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10 Beloved Gaming Franchises That
Just Disappeared
http://www.gamebasin.com/news/10-beloved-gaming-franchises-that-just-disappeared
Nostalgia can be a powerful thing. For some reason or another a great many of us are utterly
convinced that things were just better in the past, and when talking about video games, there are
some good points to be made – especially when many are the game series’ with only one or two
entries that are loved by legions of fans simply up and vanished into thin air one day. Sometimes
this is because developers go belly up, or they decide to take the company in a different direction,
or the rights move to a publisher that doesn’t have any idea what to do with the franchise, or –
even worse – they just decide that nobody wants any more of that game. It’s understandable for
some franchises that are less profitable for others, but in an industry where brand recognition is
possibly more crucial to a game’s success than any other medium (Mario, Sonic and Lara, we’re
looking at you), it seems faintly ridiculous to toss aside a successful series for any minor reason. It
might seem strange to lament the lack of sequels for a game, as movie sequels are often greeted
with cynicism, but the fact is that games developers are far better than film studios at improving
on an original product, meaning a phenomenon exists (almost solely) within gaming where the first
game in a series is rarely the best. What then, are the games series’ without recent instalments
that deserve to be revived? Here are ten we think should make the cut…
10. Advance Wars

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The Nintendo franchise that has been going a lot longer than most westerners think (the first game
to hit Europe and the US was Advance Wars in 2001/2002, but the Wars series had been going
strong in Japan since 1988), Advance Wars is a favourite of many a strategy nut, its deceptively
simple brand of turn‐based combat hiding‐games that are both incredibly addictive and fiendishly
difficult to truly complete. Each game sees you taking command of an army trying to defend a
nation (and sometimes the world) and could seem rather dry were it not for the colourful COs you
get to play as and the crucial addition of CO powers that dramatically affect the game mechanics.
Nintendo and developer Intelligent Systems had a good run of handheld sequels and even a
console spin‐off, Battalion Wars, but the franchise seemed to run aground when it tossed out its
established characters and world with Advance Wars: Dark Conflict (or Days of Ruin in some
territories), replacing them with a radically pared‐down game and a bleak story to match the new
title. That was in 2008, and there hasn’t been a new Advance Wars since. Perhaps it was that the
dreary post‐apocalyptic setting of Dark Conflict didn’t go down well – so why not just change it up
for the next game, or bring back the world of previous games? It seems a shame to throw the baby
out with the bathwater, especially with one of the world’s leading strategy franchises.
9. Crash Bandicoot

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Adults of a certain age – like the author of this post – will have incredibly fond memories of the
first Crash Bandicoot for Playstation, a wacky platformer with an absurd sense of humour and, once
upon a time, a serious contender for Mario’s throne. Since Crash’s arrival in 1996 there have been
over a dozen sequels and spin‐offs, making the franchise one of the most successful in games
history. Seriously: you know you’ve got a winner on your hand when an animated marsupial can
headline a party or kart racing game. But perhaps there’s been too much of a good thing for poor
Crash – he’s been so popular that, after initial developer Naughty Dog left him to take on slightly
more serious fare like Jak & Daxter in 1999, he’s been passed around by a few different developers
and publishers to varying degrees of success, sometimes even resulting in cancelled games (there
are at least four of them so far). Which is perhaps why there hasn’t been a core Crash game since
2008. The rights are currently held by Activision (though there’s been some speculation that Sony
recently bought them back) but there are no current plans to make a new game. Many have been
calling for a complete reboot of the series (including the original creators), and with a new console
generation upon us, has there ever been a better time?
8. Okami

