Franchises that you are fan of, but let you down this generation?

Are there any franchises that you are long time fan of, but this generation's entry (or entries) were in your opinion lackluster/disappointing?

For me:

Forza Motorsport 7 - mainly because it somehow traded places with the GT series in the "quantity over quality" approach - reusing assets from previous gen (X360), botched engine sounds, the homologation system was "restricting" in a bad way, and lack of any decent steering wheel support in (more or less) sim racing game felt like throwing ~100 Euro outta window.

Gears of War 4 & 5 - except the graphics side of things, i feel like this series peaked with #2 (2008) as far as SP campaign goes.

inFAMOUS - I really enjoyed inFAMOUS series on PS3, but the PS4 entries were painfully boring. In 'Second Son' it doesn't matter if you went "Hero" or "Villain" path, the main protagonist is still annying asshole and 'First Light' is just a stand-alone expansion of the same shit (it got physical release in Europe, not so sure about rotw).

Killzone -"launch title tech demo"

Just to be more specific:

- please do NOT list franchises that didn't get any new entries this gen

- by "this gen" i mean gen 8 (Xbox One, PC, PS4 and Wii U included) and just to be safe on the Nintendo and PC side too, lets start with the very beginning of 2013

• Mass Effect
• Battlefield
• Mafia

Resident Evil and Tomb Raider are the only ones I can think of. Uncharted 4's multiplayer wasn't on par with Uncharted 2 or 3's either.

Hmm. Nothing big, think most of my disappointments with long standing franchises came and went years ago. Last gen was definitely a rough one for me lol.

Only thing I can think of right now is Marvel vs Capcom Infinite. Was never a huge fan of MvC, but always enjoyed them. Sad part is, MVCI actually plays very well. But the shit production values, poor roster choices, and general lack of "soul" just killed it, game died soooo quick. Game had no style. DBFZ sweeping in looking like the return of Jesus by comparison didn't help matters lol.

Xenoblade: since the first game, neither sequel has kept my interest.

Batman Arkham series: Arkham Knight was not a good game.

Tomb Raider: after 2013 the series felt stuck.

LoU2. I enjoyed watching the first one on YouTube, but I think I’ll skip watching the second as it looks like it’s going down an sjw route I don’t care for.

I hear that. I bought the overhyped first one and didn't care for it much at all, and the 2nd one looks even worse especially when you add in all that shock value bs...

Super Mario Odyssey n Bayonetta 2 I guess. Mario Odyssey has arguably the most expressive movement Mario has had, but there are not enough platforming challenges to flex it. Suffers from a lot of the same issues Sunshine suffers from as a game. Which is a buzzkill, even if there is a lot of depth to the mechanics.

Bayonetta 2 conversely started off super hot into the game but over time just been soured on the game. The game regressed way too much mechanically and the enemies are all worse. The rival boss sucks compared to Jeanne and so does the final boss. The other bosses are okay, way too much of the convo about this game is that it avoids Kamiyaisms, but those shits make up collectively if added up 30 minutes to an hour of a 10 hour game, which pales in comparison to the issues that come with the combat being so gimped.

I've replayed Bayonetta 1 a ton and still pop in for Angel Slayer. Bayonetta 2 I didn't even want to double dip for a switch version. Beat the witch trials, tried to hang in a few replays of Bayonetta 2 and moved on with my life. Platinum hasn't mad anything great since Wonderful 101, and it's got me worried about Bayonetta 3, especially after that system could only run astral chain at 30 frames.

Yea, MvC, no mather how i tried back then in arcades, i just couldn't get into it due to "wow, cool stuff happens - but can't find my caracter on the screen". XD
Really wanted to get into the series, but didn't get the chance, because MvC:I was labeled "DOA" even before release.
Another crossover that i could "grasp" was SFxT, but the DLC controversy (well, i bought it eventhough i knew what's going, nah) and especially the broken "Gem" system killed it.
Though i wonder why CvS3 didn't happen yet...

BTW, not a Dragon Ball fan at all (eventhough i'm anime fan and read quite few manga series), but really liked the game when they did a "free trial thing" during an EVO. Put it on wishlist, but due to my already insane backlog i didn't buy it and i guess online is probably dead atm (at least for PC)... Oh well, MK11:A is just two weeks away anyway...

