outdated engine. In addition to all this, despite being available on Xbox One and PS4, the game looks little like a next-gen game on either platform, which totally misses the point of releasing the game on them in the first place. One can only hope that big changes are afoot for the next game, which will presumably be developed solely with next-gen consoles in mind.