Which pc game franchise was ruined by new developers?

[DeadnightWarrior]

Hello again. 

Sometimes game developers go bankrupt or just end up selling their properties to others. And what happens more often than not, is that some game franchises just get ruined.

 

I actually have to mention two:

- Might And Magic.

I adored the VI and VII chapters and played the hell out of them, it took me literally months to finish VI. It is maybe the hugest game I ever experienced. Then, VIII was just more of the same and IX was a technical and artistic disaster. 3DO and NWC died and Ubisoft then proceeded to murder the rpg side of Might And Magic with Dark Messiah, a decent game but it had absolutely nothing to do with previous ones. It took 10 years to have MMX and finally get back to the roots, but it seemed more of a tribute than the will to begin doing MM games again.

 

- Gothic.

Cracks started to appear with G3, a very good game plagued by a terrible engine. The Forsaken Gods expansion was developed by some other company and it was total garbage. Then came Spellbound and their Arcania joke: basically an insult to every Gothic fan worldwide. I wonder if Piranha Bytes are ever gonna do a new one...

 

So what was your biggest disappointment after a developer switch?

[ZeouLs]

Westwood Studios by EA rip C&C

Dreamworks interactive aka DICE by ea RIP Medal of Honor

BlackBox games by EA RIP NEED FOR SPEED #never forgett most wanted

Pandemic by EA RIP Batman the Dark Knight

Bioware by EA RIP DRAGONAGE

Playfish by EA RIP sims (now a DLC paradise)

Visceral Games by EA RIP Mass Effect

 

 

[DVA]

EA, the killer of all things good.

 

EA, IT'S IN THE KILL

[KarathKasun]

Diablo 3.

[ZeouLs]

should I count more or is this enough EA for today?

[kilgore_T]

deus ex

thief

tomb raider

 

[DeadnightWarrior]

31 minutes ago, ZeouLs said:

Westwood Studios by EA rip C&C

Dreamworks interactive aka DICE by ea RIP Medal of Honor

BlackBox games by EA RIP NEED FOR SPEED #never forgett most wanted

Pandemic by EA RIP Batman the Dark Knight

Bioware by EA RIP DRAGONAGE

Playfish by EA RIP sims (now a DLC paradise)

Visceral Games by EA RIP Mass Effect

 

 

Woah, EA is not quite looking good! ?

[Docretier]

Konami killed the Metal Gear series with firing hideo Kojima and releasing Metal Gear Survive.

[Guest]

Nether 

[Praesi]

Everything that has to do with EA.

 

Mass Effect

Battlefront

Battlefield

 

Just to Name 3 Major Names.

[Lathlaer]

6 hours ago, kilgore_T said:

tomb raider

Yeah because Chronicles and Angel of Darkness were such masterpieces ;-)

 

Reboots from 2013 were the best that has happened to this franchise since Tomb Raider 2.

 

6 hours ago, ZeouLs said:

Visceral Games by EA RIP Mass Effect

Yeah, Mass Effect 2 such a trash game ;-)

 

EA does deserve most of what is coming their way but their publishing gave us also some good things, it's easy to forget that ;-)

[Praesi]

18 minutes ago, Lathlaer said:

Yeah because Chronicles and Angel of Darkness were such masterpieces ;-)

 

Reboots from 2013 were the best that has happened to this franchise since Tomb Raider 2.

 

Yeah, Mass Effect 2 such a trash game ;-)

 

EA does deserve most of what is coming their way but their publishing gave us also some good things, it's easy to forget that ;-)

I dont understand the TR Hate. The Reboots are good Games.

[Lathlaer]

2 minutes ago, Praesi said:

I dont understand the TR Hate. The Reboots are good Games.

Me neither. Lara is gorgeous, the exchanges esp. in Shadow of the Tomb Raider between her and Jonah are particularly nice and stealth killing entire village of bad guys with guns or triple headshoting with a bow is just pure awesomeness. Not to mention that visuals are freaking amazing.

