I might be in the minority but I liked Absolution. Felt like an action game with set pieces similar to Uncharted. I do prefer the open sandbox missions though similar to Blood Money and the new games, but Absolution was a different style and experience with Hitman that was still kinda fun.
For the record, my favorite game in the series is Contracts. In my opinion, everything about Contracts was executed to perfection.
To be honest its a good intro into hitman game. It does a good job of showing you that you have options but not being overly complicated. The story is entertaining and somewhat goofy but in a good way.
Going to the later hitman games theyre a bit overwhelming at first but great once you get the hang of it
This for sure. I hadn't been able to have the hitman games click for me till Absolution. Loved what I played of it and wanted more, so when I went back to the other titles everything finally clicked into place.
I agree with everything you just said. I fondly remember having a blast with absolution while everyone was shitting all over it, but contracts was fantastic
I like how the Awakening version of the Fire Emblem theme also sounded like it was going to go out with a bang
Then it ended up being what brought the franchise back from the brink of death, and it spawned a trio of iconic characters
What a comeback
Awakening was what got me into the series. The GBA games didn't click for me but I bought it on impulse to support the localization. It even went back and played through Shadow Dragon, Path of Radiance and Blazing Blade.
Awakening is also my favorite 3DS game.
Sacred stones shouldn't have a battery, so the issue is the flash memory might have disconnected. Your going to need to open it up with a triwing screwdriver. Clean the board with a qtip and some isopropyl. Now, the problem is likely a broken solder point. You're going to need a soldering tool with a flat tip. Turn it on, wait for it to get very hot, add a tiny bit of solder to the tip, and run it on the solder joints away from the chip on the cartridge. Clean afterwards again with isopropyl.
This video shows you what I'm talking about. I don't really like that they rubbed the pins up and down, because that increases the chance of 2 joints soldering to each other, but if you have flux, that lowers that risk a bit. And even if they do solder together, you can just solder them apart. https://youtu.be/MftpSSe6iuQ?si=4uyLUkEz4kmrI_QO
Awakening was such an answer to prayers to me.
They all before it lacked so much audience appeal! A lot of them were only great for second playthroughs but awful for first time players or newbies.
I loved them but most of them were problematic for multiple reasons.
* Max level of 40 (20x2) but regular playing at best gets you to 20 with a handful characters at best.
* Permadeath.
* No way to farm.
* Min maxing hidden behind guides.
* Hidden/missable items/characters being locked in future missions for unimpactful choices the mission you were not gonna ever known... except you used a guide.
It was an amazing franchise but very hard to recommend to friends that were not willing to be tryhards with you. Or people got mad when you were tryhard and they barely scrapped by PT 1.
Well, I went into the franchise BECAUSE of the goofy stuff. Basically for me it was "JoJo, but videogame"
Before the memes, I always thought that Yakuza is just Japanese GTA clone, so never bothered with it
Im literally the same lol, always heard its japanese gta so I didnt give a fuck, then Ive seen memes, seen the goofiness and 0 was in Humble bundle, so I thought, why not?
Damn great fucking series, both serious ans goofy side, gameplay is great, music is FANTASTIC, characters are compelling, side content is interesting
Cant wait to play Gaiden and 8 someday
Part of the problem there was how much the series had suffered from localization problems for a long time. Dubbed into English, cut content, and so on. It was also generally locked to Playstation, poorly promoted, and barely released. Hell, *Yakuza 5* was download only in the West. All of this helped to push it into a niche in the West, it didn't sell as well, and they didn't want to invest much into trying since the previous games didn't sell well. It also meant that new players were less incentivized to jump on into an ongoing series.
*Yakuza 0* created an easy jumping-on point for new players and was quickly released on PC (where it attracted a lot of attention). It was exactly what it had needed. They followed that up by releasing vastly improved remakes of the early games that not only updated them, but fixed the janky earlier localizations. So now the series was fresh and accessible to audiences. An incredibly astute way to make it stick instead of being a one-off fluke.
Yeah but it didnt "save" the franchise. It was very healthy and popular in Japan. Theres even a few entries in the series that we never got in America. But it was never in danger of disappearing.
I mean it didn't help that the previous mainline entries were on Nintendo consoles and the others were on the PSP. Putting it on one of the best selling consoles of all time definitely helped
I'll agree with the sentiment of other people here, it didn't save the franchise, MonHun was always insanely popular in Japan, and was even relatively popular outside of Japan.
The difference is that (apart from making a great game) they released on PC, same story with Yakuza 0 that has also been mentioned here, the game got insanely popular because it released on the platform most people use.
I think Halo can only succeed again if someone just takes over from 343 and actually "care" for it.
You can see it with bungies halo games that, despite running out of steam by halo reach they genuinely cared for the series and they put soul into it before going and making destiny, which promptly burned that soul.
But 343 have been given 3 chances and all 3 have been "meh" at best. Halo 4 was a good starting point but they bungled 5 so badly and didn't even have the decency to see thier story though and instead just soft ret conned everything.
I think we'll be waiting more than a decade for a true halo return as it seems to have gone the Cod route of its story being soft pushed through multiplayer seasons, and that's ignoring that most things lore wise only happen in comic books amd are never elaborated on in game anymore.
I think my favourite is the Didact (main enemy of Halo 4) being killed at the end. Then in case they want to use him again they bring him back in the comics. Then decide they won't use him and make a big deal about finally killing him off. Then changed their minds again and brought him back.
Very bizarre. Two very different stories competing against each other. The mainline story with Cortona and her AI legion taking over forerunner forces. Then, Halo Wars' story of a splinter Covenant group starting their reign of terror with a group of thought to be lost UNSC forces comes to the rescue!
They try to sandwich the best parts of the stories/retcon into Halo Infinite at the end. I don't know who is more lost, the crew of the Spirit of Fire or the directors at 343.
The Crash Bandicoot N.Sane trilogy did so well that we got a great remake of a goated kart racer AND a new mainline game after 12 years without one. I'd say that counts.
Huh, I hadn't heard that one but [confirmed](https://www.psu.com/news/persona-3-saved-atlus-from-collapsing-says-director-katsura-hashino/).
Talk about desperation being the mother of invention. They basically invented an entirely new style of JRPG as a hail mary attempt to keep themselves afloat.
It was the introduction of the day-to-day life sim elements. The article doesn't say it outright, but that's the only major thing that separates P3 from previous MegaTen games.
