Enslaved: Odyssey to the West deserved SO much better. #gaming
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Video games aren't made to be one-offs.
00:02Every big publisher wants a 10-year live service brand that they can use as an excuse to print
00:08cash money.
00:09Sadly, the other games on this list weren't lucky enough to receive such a follow-up.
00:14They're all awesome, but no matter how much I keep my fingers, toes, and, uh, every other
00:18part of my body crossed, the gaming gods have made it so that we'll never see a sequel,
00:23and here's why.
00:24I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com, and these are 9 Amazing Video Games That Will Never
00:28Get Sequels, and Why.
00:309.
00:31Sleeping Dogs Ironically enough, pretty much everyone slept
00:34on Sleeping Dogs when it came out.
00:35At the time, the world was inundated with countless GTA rip-offs, and on the surface,
00:40this game looked like just another one to throw on the pile, but, my friends, let me
00:44tell you, this game awns.
00:48Acting as a throwback to Hong Kong crime movies, the open world itself was ridiculously detailed
00:53for the time, capturing the seedy, filmic underbelly of the city perfectly.
00:57Also on top of that, it focused on martial arts melee combat as well as top-notch driving,
01:02and the game had more than enough to set itself apart from the competition.
01:05And at one point, a sequel was planned, but it was canned in favour of a game called Triad
01:11Wars, a PC-only MMO spin-off that no doubt would have stripped away all the personality
01:16from the previous game.
01:18Of course, if you haven't heard of that, then don't worry, this was actually cancelled
01:21as well, meaning that we got no more Sleeping Dogs in any form.
01:25And that sucks, because it was those little touches that made Sleeping Dogs so special,
01:29you know, going to a karaoke bar to knock out a rendition of I Fought The Law after
01:34murdering a bunch of guys in the street, for instance, and it's a shame that we won't
01:38get more of that any time soon.
01:40And all because the publisher wanted an MMO that they didn't even release.
01:45At one point, developers People Can Fly were primed to be the next big video game developers.
01:52They'd become the protégé of Epic Games, who drafted the team in to work on Geese
01:55of War Judgment and a brand new first-person shooter titled Bulletstorm.
02:00The idea for this game was pretty simple, create a balls-to-the-wall FPS that rewarded
02:05you for exploration and imagination, freeing you up to use innovative weapons to chain
02:09together combo kills and use every part of the environment to dish out pain.
02:14Yeah, the story was naff, but that's not what people were here for in the first place.
02:18They came to cleave a dude's head off and then boot him 300-style into a cactus.
02:24Sadly, despite this awesome mechanic, the game wasn't a huge hit, and by the sounds
02:28of things, the devs haven't been able to convince anyone to bankroll a sequel, despite
02:33releasing a remaster to gauge interest.
02:35In an interview following said remastered edition of the game, the devs explained that
02:39they hoped the IP would get a second wind, but if it hasn't happened by now, Bulletstorm
02:452 probably never will.
02:47Number 7, Bully.
02:48Bully is one of those games that you could ask any random person on the street if they've
02:52played, and before they say, now get away from me you scruffy creep, they'd say, of
02:56course I did, you scruffy creep.
02:58Rockstar's open-world prank simulator took their anarchic sandbox charm and meshed it
03:02with a playful school-ground setting to great success.
03:05It sold well, it dominated the cultural discourse, so why the hell didn't it get a sequel when
03:10GDA got a million and even Red Dead Redemption got one?
03:14Well, the answer is, it wasn't for lack of trying.
03:17According to multiple reports, Bully 2 has been in development a few times over the years,
03:22but has always hit roadblocks.
03:24Whether it's difficulty updating the game for a modern audience, or Rockstar's focus
03:28on other properties, it has never materialised, and at this point likely never will.
03:33A recent Game Informer report claimed that about 10 hours of the sequel were actually
03:38completed at the start of the 2010s, but the game was eventually cancelled as developers
03:43had to help out on Max Payne 3 and Red Dead Redemption.
03:47Now those games turned out awesome in my opinion, but they were at the expense of this sequel.
03:52Was the sacrifice worth it?
03:53Well, you tell me in the comments.
03:55Number 6, Cold Fear.
03:56You'd be forgiven for not remembering what the hell Cold Fear even was.
04:01This mid-2000s survival horror gem was an utter joy to play, well, not really considering
04:06it was pretty damn terrifying, but you know what I mean.
04:09Being one of the games at the time to push what the genre could be.
04:13Playing on a tanker, you were cast as a lifeguard forced to overcome a zombie-like infection
04:17with a gameplay style similar to Resident Evil 4.
04:20However, it was those similarities to Resident Evil 4 which ultimately killed any chances
04:25of this becoming a franchise.
04:28Even though the two were in development at the same time, Resi beat it to the punch,
04:32and as a result it was very easy to write Cold Fear off as just a clone.
04:36It didn't help that Capcom's franchise essentially executed every idea better as
04:41well.
04:42It was a choice between the two, and just about everyone went with Resident Evil, and
04:46you can see why.
04:47As a result, Cold Fear sold a staggeringly shocking 70,000 copies in the US, and the
04:53only title I know that sold worse than that is 50 Cent Blood in the Sand, and when you're
04:58being bundled in with that, you know something has gone terribly wrong.
05:02No game could come back from sales figures like that, and as a result, Cold Fear was
05:07dead in the water.
05:09Number 5, Stranglehold.
05:11Pretty much every person on the planet has watched a John Woo movie and had the same
05:14thought.
05:15I wish I was that cool.
05:17Answering all of our prayers then, the Hong Kong action director decided to take everyone's
05:22desire to be in his movies by giving them the next best thing, letting them control
05:26one of them.