 

I mean, I get it - to each their own but let's not act like the franchise was in it's golden age before it got slaughtered by Square Enix. On the contrary, there was a reason why they killed off Lara in TR4 and why the devs considered Chronicles as their lowest point in their career. People had enough of the same Lara and the devs had enough of her as well and it showed. 

 

I think that even if something is very good in the first glance, you can squeeze max 1-2 additional games that are similar but just as good. TR1 was revolutionary, TR2 was a clear improvement and TR3 as well, though people were starting to feel kinda tired of "more of the same" even if "the same" was still good. It showed in the reviews and in the sales.

 

Reboots suffer from similar symptom which is why I think it's good that Shadow is the last one of the trilogy. TR 2013 was freaking amazing and like a new fresh start, Rise was improved but nothing much and Shadow feels the same. So you get 2x improved of something very good which can be tiring for some and that's when you end. 

 

Hopefully they will let Lara rest for at least 3-5 years before they try and do something else (doing one Tomb Raider game per year was actually the main reason of the series' downfall but Eidos were the ones that forced it).

[Praesi]

4 minutes ago, Lathlaer said:

Me neither. Lara is gorgeous, the exchanges esp. in Shadow of the Tomb Raider between her and Jonah are particularly nice and stealth killing entire village of bad guys with guns or triple headshoting with a bow is just pure awesomeness. Not to mention that visuals are freaking amazing.

 

I mean, I get it - to each their own but let's not act like the franchise was in it's golden age before it got slaughtered by Square Enix. On the contrary, there was a reason why they killed off Lara in TR4 and why the devs considered Chronicles as their lowest point in their career. People had enough of the same Lara and the devs had enough of her as well and it showed. 

 

I think that even if something is very good in the first glance, you can squeeze max 1-2 additional games that are similar but just as good. TR1 was revolutionary, TR2 was a clear improvement and TR3 as well, though people were starting to feel kinda tired of "more of the same" even if "the same" was still good. It showed in the reviews and in the sales.

 

Reboots suffer from similar symptom which is why I think it's good that Shadow is the last one of the trilogy. TR 2013 was freaking amazing and like a new fresh start, Rise was improved but nothing much and Shadow feels the same. So you get 2x improved of something very good which can be tiring for some and that's when you end. 

 

Hopefully they will let Lara rest for at least 3-5 years before they try and do something else (doing one Tomb Raider game per year was actually the main reason of the series' downfall but Eidos were the ones that forced it).

I find the Reboosts overall too easy, both Riddles and Combat, but bad Games? No. I enjoy them alot. I play TR since Game One Release (yes im an old Bastard). The Propblem with TR is, like almost every other Game, the Devs want reach as much People as possible.

[Lathlaer]

9 minutes ago, Praesi said:

I find the Reboosts overall too easy, both Riddles and Combat,

Shadow has separate difficulties for combat and riddles (and I think exploration, I'd need to check) where if cranked to max you basically don't get anything highlighted. Probably still not as tough as some would prefer it but it's something ;-)

[Praesi]

4 minutes ago, Lathlaer said:

Shadow has separate difficulties for combat and riddles (and I think exploration, I'd need to check) where if cranked to max you basically don't get anything highlighted. Probably still not as tough as some would prefer it but it's something ;-)

I have it all maxed already.

[DeadnightWarrior]

35 minutes ago, Praesi said:

I dont understand the TR Hate. The Reboots are good Games.

I have to agree on this. I never was a huge TR fan but my wife played most of the games and for what I remember of the earlier ones, the reboots look good, have enough challenges and pace and basically stay true to the original formula. We are currently playing Rise and it's a really fine game IMHO.

[DeadnightWarrior]

1 hour ago, Praesi said:

Everything that has to do with EA.

 

Mass Effect

hmm... I'll have to pospone my judgement on this. I'm on Andromeda these weeks and true, it's way behind the original trilogy and it's far too demanding for what it's offering (I had to go with 16Gb of ram just to have it stop crashing, while every other game would run fine with 8Gb).

But. I don't really think it's that abysmal pile of crap that many reviews suggested. While I was indeed expecting much more from Andromeda, it's still a Mass Effect game with some slight improvements and some serious flaws but still, nothing like an abomination like Gothic 4 or Might And Magic IX, for those of you who remember them.

