How To Save A Dying Video Game Franchise
8. Act Like The Bad Games Never Happened
Far more so than film fans, gamers will accept a new game which throws out the existing continuity or ignores a dud sequel entirely.
In part, this is because most video games aren't quite up to the narrative level of a great movie or TV show, with far more of the appeal rooted in the gameplay.
And so, game franchises generally find it easier to course-correct by simply jettisoning failed prior games from the series' continuity, either by actively re-writing history or flat-out ignoring them and pretending they never existed.
The timey-wimey shenanigans of Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time hilariously allowed the game to make a passing reference to the many bungled sequels following 1998's Crash 3: Warped, effectively chucking them out of the timeline as they did so.
Though flat-out reboots and card-carrying soft-reboots are far more common than straight sequels which re-jig the continuity such as Crash 4, the key goal is diminishing the offending game's mindshare in the fanbase and giving them as little reason to think about it as humanly possible.
But it's also important not to rely too heavily on what came before...