With as many games as we’ve got to play these days, it’s easy to forget about the games that built the pathways that have gotten us to where we are today. So many franchises have come and gone, but there are a handful of franchises that we’re heartbroken will likely never get another title.
We’re talking about the games that had a few brief moments in the sun and then faded away due to all kinds of reasons, from lack of budget to lack of success.
We’re going to take a look at some game franchises that disappeared without a trace.
10 Darksiders
Waiting For The FouHorsemenan
Darksiders is a cool franchise that never quite was able to figure out what its niche was. It’s an action-adventure game, an RPG, a Zelda clone? It’s really all over the place, but the first two games are legitimately great. The third game, however, failed to capitalize on the story of the first two, and the main character wasn’t nearly as compelling as playing as literal Death. It caused the enthusiasm for the series to wane until there was nothing worth following up on.
There are rumors that we could see a game that reunites all 4 horsemen for an epic team-up adventure, but for now we’ve been left cold on a franchise that once felt red-hot.
9 Jak and Daxter
The Mascots Have Gone
Jak and Daxter are one of gaming’s greatest duos. The two had game after game with great reviews, solid fanfare and were consistently a great presence in the gaming world. The games were awesome platformers mixed with inventive third-person on-shooting, amazing game worlds that could stand toe-to-toe with any other action-adventure game out there. All the games in the series did great with critics and there was little reason for it to stop having titles.
That is, of course, until Naughty Dog became a gaming giant with Uncharted and The Last of Us. They left the cartoonish Jak and Daxter in the dust and literally have not looked back since. It’s a shame because it was a unique game, and we really don’t see many of them anymore, but there also isn’t a ton of demand to see it return either.
8 Syphon Filter
Our Forgotten Operative
Syphon Filter is a game that sits quietly between Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell. Gabe Logan is the star, and he’s a special operative caught up in a variety of conspiracies and wars, and this series was the definition of solid.
Not spectacular, mind you, but solid and had enough fans to last from the 1990s into the late 2000s. The final game in the series was Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow, which clearly was trying to follow the gritty Splinter Cell formula.
It didn’t work, and while the series had its share of fans, including me, it just didn’t have the legs to keep having SONY invest in it as a potential cash cow. It’s a relic these days, but it’s a cool series with some great action and pretty good third-person shooting. It also had some cool ideas, like a boss fight against an armored soldier who you need to push into a helicopter blade to defeat.
7 Shadow Hearts
The Dark JRPG
Shadow Hearts was a unique JRPG in the early 2000s; it was incredibly un-PC and dealt with dark subject matter from start to finish. It was sort of a breath of fresh air in that way and had some of the best combat available in the genre. It involved a timed combat mechanic that would seem to become more of the norm in the genre, reminiscent of what system would be used in Lost Odyssey and even Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
There were three games in the series, and the first two were hits, giving JRPG fans a distinctly different flavor of game, one that had its niche for sure. The game changed over time, though, becoming less and less dark, eventually culminating in Shadow Hearts: the New World, which missed the mark with both casual JRPG fans and the niche ones who loved the first two games. Nobody really talks about Shadow Hearts anymore, but it was one of Midway Games’ finest achievements, helping inspire a new generation of JRPGs.
6 Starcraft
Remembering the GOAT
Starcraft used to be at the top of the mountain when it came to real-time strategy games. While there’s still a community for the game that stands strong today, it’s not nearly talked about as much. The sequel was also strong when it was released in 2010, but since then, the series has gone away. Blizzard has all but forgotten about its original flagship franchise and has been pretty much a World of Warcraft machine ever since.
I think the big issue here was that Starcraft 2 didn’t evolve the series in a meaningful way. They stuck with the same three races despite being more than a decade later than when the first game was released, and even graphically, the improvements were minimal. It was clear Blizzard didn’t care all that much about the franchise and just left it in the dust, and while you can still find plenty of multiplayer games to take part in and even tournaments, the series is all but dead for the time being.