[Lathlaer]

2 minutes ago, DeadnightWarrior said:

hmm... I'll have to pospone my judgement on this. I'm on Andromeda these weeks and true, it's way behind the original trilogy and it's far too demanding for what it's offering (I had to go with 16Gb of ram just to have it stop crashing, while every other game would run fine with 8Gb).

But. I don't really think it's that abysmal pile of crap that many reviews suggested. While I was indeed expecting much more from Andromeda, it's still a Mass Effect game with some slight improvements and some serious flaws but still, nothing like an abomination like Gothic 4 or Might And Magic IX, for those of you who remember them.

I have to agree. The gameplay itself (running around, shooting, jumping with jetpack) is vastly superior to what previous games offered. 

 

Well if your first playthrough is with the 1.10 patch then your experience will be much different than people who started at launch. If they released the game the way it is now I think it would've netted them a few extra points on reviews.

 

Right now for me the worst part of Andromeda is the fact that I can't bring myself to finish it for the second time because I know they axed the series at this point (well maybe not definitely because it is a money making series but there is a chance that next ME game will have 0 connections to Andromeda) so I don't have the motivation to start liking the crew. Which is a shame because I liked my young Sarah Ryder. 

 

Before judging the character and the crew I needed to remind myself that I wasn't particularly fond of Shepard in ME1 as well. It was only ME2 and then ME3 that cemented the legend of Normandy Crew. 

 

Tempest crew doesn't have that yet but they could have if only the studio got another chance to go further with the story. Alas, we might never know.

[DeadnightWarrior]

2 minutes ago, Lathlaer said:

Before judging the character and the crew I needed to remind myself that I wasn't particularly fond of Shepard in ME1 as well. It was only ME2 and then ME3 that cemented the legend of Normandy Crew. 

 

Tempest crew doesn't have that yet but they could have if only the studio got another chance to go further with the story.

That's one major disappointments so far for me. Keep in mind I'm on my first run but the characters seem sub par compared to the original games. I mean, most of them feel soulless; they could be fine on their own but when you think of the Normandy crew, well, that was on another level. I realized I'm desperately missing a Garrus, a Tali, a Wrex, a Mordin, a Joker... Hell, even IDA was a damn good character! So this is what I'm missing in Andromeda, the variety and personality of many NPCs.

[Lathlaer]

1 minute ago, DeadnightWarrior said:

That's one major disappointments so far for me. Keep in mind I'm on my first run but the characters seem sub par compared to the original games. I mean, most of them feel soulless; they could be fine on their own but when you think of the Normandy crew, well, that was on another level. I realized I'm desperately missing a Garrus, a Tali, a Wrex, a Mordin, a Joker... Hell, even IDA was a damn good character! So this is what I'm missing in Andromeda, the variety and personality of many NPCs.

True it's not the same as with "there is no Shepard without Vakarian" but they too needed at least two games and a suicide mission to get where they are in my heart ;-)

[Ok243]

Take a shot everytime EA is mentioned in this thread.

[kilgore_T]

11 hours ago, Lathlaer said:

Yeah because Chronicles and Angel of Darkness were such masterpieces ;-)

 

Reboots from 2013 were the best that has happened to this franchise since Tomb Raider 2.

 

Yeah, Mass Effect 2 such a trash game ;-)

 

EA does deserve most of what is coming their way but their publishing gave us also some good things, it's easy to forget that ;-)

the newer tomb raider games have lost the feeling of seclusion and exploration and are way too action oriented

 

[Guest]

57 minutes ago, kilgore_T said:

the newer tomb raider games have lost the feeling of seclusion and exploration and are way too action oriented

 

Good thing I only have 2013. (Unless you mean the whole series reboot... *looking aboot face*) 

[kilgore_T]

18 minutes ago, fpo said:

Good thing I only have 2013. (Unless you mean the whole series reboot... *looking aboot face*) 

all the new games are good action games but they are bad tomb raider games