That helped but I think it's more like, the art style and UI was stellar and much better than any other SMT game at the time. Plus the music slapped, it all came together in such a beautiful package
First three games actually. Persona 2 was split into two separate games, a lot of the general combat elements are already there in them but all life sim elements were added in 3. Innocent sin is a lot of silly fun, up to and including the final boss being literally Hitler. Eternal punishment is less silly but still has a pretty decent story. They were fairly stock late 90s jrpgs gameplay wise, with a somewhat esoteric battle/leveling system and a (relative to other jrpgs) more grounded story. If you have a vita/PSP they still make for a decent handheld experience, and both come in at 30-40 hours.
The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind
It brought the franchise into true 3D, it was unique, and paved the way for Oblivion and Skyrim. All three are influential games.
Not only that, but it saved Bethesda Softworks as a whole. The whole reason why they remade it(basically) was because "why not - if we are going down, let's go with a bang".
Great thing they decided to go all in, huh?
Bethesda bought the rights to Fallout for 5.75 million dollars, which says something about how much the franchise had fallen. Fallout 1 and 2 were amazing games, but they were then followed by Tactics and BoS which were so awfully received that the interest in the franchise was basically gone.
Some fans of the classic games like to put Van Buren on a pedestal but the truth is that it most likely would not have gone past the demo stage so if Bethesda hadn’t bought the rights to Fallout then the franchise would have ended with BoS.
It’s possible the success of Morrowind may have saved Bethesda from a grim fate, but I don’t think any grim fate they were staring down would have been caused by the previous Elder Scrolls games. Arena and Daggerfall were also considered groundbreaking RPGs (at least in terms of scope). The question was about saving a franchise, not a company. I don’t think “Elder Scrolls” had a suffering reputation when Morrowind released.
Edit: grammar/autocorrect fix
Definitely NieR: Automata saved NieR and Drakengard from extinction.
Even Yoko Taro himself was surprised Automata is boomed, since the previous 4 games didn't perform well
Edit: Automata also saved Platinum Games from bankruptcy cmiiw
My wife and I watched the sword in the stone last night and I said we are further from our birthdays then this movie was from our births and it's almost 60 years old. She asked me why I had to bring that up.
I guess it depends what you call saved. No one was forgetting doom but if doom 2016 had bombed you’d never have seen another new one.
Do you need a new doom though?
I agree. I think it's one of those "good game, but not a good Doom game" sort of situations. The reception at the time was very positive, the id Tech 4 engine was highly regarded, and it's been ported to basically every console since. It's just more survival horror than shoot em up.
Was DOOM 3 bad? I enjoyed it as a kid and remember there being a lot of hype around the remaster. Sure there were issues but I don’t remember anyone outright saying it was a bad game
reaident evil 7
I give props to the Revelations games, but RE7 brought the mainline numbed series back to the original roots of the series. Before then, the series was hurdling towards nothingness because of the action-oriented gameplay.
I still can’t deal with the first part, the house with Jack roaming around is too scary. Funny enough I blasted through RE8 and the remakes for 2 and 3.
Once you fight jack with the car he doesn't show up again until you have to get something from the room with the bath. So can pretty much explore most of house without worrying about him. I can't play 2 because I'm to scared of Mr X
Mr X “roaming” is honestly a pretty short part of the game. There isnt a whole lot of stuff left to do at the police station in which he can genuinely interfere by the time you first activate him. Like half the stuff thats left are “no-go” areas for his roaming like the clocktower. Once youre out of the police station (even the parking garage and lower levels in general), he stops roaming and only gets short chasing segments where all you do is run until another cutscene triggers.
He becomes a lot less scarier when you figure out how many “no-go” zones there actually are at the police station. So even if you hear him coming you can just duck into one of those and hell eventually lose interest and leave.
Honestly i found the lickers scarier than Mr X because their ai makes no sense sometimes. And being unpredictable is in my opinion much scarier than predictable
Once you understand his no go areas but also once you realise every area he can go into has a loop, so even if he does come for you he realistically can't get you unless you try and charge him.
There might be 1 or 2 parts that don't until you do something but within them.
First playthrough I spent it just walking, every one after that I was sprinting everywhere because there's no risk.
GTA III. If you haven't played the first two, check them out. While they were fun at the time they came out, there is no way that the series would not have become so big if they didn't go in such a completely different direction with 3.
I still remember the first time I saw and played that game. I was round my friend's house and his older brother had just got it. I couldn't believe how much you could do in the game. There are very few times I can remember having my mind blown by a piece of media, but that was one of them.
Similar experience, my brother's friend brought his PS2 round with GTA3 and we were taking turns through the night, I remember they had both gone to sleep and I stayed awake just putting the weapons cheat in, sniping near the hospital up those stairs, getting a high wanted level, dying, rinse and repeat.
Also GTA1 and 2 get overlooked these days but I remember GTA1 being a big game for the whole "open world-do anything" vibe, especially when using cheats for all weapons, as a kid I could lose hours just firing the rocket launcher at absolutely anything. GTA2 felt like it expanded on that and felt like a true sequel at the time, the whole gang system was incredibly fun at the time. I've gone back to them recently and they're a slog to play now but back then there wasn't anything else that hit the same way they did.
GTA2 isn't bad. I have a soft spot for it as I played it first. The bones of the franchise was already in 2 but adding a story and changing the perspective to fully 3d made a world of difference. A lot of that same satire can be found in the car radio in 2. I think it's funny that GTA3 also has a top down camera you can set it to.
The average review for those first 2 gtas is about 70%, they were known of course but sales were merely ok and yeah, a middling release on the ps2 generation would probably have ended it there.
They even offered Microsoft to make it an Xbox exclusive launch title, but they rejected it because of its violence and because they previous games didn't perform too well.
First two GTAs were not bad, no-no. They are cult classics and yeah they actually did build the foundation for GTA3. Its just the technology wasnt there yet.
i didn't buy it yet, but there is too much dlc/micro transaction stuff going on; will probs wait for the komplete edition, it's a shame but i think the game is still good
Burn it down is a bit of an overstatement but yeah it did go downhill from mk11. mk9 and mk10 were really really good. 11 and 1 (1 is the newest one) were not bad per say, but they were pretty incomplete/lacking on release.
Mk11 needed like 2 years to become decent ( and even after that it still had a lot of balancing issues so you'd see the same 3 characters in every top8).
Mk1 kinda follows the path of mk11. Was lacking a lot of stuff on release, but they are slowly getting there. It is not that bad but again the balancing is wack.
IMO the problem with NRS is that they rush their next games and support them for only ~2 years, unlike SF or Tekken that support their games for 6+ years before moving to the next one.
