14 Video Game Franchises That Will Never Die

There are some franchises that will never end, either because they’re far too successful for their own good, or because some fans just refuse to let a good thing die. I mean, could you even imagine a world without Pokémon, or The Legend of Zelda? How about annual staples like Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, of Microsoft’s treasured Halo series?

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, these games have become permanent fixtures in the video game landscape and permanent residents in our homes and on our screens. Whatever the reason, these franchises will just keep on producing new instalments, and even when it looks like they may have finally died a death, they’ll resurface and begin all over again.

There are some games that are just so intrinsically linked to the medium of video games that the two cannot be disconnected. There may have been a five year gap between Tomb Raider: Underworld on the Playstation 2 and 2012’s Tomb Raider, but like many of the entries on this list, some franchises just don’t know when to stay down.

With that said, here are 14 video games franchises that will be alive and kicking until the end of time, whether we like it or not…

Prior to 2012, many people, myself included, may have counted the Tomb Raider franchises as dead and buried. After all, while the series had blossomed on the Playstation, producing five popular entries in the main series alone, Lara Croft never really found her feet on the console's successor the PS2.

The Angel of Darkness was an unmitigated disaster. It was Core Design's last attempt with Lara Croft as development was handed over to Crystal Dynamics, and whilst Tomb Raider Legends and the TR1 remake Tomb Raider Anniversary were met with faint praise, the series had lost much of its lustre.

Tomb Raider Underworld, Crystal Dynamic's first PS3 entry, failed to meet commercial expectations, and with Naughty Dog's Uncharted series steadily growing in popularity it may have seemed that the time was approaching for Lara Croft to be quietly taken out back and mercifully put to sleep. This wasn't that case. Five years after its last release, Square Enix resuscitated the series with the appropriately titled, Tomb Raider in 2013.

The game was an unexpected success, and now Lara Croft looks better than ever. She's been completely reinvented for the twenty-first century, and her new design as well as the newly established maturity of the series will ensure that she remains relevant for the foreseeable future. Nathan Drake, be warned.