Slave to the series: why perpetual game sequels are bad for everyone

Earlier this week, in my review of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, I argued that the inclusion of the Assassins-versus-Templars plot that has become a staple of that series actually takes away from the game, which is at its best when it is letting players enjoy being a pirate. Assassin’s Creed IV is still a good game, but it’s hard not to imagine how phenomenal it could have been if Ubisoft had dropped the assassin nonsense and focused on making a fun game about pirates. Unfortunately, there is no way that could have happened.

The reason it could never have happened is that sequels sell. And why wouldn’t they? The Assassin’s Creed series, for example, has huge name recognition and a legion of fans who’ll snap up nearly anything with those words on a cover. Would a game that was just titled Black Flag have sold as well as Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag? There’s no way to say for sure, but my guess? Probably not.

The same could be said for other blockbuster series like Call of Duty. The zombie modes in the COD titles developed by Treyarch have been a fan favorite for years, but they’re doomed to remain a simple side-show because Activision (Call of Duty‘s publisher) will never give Treyarch the time to work on a more fully-realized zombie game while COD games are still selling like hotcakes (even the ones that play like old, reheated hotcakes).

It’s sad to see developers stuck churning out the same games over and over again, especially when history has proved they’re capable of being more creative when given the chance. The guys who created the original Call of Duty, for example, have mostly spun off into an independent studio and are hard at work on Titanfall, a completely unique property that (if my time with the game at TGS is any indication) is likely to become one of 2014’s most loved shooters. But of course, if it sells well, then their creativity will have to be reigned in again, as they’ll be roped into working on Titanfall 2.

Neither developers or publishers are really to blame for this; it’s just the way that the industry works. And consumers aren’t wholly to blame either. It’s common sense to want more of something you liked, so when a game comes out, people want a sequel to it. And in games, unlike in films, the sequels are often better than the games that proceeded them thanks to an increased budget and a few extra years of development in graphics and animation technologies.

But at the same time, it’s hard not to wonder how many brilliant, creative new games we might be missing out on because the world’s top developers are mostly stuck making sequels to the top gaming franchises. And it’s even harder to watch when a brilliant, creative new game comes out and is subsequently ignored by the gaming public because it doesn’t have the name recognition or established fan base it needs to compete with the big franchises in terms of sales.

I wish that gamers would be a bit more adventurous in trying out new games, and I wish that developers would be a little bit more adventurous in creating them. It’s tough to escape the economic realities that make the games industry so focused on big-name sequels rather than on creating new intellectual property, but wouldn’t we all be a bit better off if more developers were allowed to break out of these molds and work on something new once in a while?

(It’s worth pointing out that while creating new IP can be a financial risk, it can pay huge dividends for gamers. Thinking back to the fall of 2008, for example, there were a huge number of major sequels on offer during the holiday game release window, but the best games on offer that fall were all new IP: Bioshock, Dead Space, and Mirror’s Edge. In fact I’d argue that all three of these games deserve at least consideration when discussing the best games of all time. And indeed, when you look at the top-rated games of all time on Metacritic, you’ll find quite a few original games in amongst the sequels. Thank goodness these developers were allowed to branch out with something new for once, or we might not have gotten to play any of them.)