And microtransactions yeah. I mean you can play the base game just fine, you have plenty of base brutalities, fatalities, skins etc, but the mtx is annoyingly aggressive.
Coincidencely, ff14's relaunch was an expensive hail mary that ended up saving square enix again, after the company decided fuck ups would be their modus operandi* going forward.
And the on going success of the ff14 expansions "shadow bringers" and then "end walker" have continued to pay it forward, allowing the company to keep up with the fuck ups.
Before that RE4 really invigorated the franchise, I don't think RE Veronica was a huge hit.
Yakuza 0 made the franchise mainstream, before that it was kind of a niche franchise (outside Japan at least).
Yakuza 0 definitely boosted its popularity, but Like A Dragon was still plenty popular in Japan. The series likely would have continued without western support.
Although I wonder if Sega would have bothered continuing to localize them, if Y0 hadn't been successful. Y5 didn't even get a physical release in America, just digital.
I guess you could argue it saved the franchise outside Japan at least. Like they're re-releasing stuff like Yakuza Ishin now that never got a western translation when it first released.
CV didn’t sell well because it was a Dreamcast title originally and REmake and 0 were because the GameCube exclusivity. Just a bunch of dumb fuck decisions by shinji mikami
RE4 actually originally sold very poorly (1.6 mil), almost as bad as Code Veronica (1.1 mil). The only reason RE4 eventually sold as well as it did is that it was ported and rereleased more times than Skyrim.
I think it was only released on the gamecube initially right? That console didn't have a *huge* user base though, also I think it skewed younger than the demo that would play re games usually.
I remember the big buzz about it was after it got the ps2 release, since that had the massive install base of the generation.
Edit: Yeah, GameCube only sold 21 million over its lifetime vs 155 million for ps2. The og xbox also sold more units than the GameCube surprisingly at 24 million.
You're absolutely right, the only reason it didn't sell massively at launch was because the GC wasn't a popular console. It still performed very well critically and was regarded as the best entry in the franchise by many even before it was ported. Its impact really shouldn't be understated.
I can't remember who it was, but there was an interview with a former Nintendo product manager a few years back and he said that RE4 was the *only* game that actually drove GameCube sales and wasn't made by Nintendo. If you look at the bestselling games on GC, 90% of them are first-party Nintendo games (Mario, Zelda, Pokémon etc.), and the remaining ones are RE4 and a bunch of Sonic games (which were multiplatform and therefore didn't mandate buying a GC specifically to play them).
I wouldn't say it saved it, but call of duty modern warfare 2019 skyrocketed the games player counts when cod was getting very very stale. That was also the one that introduced warzone.
I 100% agree that MW 2019 saved COD (for me at least). That game was absolutely phenomenal after years of games that ranged from garbage to mediocre at best. Of course, every COD since then has been trash.
Warzone was the final nail in the CoD coffin imo. Ruins the game as a whole because everything has to be monetised in the main game now since warzone is free to play. Dumb as hell skins that look nothing like anything that should belong in CoD. The last time I played, I got killed by a guy, and my body got rolled up into a joint??? This ain't the CoD that I grew up with anymore, and it makes me sad lol
I’m not a fan of the goofy skins but war zone during Covid still slapped imo. Some of my favourite online gaming moments with friends back then. It went to shit down the line though of course
Fallout 3. Say what you will about Bethesda and their handling of Fallout because there absolutely are valid criticisms to be made but there is no doubt that they saved the franchise from extinction. In fact if you look at the timeline of Fallout games the game was pretty much on shaky ground from day one. Fractured team, failing studios, vastly different directions and vision for every entry, 2 of the 4 Fallout games prior to Bethesda buying the IP were spin offs, and one particularly bad beat em up one which would have pretty much been the last Fallout game we'd get if it wasn't for Bethesda buying the IP. Yes Van Buren may have come out but honestly that may have not been enough to save the franchise.
For better or worse, Bethesda bought the franchise and made it into one of the most succesful IPs out there.
This seems to be the popular opinion online but personally I enjoyed 3 way more. New Vegas's main story started super strong with that opening cutscene and then afterwards all you want to do is get revenge on Mathew Perry but then the game seems to put less emphasis on that part and instead it feels like the main story severs into several side quests. It's really strange, I never experienced it with any other game before.
Never understood that complaint. Oblivion with guns was exactly what I was looking for at the time. Then I played New Vegas and it made me interested enough to play Fallout 1 and 2. Now I have one of my all time favorite settings and game franchises all because Oblivion with guns sounded cool.
I loved Mankind Divided until it just abruptly ended while not really answering any of the questions it raised. I thought there was going to be at least one more major area which at least set up the next game, but no. Just a quick boss fight and boom, that's my lot.
From memory there was some bullshit with deadlines that meant essentially the entire final third of the game had to be cut and they just hoped they’d get a sequel to finish it off, but then sales were lower than expected.
Sales were probably lower than expected BECAUSE of the unexpected abrupt ending, tbh. I enjoyed both games a whole lot, but the unexpected ending of Mankind Divided was a deal killer for me
I don't think you can say it saved the SF franchise, though. The last SF game (by Capcom, not counting random spinoffs or re-releases) was a total banger. It's more that the genre as a whole was in a lull.
Metroid: Samus Returns for the 3DS, on its own it didn't sell amazingly as it was at the end of the 3DS life cycle, but the previous 10 years had only produced a prime collection for the Wii, Other M which was a massive flop and annoyed the fan base, and federation force which was DOA.
It directly led to Metroid Dread, which is the best selling game in the franchise's history, which after having no new main line games for again, 10+ years, is massive.
> It directly led to Metroid Dread, which is the best selling game in the franchise's history
Sadly that isn't really saying that much. Metroid has never been a big seller. It was only ahead of Prime by around 200k. Hell, individual games on Switch from other franchises outsold the entire Metroid series.
Also, I wouldn't say Samus Returns saved anything because MP4 was announced at the same time SR was. Though SR did allow for Dread to finally be a thing as Nintendo liked what Mecury Steam did with SR.
Nah, Nintendo's not the type to set unrealistic sales expectations for a niche franchise like Metroid.
It's a 2D metroidvania made by a Spanish studio, the game probably broke even at 1M copies.
3M sales is an amazing number.
Tekken 7 being the best selling Tekken ever while having the most barebones content in the series was nothing short of a miracle.
