8 Best-Selling Video Game Sequels Hardcore Fans Hated

7. Splinter Cell: Blacklist

It's astonishing to think back on how prolific and talked about the original Splinter Cell trilogy was - and then look at its sales numbers.

Where 2002's title landed with 9 million units sold - instantly putting Sam Fisher alongside Solid Snake as a recognisable icon of the stealth genre, and gaming overall - mainstream audiences quickly dropped off.

Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory turned in sales of around 2 million a piece, with Double Agent falling even further. Conviction's attempt to revive things by going in a melee-focused direction was genuinely laughable when Ubisoft first showed it off, but sales did start to recover with this instalment.

As wider audiences responded to the "mark and execute" run n' gun approach, SC: Blacklist actually became the fourth best-selling entry in the franchise, getting back up above 2 million units.

Swapping out Michael Ironside and redesigning Sam Fisher had longtime players running for the hills, but if the stealth genre hadn't died out altogether around this period, chances are we'd still have seen more titles in the vein of Conviction and Blacklist, not the originals.