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It might be unfair to dismiss the unique Okami as having “just disappeared”: after its initial release
on the PS2, the adventure game where players control a wolf‐god and control the gorgeously
painted environment with an onscreen brush using gestures was remade not once, but twice – first
for the Wii and secondly as an HD remastering for the PS3. The game was adored by critics and
fans upon release, many citing its beauty, scale, storytelling and original elements as reasons for
its success. Although it didn’t sell quite as many copies as developer Clover Studios hoped, a sequel
was greenlit and Okamiden – an indirect successor to the original – was released on the Nintendo
DS in 2010. A true sequel has been mooted, but no‐one seems much interested in going back to
that well. It’s at once a shame and a relief; while it’s unlikely we’ll ever be able to further explore
the wonderful world of Okami, there’s been a pretty high bar set in terms of quality and experience
that would be difficult for even the original developers to surpass, so maybe it’s for the best.
7. Shenmue

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Something of a forgotten classic, Shenmue and its only sequel Shenmue 2 were trailblazers for
multi‐faceted gameplay, open‐world exploration and non‐linear storytelling in video games when
first released on the Dreamcast in the late ’90s and early ’00s. Both games follow hero Ryo Hazuki
on the hunt for his father’s killers – first in Japan, then Hong Kong – and players enjoyed exploration,
detection and action set‐pieces in the main story with almost endless side quests to keep them
occupied, from hauling crates for minimum wage and participating in arm wrestling contests to
playing fully integrated arcade games like Afterburner for hours on end. There was certainly a lot
to keep gamers occupied. In fact, there was more than either game could actually contain, as both
end on a cliffhanger with many story threads left unresolved. At least for the first instalment some
of those threads are dealt with in Shenmue 2, but the unfortunate coincidence of the creators
wanting to finish the story in a third game and Sega not wanting to spend more money on what
was at the time a critically‐acclaimed financial failure meant that we’re unlikely to find out the
conclusion to Ryo’s story any time soon.
6. Jet Set Radio
There seems to be a pretty strong pattern of game franchises that started out on Sega’s doomed
Dreamcast suffering an ignoble fate, like the previous entry Shenmue (and does anyone remember
Chu Chu Rocket?) and the sublime graffiti/rollerblading neon‐wonder that was Jet Set Radio. A
truly original game for its time, JSR had players skitching and grinding across a vibrantly coloured
Tokyo as a host of weird and wonderful taggers attempting to make their mark on the world by
first spray‐painting their graffiti on bus stops and alleyways and then taking down totalitarian
fascist police states. (Try hunting down another game with something even close to that
premise…er, discounting Marc Ecko’s Getting Up. Which came out after JSR anyway, so shush.)
What could have come off as oddball and inaccessible to many ended up becoming a cult favourite,
the addictive game loop of trying to get a tag finished within a time limit or before the cops arrived
to beat seven bells out of you and zooming off to the next one appealed to gamers so much that
Sega made a sequel – Jet Set Radio Future – for Xbox in 2002…and then promptly forgot their
brilliant franchise existed. So why haven’t there been any more games in the twelve intervening

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years? Some of the characters have appeared in Sega’s tennis and racing games, so they must still
think they have some appeal, and a Jet Set Radio Revival would most certainly be warmly
welcomed by gamers. A modern twist on the formula could work wonders, what with open world
gaming being as popular and potentially vast as it is today – just imagine a city built to true scale
that could be sprayed all over – and the options for players to create their own tags would be
endless with the option to upload and manipulate images on next‐gen consoles, Forza‐style.
5. Chrono Trigger
What’s Square‐Enix’s (formerly Squaresoft) best games franchise? If you said Final Fantasy you’re
wrong, and not just because that series has taken a real nose‐dive in quality and coherence in
recent years. Chrono Trigger, on the other hand, has been criminally overlooked and under‐utilised
over the years, despite being one of the freshest, most rewarding RPGs of the last thirty years. To
cut a long story short, here’s all you need to know about Chrono Trigger: it takes the quasi‐medieval
characters, settings and combat styles of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, throws in a robot, a
talking frog who’s also a knight, and gives them all a time machine they need to use to traverse
different periods in their world’s history in order to prevent the apocalypse. Excited yet? There was
one sequel, Chrono Cross, released in 1999, and the creators have since expressed an interest in
another Chrono game – as have countless fans and gaming magazine polls – but it has yet to
materialise, alas.
4. Carmageddon

