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00:00So, there are few things more frustrating than when a beloved game series with thousands of
00:04fans just doesn't get treated with the amount of respect that it deserves. Sometimes it also
00:09seems to happen for no reason. The games get fantastic reception and a loyal following,
00:13only for its developers to just throw it away. Of course, creating games and managing a franchise
00:17is definitely hard, and anyone on the outside looking in probably has no idea what goes into
00:21all of it. But sometimes the mistakes seem so obvious, you have to wonder what the hell they
00:25were thinking. So, let's take a look at them today. As I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com,
00:29and these are 10 Thoroughly Mistreated Video Game Franchises.
00:3310. Rayman
00:34By all accounts, Rayman should have been the face of Ubisoft. Perfect as a mascot,
00:39the series had some incredibly beloved games starring the Limbless Wonder,
00:42as he platformed his way through several really fun adventures. But then, Rayman hit a roadblock
00:47that he just couldn't get past for the longest of time, and that was The Rabbids. Created as the
00:51main enemies for a mainline Rayman game, it got cancelled and reworked into a Wii minigame
00:55collection, and that started the full-on Rabbids takeover of the series. Rayman was barely seen
01:00for years as the Rabbids invaded everything they possibly could, with their own games, cameos,
01:05and even their own cartoon series. Eventually, though, Rayman did come back in glorious 2D
01:09platforming form, earning high praise as some of the best of the genre. However, that glory didn't
01:14last long, as after two games Rayman was regulated to mobile, with auto-runners and a brand new adventure
01:19of the hero being miniaturised. The mobile games themselves are fine, but with how beloved the
01:24character is, it's a shame that Ubisoft seemingly refuses to do right by him.
01:289. Star Wars Battlefront
01:30So how do you take a fan-favourite series and almost destroy it? Well, you give the licence
01:34to EA, apparently. The original Star Wars Battlefront 1 and 2 were beloved, seen by many fans as some of
01:40the best Star Wars games ever made, and were some of the most popular games to play during the early
01:44days of online console gaming. Unfortunately, the original series would never see a third game,
01:49as it went through a lot of development issues. There were even plans for a fourth game on top of that,
01:53but of course, that was never going to happen. Eventually, the game was cancelled, and Disney
01:57would give the licence to EA, where they created a new Battlefront game that was bare-bones at
02:01release, but you know what, it was fine enough. But then they made that second game, and almost
02:06killed the series before it released due to their loot box implementation. Basically putting in a
02:10pay-to-win mechanic, and making them almost mandatory if you didn't want to spend 40-plus
02:14hours unlocking Darth Vader, the blowback was seething, giving them the most downvoted comment in
02:19history. And then having the controversy appear in mainstream news, and forcing them to remove
02:23loot boxes 24 hours before launch. And now it seems that there won't be a third game again,
02:28leaving the series in limbo once more.
02:308. Metroid
02:31Now I know what you're thinking, didn't we just get Metroid Dread in 2021? Yes, we did,
02:36but the series as a whole has gone through a lot of ups and downs. So much so that Simon Miller is
02:41actually suing them. While most games are critically acclaimed, so few come out that a lot of people just
02:46kind of forget about the series until that next release. Being a Metroid fan is basically
02:50frustration incarnate. You have fantastic 2D games, and then the Prime series that reinvented what
02:55Metroid could be, and then you have Other M, which had some weird design choices and a story that was
03:00the definition of character assassination for poor Samus. And the thing is, is that if you want a new
03:04Prime game, well too bad, have a spin-off with Metroid Prime on it that actually has nothing to do with
03:09Samus and doesn't have the gameplay of the original. Want a new 2D game? Well here, have some remakes
03:13while they spend two decades trying to make Dread. Still want Metroid Prime 4? Well,
03:17they restarted development, so you'll have to wait even longer. It's a series that should be
03:21bigger than it is, but thanks to some baffling decisions, the series has been held back from
03:25its full potential. 7. Sonic the Hedgehog
