Time marches forward forever, and keeping up with the winds of change is exhausting. While The Legend of Zelda, God of War, Total War, and Tomb Raider have managed to reinvent themselves for new generations, not every franchise can do the same. Some of the best video game series of all time reached their peak during the 1990s or 2000s, only to lose momentum or fade into obscurity after that point.
Let's take a trip through the decades and celebrate a few video game franchises that earned their legendary reputations but have struggled to recapture their earlier magic in the last 15 years. Their legacies are secure and will not shatter even if they never release another great game, but it would be nice if they manage to recapture their glory days and remind everyone who they are.
A few criteria and notes:
- 2010 is the cut-off year, but that does not mean a franchise must have released its final great game by 2009.
- "Truly great" is the crucial phrase – Quite a few of the upcoming IPs have dropped decent titles in the last decade.
- To qualify, a franchise must have produced at least two new games since 2010 (including 2010 itself).
- Just to keep things simple, each franchise has four images. The first two are from their glory days, while the second two are from their post-2010 games.
Fable
When Fable 3 Is Your Best Game Since 2010, Then Things Have Been Rough
- Legendary Games: Fable, The Lost Chapters, and Fable 2
- Post-2010 Games: Fable 3, Fable Heroes, Fable: The Journey, Fable Fortune, and Fable Anniversary
Peter Molyneux might have set the bar a bit too high for Fable, but make no mistake, the first game was fantastic and charming-as-hell. With endearing visuals, great setting, cute humor, and more player freedom than it gets credit for, Fable has aged incredibly well, and its sequel might be even better. Fable 2 solidified the franchise's status as legendary, especially its presentation of Albion, which oozed personality and vibrancy. At this point, most people knew what to expect from the series, and expectations had become relatively realistic.
RPGs Where Role-Playing Matters More Than Stats
Good stats are nice, but the real deal is in the big choices and dialogue options in these RPGs that emphasize role-play.
Then Fable 3 happened, and the series has yet to fully recover. Now, just to be clear, the 2010 game is not terrible or unplayable, and you should give it a try if you enjoyed both of its predecessors. However, it is way less ambitious and genre-pushing, to the point that it barely qualifies as an RPG. Its most interesting ideas, like the option to become a ruler, are not explored to their full potential, resulting in an experience that screams wasted potential.
Except for Fable Anniversary, which is a fine remaster, Fable has only produced a few lackluster spin-offs since the third main entry. The franchise seemed destined to just die, but Playground's upcoming game might fix things.
Fatal Frame
An Iconic Horror Franchise That Has Played Things Too Safely
- Legendary Games: Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly and Fatal Frame 3: The Tormented
- Post-2010 Games: Spirit Camera, Project Zero 2, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, and Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse Remaster
After a first game that served as a proof of concept, Fatal Frame reached the horror mountain's peak with Crimson Butterfly, one of the genre's best efforts of the 2000s. Playing out like a ghostly Japanese horror movie, Fatal Frame 2 blends accessible and fun gameplay with a terrifying story that rewards multiple playthroughs. The Camera Obscura-driven loop was still fresh at this point, so Fatal Frame 3 did not need to reinvent the wheel and, consequently, was a respectable follow-up.
After that, Fatal Frame just kind of kept doing the same thing, albeit throwing in a few gimmicks based on a game's chosen console. 2012's Spirit Camera was a failed experiment and the worst game in the franchise, but 2014's Maiden of Black Water was only marginally better. By barely evolving the formula, Fatal Frame seemed happy to just continue along without any notable innovation or experimentation. Honestly, it seemed to follow in the footsteps of iconic horror movie franchises that, after a while, were happy to just play the hits.
The upcoming Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly remake looks wonderful. Hopefully, my write-up will be obsolete following March 2026.
Time Crisis
The Pinnacle Of The Light Gun Genre Died With A Whimper And Not A Bang
- Legendary Games: Time Crisis 1-3
- Post-2010 Games: Time Crisis 2nd Strike and Time Crisis 5
Although never complicated, Time Crisis was so much fun in arcades, with the original trilogy being an absolute blast (and coin eaters). The console ports were solid on-rail shooters, even if the genre has (on the whole) struggled to excel without cabinets. By the time 2010 came around, the series had been on the decline for a while, and the heyday of arcades was long since passed. Still, the franchise's name recognition should have allowed it to persevere or, perhaps, adapt to another genre like modern first-person shooters.