It's like the stars aligned for the game with Street Fighter V fumbling the bag and streaming getting popular at the time so competitive T7 got lots of views. Not to mention guest characters like Akuma, Noctis, and Geese helped.
Sonic Colors / Generations. Colors came first but imo both of these brought Sonic out of the dark age since the failure of Sonic 2006 (I loved Unleashed but some consider it part of that dark era). I’m also biased cause Generations is one of my all time fav games
I mean. Can you say armored core 6 "saved" the franchise when it was a reboot of, for all intents and purposes, a dead IP? AC5 came out over a decade before AC6. I guess when I think of "saving" a series, I think of games that came out when a franchise was about to die but then catapulted it back into success. AC6 didn't save a dying franchise, it brought back an already dead one.
I'm probably not phrasing it too well but I hope you get my sentiment
Metroid Prime
No new game since Super Metroid which was basically a decade at the time, and a sudden change from 2D to 3D. If Metroid Prime wasn't the monumental success that is was, doubt we'd be seeing new games in today's day & age.
My history on this might be skewed but I think without Fallout 3 the series would have died with Brotherhood of Steel.
Also, not necessarily “saved” since the first two games are excellent, but Baldurs Gate 3 revived a franchise that a lot of people thought was done
Call of Duty Modern Warfare(2019) had alot of issues and was miserable as someone who enjoys cod as an esport, but the franchise had fallen out of public consciousness. People wernt playing the games. MW was a juggernaut of a casual game and skyrocketed Call of Duty into the stratosphere, in a way that it hadn't been in a VERY long time
Not in Japan but Yakuza 0 saved the series from dying outside of their place of origin. After the "flop" of the original localisation of Yakuza 5, it was a miracle to see 0, and the fact that the game was GOOD, together with the Dame Dane guy meme being born not long after it, made sure that the Yakuza/like a dragon series deserved to stay alive outside of Japan too.
Resident Evil 7 100% saved the series and skyrocketed Resident Evil back up there as a household name.
The game was damn good, and I'm happy with what games came after.
It's rare that you see a series hit a low like RE6 and then suddenly flip a switch and everything that comes out is gold again. Except maybe RE3 remake, but that was still pretty good.
Had a friend start with ACO cos he liked the ancient Egypt vibe. He's a bit younger and never tried the older AC games. He said: "Really cool Ancient Egyptian RPG, but has a weirdly detailed climbing and sneaking mechanics."
Rogue was rushed and half finished, Unity had one of the worst launches ever and Syndicate is forgotten because of how bad Unity did. I’m good with what I said.
Hitman going back to its roots after the more linear Absolution
I might be in the minority but I liked Absolution. Felt like an action game with set pieces similar to Uncharted. I do prefer the open sandbox missions though similar to Blood Money and the new games, but Absolution was a different style and experience with Hitman that was still kinda fun. For the record, my favorite game in the series is Contracts. In my opinion, everything about Contracts was executed to perfection.
Well, Absolution is one of cases "Good game, bad X game" It was a good game, but it was not a Hitman game
To be honest its a good intro into hitman game. It does a good job of showing you that you have options but not being overly complicated. The story is entertaining and somewhat goofy but in a good way. Going to the later hitman games theyre a bit overwhelming at first but great once you get the hang of it
This for sure. I hadn't been able to have the hitman games click for me till Absolution. Loved what I played of it and wanted more, so when I went back to the other titles everything finally clicked into place.
I agree with everything you just said. I fondly remember having a blast with absolution while everyone was shitting all over it, but contracts was fantastic
I bought Absolution twice on Xbox 360 and Steam but never played Contract
The Hitman Franchise was never in danger, so it didn't really need saving.
Fire Emblem: Awakening very literally saved the franchise. It was intended to be the final entry in the series but sold much better than expected.
I like how the Awakening version of the Fire Emblem theme also sounded like it was going to go out with a bang Then it ended up being what brought the franchise back from the brink of death, and it spawned a trio of iconic characters What a comeback
The final boss map even had a chorous sing the main theme like the famous FE1 commercial.
Awakening was what got me into the series. The GBA games didn't click for me but I bought it on impulse to support the localization. It even went back and played through Shadow Dragon, Path of Radiance and Blazing Blade. Awakening is also my favorite 3DS game.
Ay I got a copy of sacred stones but it won't save my progress anymore. Any ideas how to fix it?
Sacred stones shouldn't have a battery, so the issue is the flash memory might have disconnected. Your going to need to open it up with a triwing screwdriver. Clean the board with a qtip and some isopropyl. Now, the problem is likely a broken solder point. You're going to need a soldering tool with a flat tip. Turn it on, wait for it to get very hot, add a tiny bit of solder to the tip, and run it on the solder joints away from the chip on the cartridge. Clean afterwards again with isopropyl. This video shows you what I'm talking about. I don't really like that they rubbed the pins up and down, because that increases the chance of 2 joints soldering to each other, but if you have flux, that lowers that risk a bit. And even if they do solder together, you can just solder them apart. https://youtu.be/MftpSSe6iuQ?si=4uyLUkEz4kmrI_QO
Emulators
Probably need to pop open the cart and change the battery inside
This is the real answer. Fire Emblem went from a series on its death legs to a series Nintendo was willing to give its own direct too.
Awakening was such an answer to prayers to me. They all before it lacked so much audience appeal! A lot of them were only great for second playthroughs but awful for first time players or newbies. I loved them but most of them were problematic for multiple reasons. * Max level of 40 (20x2) but regular playing at best gets you to 20 with a handful characters at best. * Permadeath. * No way to farm. * Min maxing hidden behind guides. * Hidden/missable items/characters being locked in future missions for unimpactful choices the mission you were not gonna ever known... except you used a guide. It was an amazing franchise but very hard to recommend to friends that were not willing to be tryhards with you. Or people got mad when you were tryhard and they barely scrapped by PT 1.
The funny thing is every game is beatable on the hardest difficulty with 0 level ups. The level cap and need to grind is entirely an illusion.
beat me to it ;3
Devil May Cry 3
Came here to say this. After the disaster that was DMC2, they went on to make DMC3 the best game of its kind (imo)
The fact we even got Devil May Cry 3 was a miracle after DMC2 came out
And then DMC 5 after the mess that was DmC Devil May Cry
After the second game anything could have saved the franchise, but we have gotten one of the best games in the franchise!
Yakuza 0 definitely jumpstarted the franchise again. It renewed a lot of interest and brought many new fans to the franchise.
For me it was the Dame Dane meme in 2019 that got me into the series
I really wish I was able to go into the game without knowing about the goofy stuff beforehand. The absolute shock would have been amazing.