05:27Stranglehold is a direct sequel to the director's most iconic film, Hard Boiled, and players
05:32are free to shoot their way through levels in the most bombastic way possible.
05:36Max Payne by this point had already perfected slo-mo shooting, but this game mixed the
05:41that in with environmental destruction and an even larger moveset.
05:45Jumping on a cart and gliding your way to perfect slo-mo headshots brought with it the
05:50kind of joy that you worry you'll never feel again, and alas, you probably never would,
05:55because Stranglehold never got a sequel.
05:57Again, it wasn't for lack of trying, it looked like it would for a little while, and
06:01the original plan was to team up the first game's star, Chow Yun-Fat, with Vin Diesel.
06:07An idea so good that I can't even think about it no longer happening without getting
06:11a little bit sad.
06:12Unfortunately, this was put an end to when publisher Midway went out of business and
06:17the game never released.
06:19Number 4, Black.
06:20From one balls-to-the-wall action game to the next, Black still remains one of the most
06:25instantly gratifying first-person shooters you can play.
06:28It's not that the title had the most in-depth mechanics, the smartest AI, or the most inventive
06:32level design, but it did have one major strength.
06:36It cranked everything up to 11.
06:38The guns exploded like grenades, the grenades exploded like nukes, and the nukes, well,
06:43there weren't any nukes, but I imagine they'd have sounded like the world itself was blowing up.
06:47It was a pure, visceral joy, which is even more impressive considering this was a first attempt.
06:53As always, a sequel was in development at some point beginning production before the
06:57original game even came out, which is when you know they're serious.
07:02However, as chronicled in a really good Reychevic video, boring old disagreements between the
07:06devs and publisher EA allegedly led to lead designer Stuart Black, hence the title, leaving
07:11the project entirely and the sequel falling apart.
07:14However, a spiritual sequel, Body Count, did see the light of day, but sadly it just wasn't
07:19the same, and a proper sequel never materialised as a result.
07:23Number 3, Sunset Overdrive.
07:26Insomniac have made some pretty damn awesome games in their time, but sadly Sunset Overdrive
07:30never really received the audience it deserved.
07:33The Xbox One exclusive wasn't a system seller, but it was a solid inventive open world game
07:39that blended the charm the studio is known for with tight combat and movement abilities.
07:44It was a difficult game to sell though, primarily because of its blend of styles that made it so good.
07:49In a way, it was kinda like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater if you had a lot of mad guns and
07:54were fighting zombies instead of pulling off McTwists, which sounds potentially like the
07:59worst thing ever, but I promise it wasn't.
08:01Still though, that might partly be why the game ended up with soft sales.
08:05I mean, the grating, winking humour present in the trailers probably didn't help either,
08:09but I digress, and as a result Insomniac didn't release a follow up with Microsoft or work
08:14with them again.
08:15They still own the IP, and there was a brief glimmer of hope for a sequel when Sony bought
08:19the studio a few years ago.
08:21However, the new owners have made it pretty clear that Sunset Overdrive 2 isn't on the
08:25agenda, and that the focus will be on Spider-Man and Ratchet & Clank going forward.
08:30Insomniac simply has too many profitable properties in the works, and Sony isn't going to put
08:34them on hold to revive a franchise that debuted on the competition's hardware.
08:402.
08:41Vanquish
08:42The world was simply not ready for Vanquish.
08:45Platinum Games' shooter came out at a time where third-person shooters were practically
08:49humping cover systems and chest-high walls, and look, there's no kink-shaming here,
08:54but it did get very weird.
08:56And instead of playing along, Vanquish said stuff that, and did its own thing.
09:01That turned out to be the kind of breath of fresh air the genre needed at the time.
09:05Instead of being stuck behind cover all the time, you were instead encouraged to jetslide
09:09your way around the battlefield in a sci-fi exoskeleton, blowing the complete piss out
09:14of everything around you.
09:15It didn't sell gangbusters, but like a lot of Platinum Games, it did find its audience
09:19and became a cult success.
09:21But sadly, not enough to greenlight a sequel.
09:24The devs moved on to other projects, and while there are constant rumours that a sequel might
09:28be happening, it all appears to be wishful thinking at this point.
09:321.
09:33L.A. Noire
09:34Love it or hate it, L.A. Noire at least tried to do something new.
09:37The game invented a whole new technology that enabled lifelike facial animations, a feature
09:42essential in a detective story where figuring out if someone is telling the truth or spinning
09:47a web of lies is vital to solving cases.
09:50Likewise, its recreation of L.A. was stunning to behold and live in, even if there wasn't
09:55all that much to actually do in it, while the mix of casework and combat kept things
09:59interesting.
10:00Not everything clicked perfectly, I will admit, but after a tumultuous development, the foundations
10:05had been set for follow-ups, even if they weren't directly set in the same world or
10:09followed the same set of characters.
10:11Sadly, after the release, developers Team Bondi and publisher Rockstar had a pretty
10:15major falling out, which led to a break-up and the latter company keeping the IP.
10:20Team Bondi planned to release a spiritual successor using the same foundations called
10:24Whore of the Orient, but eventually went out of business.
10:28Rockstar, on the other hand, haven't released anything outside of a remaster and a VR detective
10:32experience based on the original game.
10:35Hopefully they will get around to making a sequel eventually, but considering how long
10:38it takes them to craft a new project these days, that won't be anytime soon, if sadly
10:44ever.
10:45So that's our list!
10:46What do you guys think down in the comments below?
10:47Would you love to see these games get sequels and are there any crushing disappointments
10:51I left off here?
10:52While you're down there as well, can you please give us a like, share, subscribe and
10:55head over to WhatCulture.com for more lists and news like this every single day.
10:59Even if you don't though, I've been Josh, thanks so much for watching and I'll see
11:02you soon.