03:28You would think that with being the biggest franchise in Sega's library that Sonic Team
03:32would know what to do with the series, but as it turns out, they haven't got a bloody clue,
03:36and they haven't for a very long time. Of course, we have the original and iconic trilogy back on
03:40the Genesis, and the fun Sonic Adventure duology, but afterwards the series started to take a
03:45nosedive that it never really recovered from. The developers just have no idea how to make
03:49Sonic appealing, adding in more and more gimmicks. While Sonic Heroes and even Shadow the Hedgehog
03:53were fine, I guess, the fact that they felt like they had to give Sonic's darker twin a gun should
03:59speak volumes, and that's not even going into the mess that was Sonic 06, The Werehog, and also
04:04Sonic Forces. The only game that got any widespread acclaim for the Blue Hedgehog in the modern era was
04:09Sonic Mania, a game which, lest we not forget, was created by die-hard fans of the series. With how
04:14great everything else in the world of Sonic is right now, we just hope that the games will match
04:18up with that quality eventually. 6. Metal Gear Solid
04:21Not too many games are dependent on one man, but Hideo Kojima isn't just any man. Kojima helmed the
04:27Metal Gear Solid series and knocked it out of the park with every entry. With political intrigue and
04:31storylines about the horrors of war predicting the state of the world with eerie accuracy, Metal Gear
04:35Solid is rightfully considered one of the best game franchises ever. However, Kojima and Konami
04:40started to clash during the production of Metal Gear Solid 5, and that led to the very ugly and
04:44very public divorce of the two before that game was released. While 5 definitely had its issues due
04:49to this, it was still critically acclaimed due to its open-world and free-form gameplay, and then
04:53the series immediately tanked so much that it might as well have been dead. The first game without
04:57Kojima behind it, Metal Gear Survive came out, most likely as a way to test the waters within the
05:02franchise after the breakup. It was a spin-off game, not having anything to do with any version
05:06of Snake, and having the player get transported into a zombie dimension. The gameplay was tedious,
05:10the story completely lacking, the world bleak and boring, and everything was just so terrible that
05:15most of the fanbase have written off the franchise entirely. You're more likely to see a pachinko
05:19machine for Metal Gear than a new game anytime soon.
05:215. Conker
05:23Arguably the property that has suffered the most from Microsoft buying Rare, Conker has had more than
05:27one bad day at this point. The Squirrel made his debut on the N64, and while it didn't sell all
05:32too well, it was praised thanks to its solid platforming and raunchy adult subject material,
05:37being a perfect mismatch with the kid-friendly visuals. A sequel was planned, but was scrapped
05:41once it went over to Xbox, and a remake of the first game was made instead. Then they tried to
05:45make a multiplayer-only game, but that never materialized. Conker kind of disappeared after that,
05:50with no real news about the series coming out. But then, in 2014, almost 10 years after the remake was
05:55released, it was announced that Conker would make his triumphant return in a game creation title
05:59called Project Spark. Obviously just a shallow marketing tactic, Project Spark shut down very
06:04early into its life, cutting any new experiences with Conker short. Afterwards, something called
06:08Young Conker was announced for the Microsoft HoloLands in 2016, and unsurprisingly, fans hated
06:13this idea, and Conker hasn't been seen since.
06:164. Devil May Cry
06:17Now, before I begin talking about this one, let's just get it out of the gate. The actual game,
06:21DMC, if you're playing it from a gameplay perspective, is brilliant, but the redesign,
06:25ooh, that was not loved. And this is the thing, Capcom wanted to do Call of Duty-sized sales
06:29numbers, and figured that the best way to do this was to reboot some of their franchises
06:33to appeal to Western audiences, and Devil May Cry was one of them. Changing Dante's iconic look,
06:38making his brother Virgil act like he'd call you m'lady, and having a story try way too hard
06:42to be cool and edgy, and also actively mocking things that previous fans liked of the series,
06:47the reboot was not looked at favourably. Years later, Capcom kind of admitted that they'd
06:51made a mistake and made Devil May Cry 5 going off the original series continuity and giving
06:55a very fitting end to the Sons of Sparda. And hopefully, they'll keep it up.