5 The Evil Within
The Better Evil
The Evil Within is a series that pains me to see abandoned, because I think it’s better than Resident Evil in every way. From the story to the atmosphere, it just gets so much right and is easily the scarier game franchise. Despite that, there have only been two titles in the series, and while the first one was only decently received, the second is regarded as one of the best horror games out there.
It has so many cool, weird and creepy ideas that you’d think it would be able to fit comfortably into a post-Alan Wake 2 world, and yet, the series is all but done with. Nobody seems to care either, as Resident Evil charges forward with more momentum than ever before, and old greats like Silent Hill have jumped back into the fold on top of that. But none of them do what The Evil Within does. The mix of sci-fi-horror and psychological aspects remains something incredible and unique in a space where it’s hard to do anything like that.
Regardless, this series remains one of the must-play games of the horror genre, with creatures unlike anything else, iconic boss fights and one of the best stories in any horror game as well.
4 Mega Man
One of Gaming’s First Attractions
Mega Man is right next to Super Mario in terms of gaming mascots that helped build the industry. Capcom’s original mascot was a cash cow like none other. Every game in the ’90s was a hit and the series only started to slow down once full 3D took over. There were still great games in the franchise after that, but it was clear the writing was on the wall with the series at this point.
Since the early 2000s, Mega Man has fallen far behind the totem pole in terms of Capcom franchises. They have leaned towards the more mature ones in recent years, like Resident Evil, and games like Mega Man have simply become a thing of the past. The side-scroller platformer still exists, but after the disaster that was Mighty No. 9, it’s possible that scared Capcom away from ever touching the property again.
3 Chrono Trigger/Cross
The Time has passed
Chrono Cross and Chrono Trigger are two of the best games of the 1990s, but since then, the series has gone completely dormant. With the fanbase constantly fawning over Final Fantasy and now Octopath Traveler, where have the Chrono games gone?
This series was so unique, with incredible music, character design and one of the best game worlds ever made. The feeling of traveling to Another World in Chrono Cross is something that most games today just do not have the capability of doing. It’s a game that’s a passage to the past in more ways than one, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be relevant in today’s gaming age. Unfortunately, the Chrono Cross Remaster didn’t drive up the popularity of the franchise again because it was largely a lazy remaster.
With Final Fantasy being back in the spotlight, it’s unlikely we ever get the long-rumored Chrono Break, but I’m hoping for it.
2 SOCOM
The Mission is Over
SOCOM was a groundbreaking game back in the day. In fact, it was one of the first online games available on the PS2, starting an entire new generation of gaming. The communication with your teammates was amazing, and the seriousness of the game in general was something we didn’t see much of in the early 2000s.
The series started red-hot, but tapered off shortly after the first few titles, which were all pretty well received. It was Ghost Recon before Ghost Recon really took over, and it’s pretty clear this is the game where Ghost Recon decided to rip its third-person aesthetic from. It’s a really cool series that lasted into the PS3 era, but just kind of faded with the times. I’d love to see a comeback here, but the military shooter has all but disappeared.
The team-based aesthetic is something that games like Ready or Not have employed, so maybe Sony could find a studio to revive it somewhere down the line.
1 Medal of Honor
The Start of The War
Medal of Honor is a series that was Call of Duty before Call of Duty. It’s a series that had a booming multiplayer community, amazing set pieces and one of the most realistic depictions of World War 2 we’d ever seen. The D Day level in Medal of Honor: Allied Assault is one of the best levels in video game history, and it’s both astoundingly accurate and terrifying while also being thrilling to play through.
The series was going relatively strong until the mid-2000s, when Call of Duty 2 was released on next-gen consoles and flipped the game on its head. It tried to keep pace, even releasing a game in the vein of Modern Warfare, but it was clear, the series had been overtaken by something far more powerful.
These days, the last bastion of the series was a VR game that was relatively decent, but underwhelming for the series’ lofty standards, and while I had a good amount of fun with it, it’s not close to what the series used to be, and it seems to have faded into the background as Call of Duty continues world domination.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
