00:00You have a name?
00:02Ryohazuki.
00:04Well, it's your lucky day.
00:07Welcome to Mojo Plays, and today we're taking a look at 10 video game sequels that fumbled the ball in
00:14resurrecting their franchises.
00:16This is your last chance to run away.
00:19You ready? Fight!
00:21Before we begin, we publish new videos all week long, so be sure to subscribe to Mojo Plays and ring
00:27the bell to be notified about our latest videos.
00:30Mass Effect Andromeda.
00:37At the start, it was rather confusing to hear Bioware was making a fourth Mass Effect game.
00:43I mean, wasn't the third game supposed to be the end of it?
00:47Like, definitive conclusion, you know?
00:49Well, this new one was supposed to start a brand new story in a completely different corner of the universe.
00:55Supposedly, that part of the universe is where everyone was running around with loaded britches.
01:00Mass Effect Andromeda was plagued with so many animation bugs that it turned the game into the internet's punching bag
01:07for most of 2017.
01:09Not only that, but the gameplay was nothing like the original trilogy, as it tried to be severely less RPG
01:15and significantly more third-person shooter.
01:17You'll forgive me if I didn't just trust a stranger from the Nexus.
01:22They haven't exactly treated us, Krogan, well.
01:25What are you doing out here?
01:27Star Fox Zero.
01:29That's as far as you go, Star Fox.
01:33I do hope you like our new toys.
01:36Star Fox went through a serious identity crisis for a time.
01:40It started as an on-rails shooter, then it was an action-adventure game, then it was a third-person
01:45shooter.
01:46But once the remake of Star Fox 64 3D released in 2011, one would hope Nintendo had realized the IP
01:53is at its best when it's an on-rails shooter.
01:56Five years later, we get Star Fox 64, I mean Star Fox Zero.
02:01As if releasing on an actively dying platform wasn't bad enough, the game annoyed what few players gave at the
02:08time of day with its cinematic cameras that would take hold in the middle of gameplay.
02:13This would open the player up to several cheap shots, a frequent complaint among reviewers.
02:19And now?
02:20Star Fox is pretty much dead, as there is no new game in sight as of October 2025.
02:38I believe I shall take out the garbage.
02:42For almost all of the 2010s, the only Dead or Alive game we ever had was DOA 5.
02:48And the three different re-releases that DOA 5 got.
02:52DOA 5 Plus, DOA 5 Ultimate, and DOA 5 Last Round.
02:57Which is arguably the best version of all of them.
03:00It wasn't until 2019, a whole seven years since the initial release of DOA 5, when we got the sixth
03:06mainline game in the series.
03:09Dead or Alive 6 had such an insanely strong start, with its innovative progression system for unlocking outfits,
03:15the way it integrated meter-based mechanics without sacrificing the core mechanics,
03:20and the visual fidelity shown in the character models and environments.
03:24So what went wrong?
03:25Severely overpriced cosmetics and recycled DLC characters.
03:29Plus, what the hell, Koei Tecmo?
03:32No tag mode?
03:34Eventually, Koei Tecmo quietly abandoned the game, just as the playerbase did.
03:39And now, Dead or Alive lives on, under the Extreme and Venus Vacation spinoffs.
03:46Really, why have we gotten more of these games in the last 20 years, than we've gotten mainline Dead or
03:52Alive games?
03:53Oh yeah, Gooners have taken hold of the community.
03:57Great.
03:58We're acting all tough at the beginning, what happened?
04:00Sly Cooper, Thieves in Time
04:03A magnificent likeness, isn't it, Cooper?
04:07Almost as handsome as the real thing!
04:11Huh, yeah.
04:12Looks almost big enough to contain your overinflated ego.
04:15Though Sly's story finished with Honor Among Thieves in 2005, fans were begging for a new game for the next
04:22eight years.
04:22The demand grew more intense when the trilogy was remastered for PlayStation 3.
04:27But when Thieves in Time dropped in 2013, one has to wonder where these supposed fans ran off to.
04:34Reviews were moderately favorable, with only a few minor problems between the ending and a few weak levels.
04:40But overall, solid review scores all around.
04:43Unfortunately, sales were still weak to where the ring-tailed thief has been missing for far longer than he had
04:50been missing before.
04:51Halo Infinite
05:05For a time, the return of Halo was actually something to be interested in.
05:10Oh, Halo 4 wasn't super great, but maybe Halo 5 will be the turnaround.
05:15Oh, Halo 5 was, uh, kinda crap, huh?
05:19Well, maybe six years of development on the next Halo will really revive the chief.
05:24Nope.
05:25Halo Infinite suffered a similar fate as Dead or Alive 6.
05:29It had a somewhat strong start with a campaign that people enjoyed a fair amount.
05:33But you know what it didn't have?
05:35Enough maps to keep the multiplayer from getting stale too quickly.