The only two that come mind for me right now is:

1. Mass Effect - Andromeda was a fairly enjoyable game in general but a disappointing Mass Effect game specifically.
2. Marvel Vs Capcom - Infinite had great gameplay but the art style, roster, and presentation values were very disappointing.

Halo 5 - sucked monkeyballs

@lifelessablaze: Guess you didn’t play the multiplayer.

Paper Mario. The **** was that shit?

Super Mario 3D World. Did not like at all. When playing alone, it felt like it was made for coop. Downside to playing coop was that it was mostly annoying. The mechanic that you have to run for a few seconds before runnning faster? Suuuuucked. Hopefully Nin wont listen too much to those begging for a Switch port. There should be about 75 better Mario games to port.

Battlefield. I miss real Battlefield.

• Mafia because Mafia 3 was GTA clone. and nothing come close to masterpiece that Mafia 1 was.
• Deus Ex mankind divided because original was masterpiece so was Human revoltution but new game rushed and cut it into 2 half in order to get sequel that still not came.

was not a fan of many last gen franchise actually as most of them were crap.

Real battlefield people missed is not any better than modern battlefield. they were always overrated.

Marvel Vs Capcom - i loved MVC 1,2,3 but the franchise died for me when capcom announced there wont be any X-MEN characters in infinite. Plus that shitty character roster compared to the previous games..

till this day i refuse to play this game even though the game sell's for dirt cheap nowadays

MGSV, although I'm giving it another go. It's long. That's my only problem with that game.

Batman: Arkham Knight

God of War

Uncharted 4

Gran Turismo Sport

All Call of Duty

Dad of War

Unfarted Snore

Breath of the Empty and Breaking

Mario 100,000

lol :P

Battlefield 1 and V

Halo 5

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Mass Effect, I still enjoyed it enough to play through it but such a wasted opportunity. And probably done irreparable damage to the franchise.

Metro Exodus, I liked 2033 and Last Light a great deal, these games were always a little rough but had their upsides. I wasn't a fan of the open world design. I think it ruined pacing. Makes the experience inconsistent. Previous games juggled the experiences up between human drama, fighting humans and monsters, going between stealth and action, and experiencing the bizarre paranormal sections, they kept switching things up enough to keep things fresh; Exodus by contrast didn't do as good of a job, and the human drama elements seemed to drag on far too long. Like Mass Effect, not bad enough that I didn't finish it, but no reason for me to go back, and another game of wasted potential.

Tomb Raider, I actually liked both 2013 reboot and Rise of the Tomb Raider, but Shadow of the Tomb Raider was a big disappointment, they have a robust combat/skills leveling system but almost no chance to exercise use of it, they really dialed down the violence, they instead chose to add more tombs and focus on exploration. This change wasn't an improvement.

Assassin's Creed - I always liked these games despite ludicrous story arc because gameplay design was solid, all the way to Black Flag, but once Unity and Syndicate rolled around the series went to shit, I think Ubisoft wanted to make series more online integrated with no plan on how to do this, they got as far as trying to scrub mechanics series built itself around and treated player progress more to what an online experience might be, severely gimped player abilities as badly as the older games online modes might be, and when I did level up I still felt top progression was held back. I think developers tried appealing to those who whined series was too easy. Instead of focusing on new enemy types and tactics and crafting better scenarios, they went the lazy route, gimped the players.

Xenoblade sadly. well xenoblade 2 specifically.

Xenoblade X is an underrated gem imho. i think it gets a bit of flack as its focus is quite different from xenoblade 1. it's really more focused on exploring rather than being story driven. the very start is great but i also found that it went into a bit of a lull. so not the best first impression either. But once past that (which doesnt take long) it's a great game. the only thing that annoys me is raising affinity can be quite grinding which is annoying.

but xenoblade 2...*sigh*. it had the ingredients to be the best of the 3 of them. it could have gone down as one of the truly great JRPGs. i could go on and on about how it could have been so much better. instead we got a bit of a mess. If monolithsoft have one weakness is that they seem to have an idea, implements 70% of it then move on....and they do this 10,000 times. the game just collapsed under its own weight.

the story is also a complete mess. again: all the ingredients are there for an absolute cracker...but they completely missed it. I still cant figure out Jins thought process for example (just one of so many problems). such a shame.