Big FPS Game Franchises That Are Officially Done
There was a time when the FPS reigned supreme and these franchises were at the top of the world, but today, they're all but dead and buried.
Instead, Time Crisis just kind of faded into nothing. 2nd Strike was an OK iOS game that lasted for a couple of years, although it stopped being sold in 2015. In fact, that year ended up being the franchise's swan song, as it also marked the release of the final Time Crisis game. While I can judge it from the two opportunities I had a chance to play it, Time Crisis 5 tried to update the formula in ways that resulted in a more cumbersome gameplay loop. Dual cover and weapon rotation systems might work in a traditional FPS game, but they undermine the beautiful simplicity of a light-gun shooter. Although Unreal Engine 3 graphics looked decent in isolation, they lacked the charm of the classic art style.
FlatOut
Talk About A Video Game Franchise That Crashed & Burned Spectacularly
- Legendary Games: FlatOut 1 & 2
- Post-2010 Games: FlatOut 3: Chaos & Destruction, FlatOut 4: Total Insanity, and FlatOut Stuntman
OK, maybe "legendary" is pushing it, but FlatOut was amazing during the PS2 era. Heck, FlatOut 2 is still awesome, and I would recommend picking up the PC version if you are not familiar with this series. An arcade racing game series all about ragdoll destruction, FlatOut was kind of like Burnout on steroids. The franchise is particularly well-known for its stunt mini-games that let you propel humans into the air in acts that would make Evil Kinevil blush.
Unfortunately, after FlatOut 2 and its enhanced port, the franchise went through an upheaval behind the scenes, which involved losing its original developers (Bugbear). Team6 Game Studios handled FlatOut 3, a sequel that drove the IP's momentum into a brick wall. The drop in quality between FlatOut 2 and 3 might be the steepest in gaming history, and it would have taken something special to repair the damage. FlatOut 4 is great when compared to its predecessor, but it is otherwise mediocre.
Fortunately, Bugbear has kept FlatOut's spirit alive through Wreckfest.
Medal Of Honor
Chasing That Call Of Duty Coin Bankrupted Medal Of Honor's Creativity
- Legendary Games: Medal of Honor, Allied Assault, Frontline, and Pacific Assault. Airborne was pretty good.
- Post-2010 Games: Medal of Honor (2010), Warfighter, and Above and Beyond
The gaming world is worse off without Medal of Honor, at least the version that sought to tell grounded historical stories from World War 2. Even if it is very dated, the original Medal of Honor was impressive for its era, and it was followed up by two great games: Allied Assault and Frontline. The former is one of the best FPS games of all time, while the latter was a (relatively) early example of a brilliant console shooter. Although it never reached those heights again, Medal of Honor was generally good throughout the rest of the 2000s; more importantly, the franchise preserved its uniqueness for the most part.
What Happened to the Medal of Honor Series?
The Medal of Honor series was once one of the biggest names in the World War 2 FPS genre, but it seems to have faded into obscurity recently.
2010's Medal of Honor marked a big (and sad) turning point, as the series adopted ideas from its competitors, mainly Call of Duty and even EA's own Battlefield. In a vacuum, the reboot is rather good and among the better entries in the franchise; however, it eroded Medal of Honor's identity, turning it into just another military shooter. Warfighter was an all-around train wreck that derailed any hope that its predecessor's reinvention could, at least, result in a mildly successful reboot run. Above and Beyond is a fine VR shooter, although it is too niche and forgettable.
The House of the Dead
A Walking Corpse
- Legendary Games: The House of the Dead 1 & 2, The Typing of the Dead, and Overkill
- Post-2010 Games: Overkill: Extended Cut, Typing of the Dead: Overkill, Scarlet Dawn, and The House of the Dead 1 & 2 Remakes
Arguably even more so than Time Crisis, The House of the Dead was the pinnacle of arcade shooters, especially if you like them with a flavor of zombie horror. Besides just being iconic, the first two games were replayable, addictive, and unapologetically campy. The Typing of the Dead spin-off was also way better than it had any right to be. The series reached its apex in the '90s, but it kept on going strong during the 2000s. The House of the Dead: Overkill is the franchise's best console game, along with being one of the last hurrahs of the light gun genre.
Except for an enhanced port of Overkill, and the decent enough The Typing of the Dead: Overkill, The House of the Dead has done nothing of note since 2010. Unlike Time Crisis, this series has stuck around to an extent, producing the lackluster Scarlet Dawn and two remakes that are, at best, average.
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