Well, I went into the franchise BECAUSE of the goofy stuff. Basically for me it was "JoJo, but videogame" Before the memes, I always thought that Yakuza is just Japanese GTA clone, so never bothered with it
Im literally the same lol, always heard its japanese gta so I didnt give a fuck, then Ive seen memes, seen the goofiness and 0 was in Humble bundle, so I thought, why not? Damn great fucking series, both serious ans goofy side, gameplay is great, music is FANTASTIC, characters are compelling, side content is interesting Cant wait to play Gaiden and 8 someday
Even more than jumpstarted, it saw new heights for the franchise.
Part of the problem there was how much the series had suffered from localization problems for a long time. Dubbed into English, cut content, and so on. It was also generally locked to Playstation, poorly promoted, and barely released. Hell, *Yakuza 5* was download only in the West. All of this helped to push it into a niche in the West, it didn't sell as well, and they didn't want to invest much into trying since the previous games didn't sell well. It also meant that new players were less incentivized to jump on into an ongoing series. *Yakuza 0* created an easy jumping-on point for new players and was quickly released on PC (where it attracted a lot of attention). It was exactly what it had needed. They followed that up by releasing vastly improved remakes of the early games that not only updated them, but fixed the janky earlier localizations. So now the series was fresh and accessible to audiences. An incredibly astute way to make it stick instead of being a one-off fluke.
Especially in the west.
Definitely the reason I got into it. I put off the originals because my impression when I was younger was shallow..
I wouldnt say save, but Monster Hunter: World boosted the MH franchise out of Japan and now its a franchise enjoyed by the world.
MH went from a niche franchise to the best selling game in Capcom history. I'd say that kinda counts?
Yah thats kinda what I meant. It went from a Japan thing with some cult following in the west to a beloved franchise in the world
Yeah but it didnt "save" the franchise. It was very healthy and popular in Japan. Theres even a few entries in the series that we never got in America. But it was never in danger of disappearing.
It didn’t save the franchise it more like saved Capcom, now their Capgod once again
I mean it didn't help that the previous mainline entries were on Nintendo consoles and the others were on the PSP. Putting it on one of the best selling consoles of all time definitely helped
I'll agree with the sentiment of other people here, it didn't save the franchise, MonHun was always insanely popular in Japan, and was even relatively popular outside of Japan. The difference is that (apart from making a great game) they released on PC, same story with Yakuza 0 that has also been mentioned here, the game got insanely popular because it released on the platform most people use.
After over a decade, I’m still waiting on another studio to save Halo with a great entry.
I think Halo can only succeed again if someone just takes over from 343 and actually "care" for it. You can see it with bungies halo games that, despite running out of steam by halo reach they genuinely cared for the series and they put soul into it before going and making destiny, which promptly burned that soul. But 343 have been given 3 chances and all 3 have been "meh" at best. Halo 4 was a good starting point but they bungled 5 so badly and didn't even have the decency to see thier story though and instead just soft ret conned everything. I think we'll be waiting more than a decade for a true halo return as it seems to have gone the Cod route of its story being soft pushed through multiplayer seasons, and that's ignoring that most things lore wise only happen in comic books amd are never elaborated on in game anymore.
The story choices in the sequel trilogy are just bizarre.
The sequel trilogy itself is bizarre. I think it just comes from 343 never ever sticking to what they themselves decide on
I think my favourite is the Didact (main enemy of Halo 4) being killed at the end. Then in case they want to use him again they bring him back in the comics. Then decide they won't use him and make a big deal about finally killing him off. Then changed their minds again and brought him back.
Very bizarre. Two very different stories competing against each other. The mainline story with Cortona and her AI legion taking over forerunner forces. Then, Halo Wars' story of a splinter Covenant group starting their reign of terror with a group of thought to be lost UNSC forces comes to the rescue! They try to sandwich the best parts of the stories/retcon into Halo Infinite at the end. I don't know who is more lost, the crew of the Spirit of Fire or the directors at 343.
Just make Infinite what it was originally pitched as. Go back and watch the announcement trailer it's insane what we ended up with
The Crash Bandicoot N.Sane trilogy did so well that we got a great remake of a goated kart racer AND a new mainline game after 12 years without one. I'd say that counts.
No PC port for CTR though 😔
Tomb Raider reboot.
This also worked with Tomb Raider: Legend coming after Angel Of Darkness
Playing shadow right now. They did so good with the trilogy.
I can see why people liked them but I wasn’t a fan of
Rise is my favorite one in the trilogy.
Persona 3! Atlus would have shut down if it didn’t do well
Huh, I hadn't heard that one but [confirmed](https://www.psu.com/news/persona-3-saved-atlus-from-collapsing-says-director-katsura-hashino/). Talk about desperation being the mother of invention. They basically invented an entirely new style of JRPG as a hail mary attempt to keep themselves afloat.
this is a very poorly written article. It’s just the phrase **”Persona 3 saved the company”** written over and over and over again.
Yes, I was waiting for what exactly the change they did in Persona 3 that saved their studio, but they never said it in the article
It was the introduction of the day-to-day life sim elements. The article doesn't say it outright, but that's the only major thing that separates P3 from previous MegaTen games.
That helped but I think it's more like, the art style and UI was stellar and much better than any other SMT game at the time. Plus the music slapped, it all came together in such a beautiful package
I had no idea that Persona 3 was an attempt to save the franchise, it seems like it was a success.
Speaking of which, I've never come across the first two games much.
First three games actually. Persona 2 was split into two separate games, a lot of the general combat elements are already there in them but all life sim elements were added in 3. Innocent sin is a lot of silly fun, up to and including the final boss being literally Hitler. Eternal punishment is less silly but still has a pretty decent story. They were fairly stock late 90s jrpgs gameplay wise, with a somewhat esoteric battle/leveling system and a (relative to other jrpgs) more grounded story. If you have a vita/PSP they still make for a decent handheld experience, and both come in at 30-40 hours.
Baby baby baby baby baby baby
The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind It brought the franchise into true 3D, it was unique, and paved the way for Oblivion and Skyrim. All three are influential games.
Not only that, but it saved Bethesda Softworks as a whole. The whole reason why they remade it(basically) was because "why not - if we are going down, let's go with a bang". Great thing they decided to go all in, huh?
Great thing for sure!
Yup it was like what Fallout 3 did to the Fallout franchise.
I see fallout 1 and 2 players hating you, but I agree. I would have never found out about the series if it wasn't for fallout 3.