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You thought last week’s Game of Thrones was too violent? Hey, the ’90s called; they want their
outrage back. Courting controversy and conservative umbrage way before it was cool, the frankly
bonkers Carmageddon took the concept of Death Race 2000 and pushed it off a cliff, making the
aim of the motor‐racing game less about beating other drivers to the finish line and more about
smearing as many pedestrians and fellow racers across the tarmac as possible. Naturally, gamers
loved it, Carmageddon sold around two million copies according to developer Stainless games and
preceded two sequels; Carmageddon II: Carpocalypse Now and Carmageddon TDR 2000.
Unfortunately, though, that was it for over a decade, as Stainless didn’t own the rights to their
game and publisher SCi faffed around with the franchise in development until 2011, when Stainless
obtained the rights and announced the return of Carmageddon in the form of a Kickstarter‐funded
series reboot. That game, Carmageddon: Reincarnation, means that this story has a happy ending,
as it was made available on Steam for early access in March 2014, fourteen years after the last
instalment. Let’s hope it’s not quite as long until the next one…
3. Streets Of Rage

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You remember the music. You remember the power‐ups. You remember the rage‐inducing boss
battles that resulted in at least one Mega Drive controller’s premature demise. One of the most‐loved
fighting series’ in gaming history, Streets of Rage enjoyed great success and popularity when
it was first released, resulting in two sequels shortly after along with comics and soundtrack albums.
Unfortunately, since Streets of Rage 3 was released in 1994, there have been no more instalments
other than those fans have made themselves. The Eidos‐developed Fighting Force was originally
intended as the first 3D entry in the series until it became something else, but the games have
never waned in popularity and gamers have been clamouring for a next‐gen makeover for decades
now. If Street Fighter can get one, why not a game that’s still being played twenty years later?
2. Timesplitters
Coming from many of the key team behind Goldeneye and Perfect Dark for the N64, the
Timesplitters games are for a certain generation the quintessential FPS, and it’s hard not to see

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why. For sheer multiplayer fun the games are unrivalled, matching a madcap, Python‐esque sense
of humour with a totally accessible control system and a cornucopia of OTT firearms. The first
Timesplitters was somewhat overlooked, but Timesplitters 2 perfected the formula and became a
staple of late‐night gaming sessions everywhere. The third game didn’t change much but gave the
graphics an overhaul, likely thanks to the extra cash brought in by new publisher EA. Developer
Free Radical Design has disbanded since the last game so we’re unlikely to see a true Timesplitters
sequel unless the original creators come back together, as an EA‐spearheaded project would likely
lose much of the insane flavour that gave the originals such fun appeal and made them cult
favourites in the first place.
1. Banjo-Kazooie
Sometimes – not often – there comes along a game series that brings so much joy and is so expertly
created that it would be far better to simply stop making new games than to make inferior sequels
so as not to sully the memory of the original experience. That might sound like extreme nostalgia
talking, but when you’ve played the ridiculously sublime Banjo‐Kazooie and the even better sequel
Banjo‐Tooie, not much else really comes up to snuff. Original developers Rare were in their heyday
in the late ’90s, creating several classics for the Nintendo 64 including but not limited to the Banjo
games, Jet Force Gemini, Perfect Dark and of course Goldeneye. Unfortunately, not long after
Microsoft entered the home console market with the Xbox, they bought out the company and half
of their staff left to form their own companies, most notably Free Radical Design, which was
responsible for the aforementioned Timesplitters games until they got bought out. As a result, the
next home console Banjo game ended up being delayed until 2008, when Banjo‐Kazooie: Nuts &
Bolts landed on Xbox 360, and…didn’t really impress anyone. A major disappointment to fans, then,
and a testament to the quality of the first games. There are no further sequels in development,
and while there’s still hope in the hearts of some that we’ll one day see Banjo‐Threeie and it’ll be
the best thing since sliced bread, perhaps it’s best that don’t.

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