9 Amazing Video Games That Will Never Get Sequels
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West deserved SO much better. #gaming
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00:00 Video games aren't made to be one-offs.
00:02 Every big publisher wants a 10-year live service brand that they can use as an excuse to print cash money.
00:09 Sadly, the other games on this list weren't lucky enough to receive such a follow-up.
00:14 They're all awesome, but no matter how much I keep my fingers, toes, and every other part of my body crossed,
00:19 the gaming gods have made it so that we'll never see a sequel, and here's why.
00:24 I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com, and these are 9 Amazing Video Games That Will Never Get Sequels, and Why.
00:29 Number 9, Sleeping Dogs.
00:31 Ironically enough, pretty much everyone slept on Sleeping Dogs when it came out.
00:35 At the time, the world was inundated with countless GTA rip-offs, and on the surface,
00:40 this game looked like just another one to throw on the pile.
00:43 But, my friends, let me tell you, this game awns.
00:47 Acting as a throwback to Hong Kong crime movies, the open world itself was ridiculously detailed for the time,
00:53 capturing the seedy, filmic underbelly of the city perfectly.
00:57 Throw on top of that a focus on martial arts melee combat as well as top-notch driving,
01:01 and the game had more than enough to set itself apart from the competition.
01:05 And at one point, a sequel was planned, but it was canned in favour of a game called Triad Wars,
01:11 a PC-only MMO spin-off that no doubt would have stripped away all the personality from the previous game.
01:17 Of course, if you haven't heard of that, then don't worry, this was actually cancelled as well,
01:22 meaning that we got no more Sleeping Dogs in any form.
01:25 And that sucks, because it was those little touches that made Sleeping Dogs so special.
01:29 You know, going to a karaoke bar to knock out a rendition of I Fought The Law,
01:33 after murdering a bunch of guys in the street, for instance.
01:36 And it's a shame that we won't get more of that any time soon.
01:40 And all because the publisher wanted an MMO that they didn't even release.
01:45 Number 8, Bulletstorm.
01:47 At one point, developers People Can Fly were primed to be the next big video game developers.
01:51 They'd become the protégé of Epic Games, who drafted the team in to work on Geese of War Judgment,
01:56 and a brand new first-person shooter titled Bulletstorm.
02:00 The idea for this game was pretty simple, create a balls-to-the-wall FPS that rewarded you for exploration and imagination,
02:07 freeing you up to use innovative weapons to chain together combo kills,
02:10 and use every part of the environment to dish out pain.
02:14 Yeah, the story was naff, but that's not what people were here for in the first place.
02:18 They came to cleave a dude's head off and then boot him 300-style into a cactus.
02:24 Sadly, despite this awesome mechanic, the game wasn't a huge hit.
02:27 And by the sounds of things, the devs haven't been able to convince anyone to bankroll a sequel,
02:32 despite releasing a remaster to gauge interest.
02:35 In an interview following said remastered edition of the game,
02:38 the devs explained that they hoped the IP would get a second wind,
02:41 but if it hasn't happened by now, Bulletstorm 2 probably never will.
02:46 Number 7, Bully.
02:48 Bully is one of those games that you could ask any random person on the street if they've played,
02:52 and before they say "now get away from me you scruffy creep", they'd say "of course I did, you scruffy creep".
02:58 Rockstar's open-world prank simulator took their anarchic sandbox charm
03:01 and meshed it with a playful school-ground setting to great success.
03:05 It sold well, it dominated the cultural discourse, so why the hell didn't it get a sequel
03:10 when GDA got a million and even Red Dev Redemption got one?
03:14 Well, the answer is it wasn't for lack of trying.
03:17 According to multiple reports, Bully 2 has been in development a few times over the years,
03:22 but has always hit roadblocks.
03:24 Whether it's difficulty updating the game for a modern audience, or Rockstar's focus on other properties,
03:29 it has never materialised, and at this point likely never will.