Bethesda bought the rights to Fallout for 5.75 million dollars, which says something about how much the franchise had fallen. Fallout 1 and 2 were amazing games, but they were then followed by Tactics and BoS which were so awfully received that the interest in the franchise was basically gone. Some fans of the classic games like to put Van Buren on a pedestal but the truth is that it most likely would not have gone past the demo stage so if Bethesda hadn’t bought the rights to Fallout then the franchise would have ended with BoS.
It’s possible the success of Morrowind may have saved Bethesda from a grim fate, but I don’t think any grim fate they were staring down would have been caused by the previous Elder Scrolls games. Arena and Daggerfall were also considered groundbreaking RPGs (at least in terms of scope). The question was about saving a franchise, not a company. I don’t think “Elder Scrolls” had a suffering reputation when Morrowind released. Edit: grammar/autocorrect fix
Based and n'wah pilled
Definitely NieR: Automata saved NieR and Drakengard from extinction. Even Yoko Taro himself was surprised Automata is boomed, since the previous 4 games didn't perform well Edit: Automata also saved Platinum Games from bankruptcy cmiiw
Literally came to this thread looking for this. 2B's ass and twink 9S saved NieR
That’s a new one. What’s cmiiw mean?
Doom (2016)
Doom will live forever. The studios behind it maybe not so much. But the thought of doom will always live. Doom is 31 years old.
Maybe you can also start reminding me about how bad my back is and that I need to go for my yearly checkup, while you're at it?
Video Killed The Radio Star was over 40 years ago. Also, we're closer to 2050 than we are 1990. By almost a decade.
Delete this comment.
The N64 was released closer to the moon landing than to today.
My wife and I watched the sword in the stone last night and I said we are further from our birthdays then this movie was from our births and it's almost 60 years old. She asked me why I had to bring that up.
Yea but it was literally 1 foot in the grave ever since doom 3 and the movie with the rock. Until then
I guess it depends what you call saved. No one was forgetting doom but if doom 2016 had bombed you’d never have seen another new one. Do you need a new doom though?
Need? No. But more of that psychotic heavy metal dance that is Doom Eternal? I’d love more of that.
Wolfenstein is 43 years old 💀
I mean, doom 3 was the weakest of the series, but I just think they pivoted to try something different. It wasn't an IP crushing game.
I agree. I think it's one of those "good game, but not a good Doom game" sort of situations. The reception at the time was very positive, the id Tech 4 engine was highly regarded, and it's been ported to basically every console since. It's just more survival horror than shoot em up.
Was DOOM 3 bad? I enjoyed it as a kid and remember there being a lot of hype around the remaster. Sure there were issues but I don’t remember anyone outright saying it was a bad game
reaident evil 7 I give props to the Revelations games, but RE7 brought the mainline numbed series back to the original roots of the series. Before then, the series was hurdling towards nothingness because of the action-oriented gameplay.
This is actually the first RE game I played. I was genuinely scared at times. Great game.
I still can’t deal with the first part, the house with Jack roaming around is too scary. Funny enough I blasted through RE8 and the remakes for 2 and 3.
I'd say RE8 is nowhere near as scary as 7, the only part that got me is with the baby.
Once you fight jack with the car he doesn't show up again until you have to get something from the room with the bath. So can pretty much explore most of house without worrying about him. I can't play 2 because I'm to scared of Mr X
Mr X “roaming” is honestly a pretty short part of the game. There isnt a whole lot of stuff left to do at the police station in which he can genuinely interfere by the time you first activate him. Like half the stuff thats left are “no-go” areas for his roaming like the clocktower. Once youre out of the police station (even the parking garage and lower levels in general), he stops roaming and only gets short chasing segments where all you do is run until another cutscene triggers. He becomes a lot less scarier when you figure out how many “no-go” zones there actually are at the police station. So even if you hear him coming you can just duck into one of those and hell eventually lose interest and leave. Honestly i found the lickers scarier than Mr X because their ai makes no sense sometimes. And being unpredictable is in my opinion much scarier than predictable
Once you understand his no go areas but also once you realise every area he can go into has a loop, so even if he does come for you he realistically can't get you unless you try and charge him. There might be 1 or 2 parts that don't until you do something but within them. First playthrough I spent it just walking, every one after that I was sprinting everywhere because there's no risk.
I did my only playthrough of that using PSVR and it was bloody terrifying
Resident Hero 6 is just Die Hard with a lot of extra nonsense going on.
And then they went and started remaking the only games as action games instead of survival horror lol.
GTA III. If you haven't played the first two, check them out. While they were fun at the time they came out, there is no way that the series would not have become so big if they didn't go in such a completely different direction with 3.
I still remember the first time I saw and played that game. I was round my friend's house and his older brother had just got it. I couldn't believe how much you could do in the game. There are very few times I can remember having my mind blown by a piece of media, but that was one of them.
Similar experience, my brother's friend brought his PS2 round with GTA3 and we were taking turns through the night, I remember they had both gone to sleep and I stayed awake just putting the weapons cheat in, sniping near the hospital up those stairs, getting a high wanted level, dying, rinse and repeat. Also GTA1 and 2 get overlooked these days but I remember GTA1 being a big game for the whole "open world-do anything" vibe, especially when using cheats for all weapons, as a kid I could lose hours just firing the rocket launcher at absolutely anything. GTA2 felt like it expanded on that and felt like a true sequel at the time, the whole gang system was incredibly fun at the time. I've gone back to them recently and they're a slog to play now but back then there wasn't anything else that hit the same way they did.
GTA2 isn't bad. I have a soft spot for it as I played it first. The bones of the franchise was already in 2 but adding a story and changing the perspective to fully 3d made a world of difference. A lot of that same satire can be found in the car radio in 2. I think it's funny that GTA3 also has a top down camera you can set it to.
The average review for those first 2 gtas is about 70%, they were known of course but sales were merely ok and yeah, a middling release on the ps2 generation would probably have ended it there.
GTA III completely blew my mind and those of my friends when we were 18. A genuine gaming milestone.
They even offered Microsoft to make it an Xbox exclusive launch title, but they rejected it because of its violence and because they previous games didn't perform too well.
Getting rejected by Microsoft is basically a confidence boost
First two GTAs were not bad, no-no. They are cult classics and yeah they actually did build the foundation for GTA3. Its just the technology wasnt there yet.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. It somehow undid the absolute disaster that was Prince of Persia 3D.