The expansion does give me hope that they have learned some lessons from it though. The golden country just cleans out a lot of crap from the base game and its all the better for it. The combat is better, the party is fixed (no 1000 different blades with different skills that you may or may not need), there is a lot less grinding, the story is better told and it had it all set up nicely for the main game by its end. It's not perfect but certainly a step in the right direction.

Still looking forward xenoblade 3/X2 (would kinda prefer an X2) whenever it comes. 2/3 aint bad and i think they will go back and have a bit of a rethink.

Star Wars - Sure, there is Fallen Order (which I want to play) and LEGO, but Battlefront... yikes.

Mass Effect - Andromeda isn't good. Could never finish it.

Smash - Slightly at least, the Wii U game was still fun, but was a step down in modes from Melee and Brawl. Thankfully, Ultimate fixed that.

That's even IF Bayonetta 3 comes out at this point... same with Metroid Prime 4 (Namco Singapore apparently making a junk project and Retro being forced back on).

Both will come out.

My guess is Bayonetta 3 was announced literally when the deal was made, and less so while the game was actually in proper development. That game got announced the same year Scalebound was cancelled, and Japan has a bad habit of announcing stuff when they just up n decide to make a project, not when it's far along.

As for Prime 4, were it not announced in the first place, they probably would have cancelled it and never brought it up. But they did announce it, and they weren't fond of Namco's shit, so they couldn't just cancel it given the previous Metroid convos before that. Retro back as a back to basics approach was the obvious play.

When is another convo entirely and if it's even on regular ass switch, and not some new switch exclusive type thing, but both are going to get finished.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - the characters, combat, and story were all very meh when compared to the first game.

Doom (2016) - Don't like the lock in a room and waves of demons spawning. It got boring quick.

Uncharted 4 - Just felt off when compared to the first 3 games. Beautiful game but it's the only game in the series I haven't beat and every other game I've played at least twice.

Paper Mario after thousand year door.

yes uncharted 2 online was great. i liked the fact you started out with the same gun then you lloked for other ones.

the third one killed that for me because everyone stared out with a sniper and just sniped you as you re-spawned. I didn't even touched number 4 online.

I want warhawk back :(

yes uncharted 4 was so boring come paired to the others. they went backwards. I finally beat it this year. the ending fight was the best one out of them all though and the ending. but to get to that point wow.

the jumping scaling walls was to much of that in 4. not enough gun battles in 4.

Elder Scrolls. Where is it? And I don't mean online. I hate MMOs. Time wasters.

Killzone. I kind of liked the first few, but the last one just annoyed me. And why do the Helghast all of a sudden have american accents just because there are good ones among them? Proper winds me up that.

None to speak off but I guess I'll say Halo 5 mainly the campaign was pathetic and lo split-screen really hurt the series but the MP was great. But yep, Halo 5 takes the cake for me.

Mass Effect

Star Wars (Other than Fallen Order)

Devil May Cry (5 was fun, but a little shallow and I hate playing as V)

Fallout (Hate Base building in 4, 76 is yikes bad)

• Zelda
• Mario
• Halo
• Gears
• Arkham
• Shenmue

Battlefield

Fallout

Dawn of War

XCom

Arkham Knight: hugely hyped for this one after the previous two, but the 'mobile killed it. Not a bad game by any means, but nevertheless a let-down considering how great its predecessors were.

Shenmue III: as a backer, I couldn't even get past the first few hours. Would like to see my name in the credits, but not enough to slog through this antiquated shit to do so.

Thinking of some franchises for some time, here are my choices:

1. Mario & Luigi: The last two games (excluding the 3DS remasters) are disappointing and could not compare to the enjoyable Bowser's Inside Story that was released on the Nintendo DS in 2009. Let us pray that a future Mario & Luigi game will restore the franchise's former glory.

2. Xenoblade Chronicles: The last two games can never compare to the 2011 original because the latter has better characters, voice-acting, relevance (X and Chronicles 2 are forgetful titles), and story. Thankfully, the Definitive Edition of the original Xenoblade Chronicles for the Switch will be released near the end of May.

3. Paper Mario: The second game in the franchise, The Thousand-Year Door for the GameCube is the last really good Paper Mario game. Ever since Super Paper Mario for the Wii in 2007, the franchsie has deviated from the RPG formula and never had the feel of the early games. They are also forgettable games. Let us pray that The Origami King will restore the Paper Mario franchise to its former relevance.