03:33 A recent Game Informer report claimed that about 10 hours of the sequel were actually completed
03:38 at the start of the 2010s, but the game was eventually cancelled
03:42 as developers had to help out on Max Payne 3 and Red Dead Redemption.
03:47 Now, those games turned out awesome in my opinion, but they were at the expense of this sequel.
03:51 Was the sacrifice worth it? Well, you tell me in the comments.
03:55 Number 6, Cold Fear.
03:57 You'd be forgiven for not remembering what the hell Cold Fear even was.
04:01 This mid-2000s survival horror gem was an utter joy to play.
04:04 Well, not really considering it was pretty damn terrifying, but you know what I mean.
04:08 Being one of the games at the time to push what the genre could be.
04:12 Set on a tanker, you were cast as a lifeguard forced to overcome a zombie-like infection
04:17 with a gameplay style similar to Resident Evil 4.
04:20 However, it was those similarities to Resident Evil 4 which ultimately killed any chances of this becoming a franchise.
04:27 Even though the two were in development at the same time, Resi beat it to the punch,
04:32 and as a result it was very easy to write Cold Fear off as just a clone.
04:36 It didn't help that Capcom's franchise essentially executed every idea better as well.
04:41 Players had a choice between the two, and just about everyone went with Resident Evil, and you can see why.
04:47 As a result, Cold Fear sold a staggeringly shocking 70,000 copies in the US.
04:53 And the only title I know that sold worse than that is 50 Cent Blood in the Sand.
04:57 And when you're being bundled in with that, you know something has gone terribly wrong.
05:02 No game could come back from sales figures like that, and as a result, Cold Fear was dead in the water.
05:08 Number 5, Stranglehold.
05:10 Pretty much every person on the planet has watched a John Woo movie and had the same thought.
05:15 I wish I was that cool.
05:17 Answering all of our prayers then, the Hong Kong action director decided to take everyone's desire to be in his movies
05:23 by giving them the next best thing, letting them control one of them.
05:27 Stranglehold is a direct sequel to the director's most iconic film, Hard Boiled,
05:32 and players are free to shoot their way through levels in the most bombastic way possible.
05:36 Max Payne by this point had already perfected slow-mo shooting,
05:39 but this game mixed that in with environmental destruction and an even larger moveset.
05:45 Jumping on a cart and gliding your way to perfect slow-mo headshots
05:49 brought with it the kind of joy that you worry you'll never feel again.
05:52 And alas, you probably never would, because Stranglehold never got a sequel.
05:57 Again, it wasn't for lack of trying. It looked like it would for a little while.
06:01 And the original plan was to team up the first game star, Chow Yun-Fat, with Vin Diesel.
06:06 An idea so good that I can't even think about it no longer happening without getting a little bit sad.
06:12 Unfortunately, this was put an end to when publisher Midway went out of business and the game never released.
06:18 Number 4 - Black
06:20 From one balls-to-the-wall action game to the next,
06:23 Black still remains one of the most instantly gratifying first-person shooters you can play.
06:27 It's not that the title had the most in-depth mechanics, the smartest AI, or the most inventive level design,
06:33 but it did have one major strength - it cranked everything up to 11.
06:38 The guns exploded like grenades, the grenades exploded like nukes, and the nukes...
06:42 Well, there weren't any nukes, but I imagine they'd have sounded like the world itself was blowing up.
06:47 It was a pure, visceral joy, which is even more impressive considering this was a first attempt.
06:53 As always, a sequel was in development at some point, beginning production before the original game even came out.
06:59 Which is when you know they're serious.
07:01 However, as chronicled in a really good Rayshavik video,
07:04 boring old disagreements between the devs and publisher EA allegedly led to lead designer Stuart Black,
07:10 hence the title, leaving the project entirely and the sequel falling apart.
07:14 However, a spiritual sequel, Body Count, did see the light of day, but sadly it just wasn't the same,
07:20 and a proper sequel never materialised as a result.
07:23 Number 3 - Sunset Overdrive
07:25 Insomniac have made some pretty damn awesome games in their time,
07:29 but sadly Sunset Overdrive never really received the audience it deserved.