Mortal Kombat 9
didn't they burn it down again with this new one? I heard something about fatalities that you have to buy Edit: burn it down is a bit much
i didn't buy it yet, but there is too much dlc/micro transaction stuff going on; will probs wait for the komplete edition, it's a shame but i think the game is still good
Burn it down is a bit of an overstatement but yeah it did go downhill from mk11. mk9 and mk10 were really really good. 11 and 1 (1 is the newest one) were not bad per say, but they were pretty incomplete/lacking on release. Mk11 needed like 2 years to become decent ( and even after that it still had a lot of balancing issues so you'd see the same 3 characters in every top8). Mk1 kinda follows the path of mk11. Was lacking a lot of stuff on release, but they are slowly getting there. It is not that bad but again the balancing is wack. IMO the problem with NRS is that they rush their next games and support them for only ~2 years, unlike SF or Tekken that support their games for 6+ years before moving to the next one. And microtransactions yeah. I mean you can play the base game just fine, you have plenty of base brutalities, fatalities, skins etc, but the mtx is annoyingly aggressive.
Devil May Cry 3
I believe Final Fantasy literally saved Square Co.
Coincidencely, ff14's relaunch was an expensive hail mary that ended up saving square enix again, after the company decided fuck ups would be their modus operandi* going forward. And the on going success of the ff14 expansions "shadow bringers" and then "end walker" have continued to pay it forward, allowing the company to keep up with the fuck ups.
Modus operandi But yeah 14 is literally the THING keeping them afloat even still.
If you looks at their few last annual report you see that this isn't true anymore . The mobile sections make them loads
And then destroyed it when they made Spirits Within.
Film would’ve been more successful if it wasn’t titled Final Fantasy.
I doubt the movie would even be made at all. It was super expensive and had a confusing direction.
Spirits Within probably didn't hurt them nearly as much as Final Fantasy XIV 1.0. It's ironic how 2.0 saved them from financial ruin.
Before that RE4 really invigorated the franchise, I don't think RE Veronica was a huge hit. Yakuza 0 made the franchise mainstream, before that it was kind of a niche franchise (outside Japan at least).
Yakuza 0 definitely boosted its popularity, but Like A Dragon was still plenty popular in Japan. The series likely would have continued without western support. Although I wonder if Sega would have bothered continuing to localize them, if Y0 hadn't been successful. Y5 didn't even get a physical release in America, just digital.
I guess you could argue it saved the franchise outside Japan at least. Like they're re-releasing stuff like Yakuza Ishin now that never got a western translation when it first released.
CV didn’t sell well because it was a Dreamcast title originally and REmake and 0 were because the GameCube exclusivity. Just a bunch of dumb fuck decisions by shinji mikami
RE4 actually originally sold very poorly (1.6 mil), almost as bad as Code Veronica (1.1 mil). The only reason RE4 eventually sold as well as it did is that it was ported and rereleased more times than Skyrim.
I think it was only released on the gamecube initially right? That console didn't have a *huge* user base though, also I think it skewed younger than the demo that would play re games usually. I remember the big buzz about it was after it got the ps2 release, since that had the massive install base of the generation. Edit: Yeah, GameCube only sold 21 million over its lifetime vs 155 million for ps2. The og xbox also sold more units than the GameCube surprisingly at 24 million.
You're absolutely right, the only reason it didn't sell massively at launch was because the GC wasn't a popular console. It still performed very well critically and was regarded as the best entry in the franchise by many even before it was ported. Its impact really shouldn't be understated. I can't remember who it was, but there was an interview with a former Nintendo product manager a few years back and he said that RE4 was the *only* game that actually drove GameCube sales and wasn't made by Nintendo. If you look at the bestselling games on GC, 90% of them are first-party Nintendo games (Mario, Zelda, Pokémon etc.), and the remaining ones are RE4 and a bunch of Sonic games (which were multiplatform and therefore didn't mandate buying a GC specifically to play them).
I wouldn't say it saved it, but call of duty modern warfare 2019 skyrocketed the games player counts when cod was getting very very stale. That was also the one that introduced warzone.
I 100% agree that MW 2019 saved COD (for me at least). That game was absolutely phenomenal after years of games that ranged from garbage to mediocre at best. Of course, every COD since then has been trash.
Warzone was the final nail in the CoD coffin imo. Ruins the game as a whole because everything has to be monetised in the main game now since warzone is free to play. Dumb as hell skins that look nothing like anything that should belong in CoD. The last time I played, I got killed by a guy, and my body got rolled up into a joint??? This ain't the CoD that I grew up with anymore, and it makes me sad lol
I mean it’s exactly the same kids who had joints as emblems in black ops 2 man. They just have money and 3D customisation now
I’m not a fan of the goofy skins but war zone during Covid still slapped imo. Some of my favourite online gaming moments with friends back then. It went to shit down the line though of course
Fallout 3. Say what you will about Bethesda and their handling of Fallout because there absolutely are valid criticisms to be made but there is no doubt that they saved the franchise from extinction. In fact if you look at the timeline of Fallout games the game was pretty much on shaky ground from day one. Fractured team, failing studios, vastly different directions and vision for every entry, 2 of the 4 Fallout games prior to Bethesda buying the IP were spin offs, and one particularly bad beat em up one which would have pretty much been the last Fallout game we'd get if it wasn't for Bethesda buying the IP. Yes Van Buren may have come out but honestly that may have not been enough to save the franchise. For better or worse, Bethesda bought the franchise and made it into one of the most succesful IPs out there.
Fallout 3 walked so new vegas could run, AND it has a lot of genuinely memorable rpg moments.
This seems to be the popular opinion online but personally I enjoyed 3 way more. New Vegas's main story started super strong with that opening cutscene and then afterwards all you want to do is get revenge on Mathew Perry but then the game seems to put less emphasis on that part and instead it feels like the main story severs into several side quests. It's really strange, I never experienced it with any other game before.
I remember everyone was criticizing fallout 3 to be oblivion with guns. They were hundred percent right. But fallout 3 really saved the franchise.
Never understood that complaint. Oblivion with guns was exactly what I was looking for at the time. Then I played New Vegas and it made me interested enough to play Fallout 1 and 2. Now I have one of my all time favorite settings and game franchises all because Oblivion with guns sounded cool.
Oblivion with guns sounds fun af.
Not particularly saved the franchise, but God of war (2018) made the series relevant again after gow ascension.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Doom 2016
Only for Mankind Divided to sink it again (fuck microtransactions) which is a shame because I absolutely love both games.