05:39Seasons were drip-fed and went on for way too long.
05:42And to make matters worse, we didn't get Forge in the game until an entire year after launch.
05:49This should have been a slam dunk for Xbox and 343 Industries.
05:54And now, you have even hardcore Halo fans saying they don't want another Halo game.
05:59All you need is the Master Chief collection, they say.
06:11New Tales from the Borderlands
06:14Who's a good girl?
06:16Juniper is.
06:17Juniper's a good girl.
06:19Well, who wouldn't be a good girl for that kind of attention?
06:24A sequel to Tales from the Borderlands isn't too terrible of an idea.
06:28Sure, Reese and Fiona's stories were done, but you can always explore other regions of Pandora for new and original
06:35stories.
06:36Just one thing, Gearbox.
06:38You might want to hire the folks who know what they were doing.
06:41They did, but as consultants.
06:44And that's how we got New Tales from the Borderlands.
06:47Gearbox wanted to make the sequel themselves an entire 8 years after Telltale developed the original game.
06:54And it was so god-awful.
06:58Just to go off script for a second here, I could barely make it through the first episode.
07:03It was such awful writing.
07:05There is not a single likable character in this whole game,
07:09as everybody is pretty much one note in their responses,
07:12and everybody has a quip for quips upon quips every given moment.
07:16It is such an obnoxious cast that it's impossible to get through just the first episode.
07:22I barely made it out alive, man.
07:25Well, if it isn't Reese Strongfork!
07:29Susan Coldwell, CEO of TDR.
07:32Crackdown 3.
07:41It is very, very strange that Xbox let Crackdown die on the vine,
07:46so early in its lifetime.
07:48Sure, Crackdown 2 wasn't as good as the first game,
07:51but it was still a solid game.
07:52Even so, Crackdown went through a 9-year-long dormancy before we got the third game.
07:58And this time, we had Terry Crews as the face of the game,
08:02which was appropriate given some of the macho characters he has portrayed in movies and TV.
08:07What we didn't know was that his role in the game was just a mere distraction.
08:12Crackdown 3 was, and still is, a technical mess,
08:16and missions were so bland and boring that we suddenly remembered the worst aspects of Crackdown 2.
08:21Oh yeah, this is why we stopped playing this franchise.
08:26It's mundane!
08:28Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2
08:44This sequel may not be the worst game of 2025,
08:48but considering how long it's been in development,
08:50and how many times companies pushed the game onto other companies,
08:54did anybody bother asking if this should just be cancelled?
08:58Bloodlines 2 is an incredibly short game with almost no amount of player choice to be found,
09:03in a sequel to a RPG known for its flexible amount of player choice.
09:09If you were one of the diehard fans that had been waiting the past 21 years for this,
09:13we are deeply sorry for you.
09:16Truly.
09:16This should have turned out way better than it did.
09:20And yet, we're somehow not surprised.
09:22Duke Nukem Forever.
09:32Fans of the Duke may not have had to wait as long as Vampire The Masquerade fans,
09:37but to this day, Forever is kind of the main reason why we still don't have any Duke Nukem games
09:42in sight,
09:43as of 2025.
09:44After having spent 15 years in development,
09:47Duke Nukem Forever gave us an FPS that was middling in combat,
09:51had wonky physics in vehicles and objects,
09:54and featured some disgustingly sexist depictions of women we had seen in gaming at the time.
09:59To this day, we have yet to see 2K bring the Duke back for his own game.
10:03He's popped up here and there,
10:05but for the most part, Forever may have ensured his demise.
10:10Ironic, giving the title.
10:11Shenmue 3.
10:24Of all the video game sequels,
10:26none had squandered a bigger opportunity than Shenmue 3.
10:30So many fans had spent nearly two decades begging for one more game,
10:35just to let creator Yu Suzuki finish the story.
10:38They got their wish, Suzuki obliged,
10:41and fans almost instantly regretted it.
10:44Shenmue 3 felt exactly like the first two games,
10:46for better and for worse.
10:48On one hand, it was nice to see Ryo and company in brand new engines with new details,
10:53and yes, it was what you would probably expect from a Shenmue game.
10:57On the other hand,
10:59this was a new Shenmue game
11:01that took no cues from the open world games that had filled its shoes
11:05over the past couple decades.
11:07Newer players found a sequel that was boring,
11:09monotonous,
11:10and lacking in any interesting concepts whatsoever.
11:13As for the fans,
11:14the cliffhanger ending
11:16was enough for many to denounce Suzuki as a creative.
11:19Publisher Deep Silver's parent company,
11:21Embracer Group,
11:22stated the game sold fine,
11:24but do you think that means there is any hope for a Shenmue 4?
11:28Probably not.
11:36What's a video game sequel that disappointed you?
11:39Let us know down in the comments,
11:40and be sure to subscribe to Mojo Plays.
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