07:33 The Xbox One exclusive wasn't a system seller, but it was a solid inventive open world game
07:38 that blended the charm the studio was known for with tight combat and movement abilities.
07:44 It was a difficult game to sell though, primarily because of its blend of styles that made it so good.
07:49 In a way, it was kinda like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater if you had a lot of mad guns
07:54 and were fighting zombies instead of pulling off McTwists,
07:57 which sounds potentially like the worst thing ever, but I promise it wasn't.
08:01 Still though, that might partly be why the game ended up with soft sales.
08:05 I mean, the grating, winking humour present in the trailers probably didn't help either, but I digress.
08:10 And as a result, Insomniac didn't release a follow-up with Microsoft or work with them again.
08:14 They still own the IP, and there was a brief glimmer of hope for a sequel
08:18 when Sony bought the studio a few years ago.
08:21 However, the new owners have made it pretty clear that Sunset Overdrive 2 isn't on the agenda,
08:26 and that the focus will be on Spider-Man and Ratchet & Clank going forward.
08:29 Insomniac simply has too many profitable properties in the works,
08:33 and Sony isn't going to put them on hold to revive a franchise
08:36 that debuted on the competition's hardware.
08:40 Number 2, Vanquish.
08:41 The world was simply not ready for Vanquish.
08:45 Platinum Games' shooter came out at a time where third-person shooters
08:48 were practically humping cover systems and chest-high walls,
08:52 and look, there's no kink-shaming here, but it did get very weird.
08:56 And instead of playing along, Vanquish said "stuff that" and did its own thing.
09:00 That "own thing" turned out to be the kind of breath of fresh air the genre needed at the time.
09:05 Instead of being stuck behind cover all the time,
09:07 you were instead encouraged to jet-slide your way around the battlefield in a sci-fi exoskeleton,
09:12 blowing the complete piss out of everything around you.
09:15 It didn't sell gangbusters, but like a lot of Platinum Games,
09:18 it did find its audience and became a cult success.
09:21 But sadly, not enough to greenlight a sequel.
09:24 The devs moved on to other projects, and while there are constant rumours that a sequel might be happening,
09:28 it all appears to be wishful thinking at this point.
09:31 Number 1, L.A. Noire.
09:33 Love it or hate it, L.A. Noire at least tried to do something new.
09:37 The game invented a whole new technology that enabled lifelike facial animations,
09:41 a feature essential in a detective story where figuring out if someone is telling the truth
09:46 or spinning a web of lies is vital to solving cases.
09:50 Likewise, its recreation of L.A. was stunning to behold and live in,
09:53 even if there wasn't all that much to actually do in it,
09:56 while the mix of casework and combat kept things interesting.
10:00 Not everything clicked perfectly, I will admit, but after a tumultuous development,
10:04 the foundations had been set for follow-ups, even if they weren't directly set in the same world
10:09 or followed the same set of characters.
10:11 Sadly, after the release, developers Team Bondi and publisher Rockstar had a pretty major falling out,
10:16 which led to a break-up and the latter company keeping the IP.
10:20 Team Bondi planned to release a spiritual successor using the same foundations called
10:24 Whore of the Orient, but eventually went out of business.
10:27 Rockstar, on the other hand, haven't released anything outside of a remaster
10:31 and a VR detective experience based on the original game.
10:34 Hopefully, they will get around to making a sequel eventually,
10:37 but considering how long it takes them to craft a new project these days,
10:41 that won't be any time soon, if sadly ever.
10:44 So that's our list, what do you guys think down in the comments below?
10:47 Would you love to see these games get sequels?
10:49 And are there any crushing disappointments I left off here?
10:52 While you're down there as well, could you please give us a like, share, subscribe,
10:55 and head over to whatculture.com for more lists and news like this every single day.
10:59 Even if you don't though, I've been Josh, thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you soon.
11:02 [BLANK_AUDIO]