Bayonetta 3 ... mostly because there is nowhere to be seen ... i still consider Bayonetta 2 the greatest action game ever made so i was really, really hyped when 3 was announced ... but as of now, nothing.

Mass Effect Andromeda, well for obvious reasons.

Street Fighter V ... i actually like the game and i've played a lot of it, but for some reason, i think SFIV was better.

Yes, these. Also:

• Ghost Recon (from what it used to be to where it is now....my god, how far it has fallen).
• Fallout (4 was meh, 76 I tried for 20 minutes and couldn't stomach it)

Mass effect, still love the franchise but Andromeda just didn't feel like a part of the IP.

Fallout, 4 has been kept alive by mods but 76 is just trash.

Elder Scrolls, no elder scrolls built from the ground up for this generation is a big mistake imo.

Halo, 5's multiplayer ended up in quite a good spot still enjoyable to this day, the single player was beyond poor.

Tomb raider, Dark Souls, Xenoblade and Persona.

• Loved Tomb Raider reboot in 2013 but didn't enjoy Rise and Shadow of Tomb Raider much. There is something in the reboot that is missing in the sequels.
• The more I think about Dark Souls 3 the more I dislike it. I hate the super linear nature of the game compared to DS1 and DS2 and it seemingly having an identity crisis whether to be a DS game or a Bloodborne sequel. Idk why I even bothered to platinum it.
• I still loved Persona 5 and Royal and I still consider it as one of the best titles this gen but compared to previous title especially Persona 3, everything about Persona 5 except combat and music came out short. The writing in this game is very subpar as well when compared to P3 & P4.
• Xenoblade 2 is fuking straight garbage dumpster title.

Halo 5. I really play Halo for the single player campaign and Halo 5's story was a mess, and I did not like having to switch from Chief to Locke.

No way RE was way better this gen than last

@drummerdave9099: Disagree. RE7 wasn't Resident Evil. A good horror game, sure... but not RE. If they wanted that to represent what they wanted RE to be from here on, it shouldn't have been numbered. It should have simply been called Resident Evil, Biohazard, or even RE VR or some other side game name. Other than name, it basically has nothing to do with the rest of the series until Chris shows up the last two minutes of the game.

Halo & Mass Effect... H5 & Andromeda were very underwhelming.

Here's a couple of mine:

GT Sport: Not enough choices, no career mode at launch, and you could buy your way through the game.

Halo 5 :Mostly just a tad too short.

Halo Reach (Only Mater Chief Collection version, not original 360 version!) : No offline progression modes for spartan customization. Since one of the smaller appeals to Reach was spartan customization, Yeah...big let down.

Digimon story cyber sleuth hacker's memory: Fun game, but if the previous two Digimon games allowed me to chose between a male or female protagonist, don't be too surprise when I view the next installment of the series a bit lazy for taking away that choice, especially when most of that game's assets are just reused from a previous game in the series.

Battlefield V: I liked Battlefield 1, but it was a little bit shorter than I'd like. V on the other hand...was entirely too short, and I'm pretty sure "Rendezvous at the Bridge" does not mean rendezvous at the desk next to the glitched out mother half suck in said desk.

Tomb raider 2013 and rise of tomb raider. The games were still good but it broke my heart when the puzzles were easy peasy. Haven't played shadow yet.

I thought Killzone was great. Had a lot of fun with the drone but I guess they don't plan to make another? I was pretty disappointed with Thief 2014. They missed so much of what made the trilogy awesome but it had good atmosphere. That's an IP I would love to have a development studio for.

Arkham Knight. I enjoyed it but to much batmobile and not enough boss battles.

The question was related to franchises you're a fan of, not please post inane braindead immature hate comments on games you've never played (and never will) because they're on a system you have an irrational hatred of.

To the OP:

Gears 5. It's a good enough game but after the long wait it was a big disappointment. It was like playing Gears 4 in a slightly bigger world with ability gimmicks. They really just didn't even try. At all.

Halo 5: sucks ass big time. Horrible game, worst in the series by a galaxy-sized margin. My trust in them to produce a Halo Infinite that doesn't completely blow is less than zero.

Resident Evil 2 remake. It was so boring I just had to stop. They forced ancient game mechanics into the game to make it feel like old RE while the graphics said new RE. Just awful. I realise I'm pretty much alone in this, but after the amazing RE7 this garbage was a massive step backwards. It turned me off RE3 remake completely into the bargain. Nice work.