06:593. Diablo
07:00Is this an out-of-season April Fool's joke? Those nine words are the best way to show how
07:06hilariously out-of-touch Blizzard was with what people wanted. Diablo 3 was released in 2012,
07:11two positive reviews, with fans of the series loving pretty much everything about it. But then,
07:15years passed, and fans were anxious to see what new entry would be to the series. Rumours of Diablo 4
07:20were swirling. So, at their convention in 2018, Blizzard announced that the next entry into the
07:24Diablo series was going to be Diablo Immortal. It was a mobile game, and then they announced
07:29nothing else. In their infinite wisdom, they decided to have a QA session about the game,
07:33which led to the Immortal, ha ha ha, quote above. It also had the crowd booing when the developers
07:38announced that there would be no PC port, and one particularly terrible retort from a developer
07:43that went to the tune of, do you guys not have phones? Now, while the fourth game was officially
07:50announced a while later, this whole thing felt like an absolute farce.
07:552. Mega Man
07:56So, Mega Man 11 was released in 2018 to pretty favourable reviews, making fans of the series
08:01very, very happy. But the iconic character wasn't always in such a good place. For all intents and
08:06purposes, Mega Man was dead in the 2010s. Several games for the Blue Bomber were announced in 2010,
08:11but every single one of them was cancelled, and Capcom just didn't do anything with the
08:15character for a long time. The Great Mega Man drought happened, and fans were in despair for
08:19something, anything from the franchise. In the gaming world, the best they got was a wacky DLC
08:24guest spot in Street Fighter X Tekken, and it wasn't even the Mega Man that everyone loved,
08:28it was the Mega Man from the box art of the first game. You know, the one that made him look like an
08:31out-of-shape middle-aged man? Now, things seem to be a bit better for Mega Man right now,
08:35with 11 and his spot in Marvel vs. Capcom Infinity, but, uh, I mean, the quality of that game aside,
08:40showing a renewed interest to include him in Capcom's plans, so hopefully the character won't
08:44vanish again. But seriously, Capcom, where's my Mega Man Legends follow-up? Come on, let's go,
08:48let's go.
08:481. Silent Hill
08:50Ugh, this series just cannot catch a break, can it? Silent Hill is one of the most iconic
08:54survival horror franchises ever, with the first three games in particular really standing out.
08:59Dealing with demons, both literal and personal, these games were artistic and horrifying
09:03masterpieces. But it seems that they lost track of why these games were so good,
09:07because they just kept on making follow-up games, and not a lot of them were any good.
09:11Homecoming and Downpour in particular focused more on action than horror, ignoring story beats from
09:16previous games in order to try and appeal more to wider audiences, and just clearly being rushed
09:21games of poor quality. But then the series was given an unexpected second breath. The mysterious
09:26demo dropped on the PS4 called PT, a game where you walk down a hallway over and over and over again
09:31as you dealt with a terrifying ghost that was stalking you. It was horrifying, it was tense,
09:35it was everything that fans wanted from a horror game, and it turned out to be a new Silent Hill
09:39game, starring Norman Reedus of all people and being created by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro.
09:43But you all know where this is going. Kojima left the company, effectively killing Silent Hills.
09:48Konami snuffed out the second breath almost as quickly as they gave it, and Silent Hills seems
09:52to be dead as a franchise. Now, I know that there is rumours of the reboot coming out soon or soon
09:56to be announced, but still, that is going to be revisionist. That is going to be Konami putting
10:00their stamp on their own history, and to be honest, with their track record at the moment,
10:04I'm not too hopeful. Prove me wrong, Konami. Prove me wrong.
10:07And there we go, my friends. Those were 10 thoroughly mistreated video game franchises.
10:11I hope that you enjoyed it, and please let me know what you thought about it down in the
10:14comments section below. As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter
10:17at RetroJ, but the O is a zero, and it'd be great to see you over there. But before you go,
10:22I just want to say one thing. I hope that you're treating yourself well with love and respect,
10:26because you deserve all of the best things in life, like love, happiness, and success. And do
10:30not let anything or anyone else tell you otherwise. You are a massive ledge, and I want you to go out
10:35there and absolutely smash it today. As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome. Never
10:39forget that, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.
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