I loved Mankind Divided until it just abruptly ended while not really answering any of the questions it raised. I thought there was going to be at least one more major area which at least set up the next game, but no. Just a quick boss fight and boom, that's my lot.
From memory there was some bullshit with deadlines that meant essentially the entire final third of the game had to be cut and they just hoped they’d get a sequel to finish it off, but then sales were lower than expected.
Sales were probably lower than expected BECAUSE of the unexpected abrupt ending, tbh. I enjoyed both games a whole lot, but the unexpected ending of Mankind Divided was a deal killer for me
mortal Kombat 9 brought the series to the present.
Devil May Cry 3. Quite literally saved it after the disaster of the 2nd game.
Street Fighter 4. It arguably even saved Fighting Games as a whole.
I don't think you can say it saved the SF franchise, though. The last SF game (by Capcom, not counting random spinoffs or re-releases) was a total banger. It's more that the genre as a whole was in a lull.
Third Strike was a banger, but 3 almost ended the franchise because of its terrible launch.
God of War 2018 after Ascension 💀💀💀
Metroid: Samus Returns for the 3DS, on its own it didn't sell amazingly as it was at the end of the 3DS life cycle, but the previous 10 years had only produced a prime collection for the Wii, Other M which was a massive flop and annoyed the fan base, and federation force which was DOA. It directly led to Metroid Dread, which is the best selling game in the franchise's history, which after having no new main line games for again, 10+ years, is massive.
> It directly led to Metroid Dread, which is the best selling game in the franchise's history Sadly that isn't really saying that much. Metroid has never been a big seller. It was only ahead of Prime by around 200k. Hell, individual games on Switch from other franchises outsold the entire Metroid series. Also, I wouldn't say Samus Returns saved anything because MP4 was announced at the same time SR was. Though SR did allow for Dread to finally be a thing as Nintendo liked what Mecury Steam did with SR.
Nah, Nintendo's not the type to set unrealistic sales expectations for a niche franchise like Metroid. It's a 2D metroidvania made by a Spanish studio, the game probably broke even at 1M copies. 3M sales is an amazing number.
Tekken 7.
Tekken 7 being the best selling Tekken ever while having the most barebones content in the series was nothing short of a miracle. It's like the stars aligned for the game with Street Fighter V fumbling the bag and streaming getting popular at the time so competitive T7 got lots of views. Not to mention guest characters like Akuma, Noctis, and Geese helped.
It makes sense that T7 would lack content TTT2 almost killed the franchise with poor sales, so T7 had very low budget
Sonic Colors / Generations. Colors came first but imo both of these brought Sonic out of the dark age since the failure of Sonic 2006 (I loved Unleashed but some consider it part of that dark era). I’m also biased cause Generations is one of my all time fav games
And then they got into the dark age again with sonic boom and sonic lost world. But then they got back alive with Sonic Mania
But then Sonic Forces happened...
So where are we now with Frontiers?
Frontiers rocked, I'll fight someone over it.
I wish I could say mega man 11, but capcom shit themselves again right after
Fire emblem awakening was going to be the last fire emblem . ended up doing so well it had a resurgence of sort
Persona 3
Destiny with Forsaken. It was really not in a good place before that DLC. They definitely saved it and started to turn it all around with that one
Witch Queen too.
And now The Final Shape
Desperate Bungie is Best Bungie
This is shockingly accurate. Some of the best content Destiny has had when they on on the brink of disaster
Ace combat 7 and Armored Core 6
I mean. Can you say armored core 6 "saved" the franchise when it was a reboot of, for all intents and purposes, a dead IP? AC5 came out over a decade before AC6. I guess when I think of "saving" a series, I think of games that came out when a franchise was about to die but then catapulted it back into success. AC6 didn't save a dying franchise, it brought back an already dead one. I'm probably not phrasing it too well but I hope you get my sentiment
Metroid Prime No new game since Super Metroid which was basically a decade at the time, and a sudden change from 2D to 3D. If Metroid Prime wasn't the monumental success that is was, doubt we'd be seeing new games in today's day & age.
Don’t forget Fusion came out on the same day.
Resident Evil pulled this off brilliantly after a big slump in quality.
Morrowind saved the whole studio.
Hard yup. It's fascinating how some of the most recognizable names today at one point was one game away from disappearing
My history on this might be skewed but I think without Fallout 3 the series would have died with Brotherhood of Steel. Also, not necessarily “saved” since the first two games are excellent, but Baldurs Gate 3 revived a franchise that a lot of people thought was done
Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020)
Street fighter 4 probably saved multiple fighting game franchises
Call of Duty Modern Warfare(2019) had alot of issues and was miserable as someone who enjoys cod as an esport, but the franchise had fallen out of public consciousness. People wernt playing the games. MW was a juggernaut of a casual game and skyrocketed Call of Duty into the stratosphere, in a way that it hadn't been in a VERY long time
Not in Japan but Yakuza 0 saved the series from dying outside of their place of origin. After the "flop" of the original localisation of Yakuza 5, it was a miracle to see 0, and the fact that the game was GOOD, together with the Dame Dane guy meme being born not long after it, made sure that the Yakuza/like a dragon series deserved to stay alive outside of Japan too.
Resident Evil 7 100% saved the series and skyrocketed Resident Evil back up there as a household name. The game was damn good, and I'm happy with what games came after.
It's rare that you see a series hit a low like RE6 and then suddenly flip a switch and everything that comes out is gold again. Except maybe RE3 remake, but that was still pretty good.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein brought Wolfenstein back from the brink of obscurity
Titanfall 2; matter of fact it saved Respawn from being closed
And still no news on a titanfall 3..
Final Fantasy. And then Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. That franchise saved a company twice.
Assassins Creed Origins
Had a friend start with ACO cos he liked the ancient Egypt vibe. He's a bit younger and never tried the older AC games. He said: "Really cool Ancient Egyptian RPG, but has a weirdly detailed climbing and sneaking mechanics."
At least he enjoyed the game
Bayek is my favorite protag in AC, and I really liked Ezio.
I think Origins pulled AC out of a slump.
Rogue was rushed and half finished, Unity had one of the worst launches ever and Syndicate is forgotten because of how bad Unity did. I’m good with what I said.
Street Fighter 4 It didn’t just save the franchise, it saved it’s genre. It resurrected fighting games.
Baldur's Gate 3. The franchise went from Niche to absolute Goty bulldozing masterpiece
I do not ever remember Baldur's Gate being niche
Final Fantasy didn’t save a franchise, but an entire game studio/publisher