There are many game series that were once incredibly popular and then disappeared from the radar. Gamers enthusiastically played these titles, gaming awards recognized them with awards, and sales made publishers beam with happiness — but today nothing is heard about them. Against the backdrop of news about remakes Dead Space and Splinter Cell, we are in a hurry to talk about other series that should be revived!
In 2001, Max Payne made a splash. The grim hero changed action games forever: he could run around the location with a bat, a shotgun, a sniper rifle and much more, but the coolest thing was to take a Beretta in each hand and, in a slow jump, deliver a headshot to the enemies. Even now it looks impressive, but 20 years ago it completely blew my mind.
But the game was captivating not only because of the shootouts, but also because of the story written by Sam Lake. The plot was simple, but the presentation with comic-stylized cut scenes and depressive speeches was catchy. Payne's monologues weren't just dissected into quotes — even his statements about the weather turned out to be biting.
«It was getting colder outside. It was colder than the Devil's heart. The snow fell with such force that it seemed as if the heavens themselves were ready to fall to the ground. Everyone was looking for shelter. It seemed that no one had hope for tomorrow.»
The first part was a huge success. It sold seven million copies, and critics and gamers unanimously sang its praises. It seemed that the series would be a long-term success, but the reality turned out to be less rosy.
Max Payne 2 surpassed the original in many ways. It looked better, the script was more interesting, Remedy was able to implement more features like television shows. But this was not enough for the sequel to sell the same impressive number of copies as the first game.
With the third part, which Rockstar was involved in, it turned out even worse. Development took nine years, the number of transfers is best left uncounted, and the budget ballooned to an unrealistic $105 million. The result was a decent game, but during the launch month it sold a measly 440 thousand copies. The corporation's losses were huge, and the series was shelved.
2022 will mark ten years since the release of Max Payne 3. During this time, gamers heard many rumors about potential remakes, reboots and sequels, but none of them were confirmed. However, there is no doubt that one day Max will return — a very large army of fans is waiting for his new adventures. Take-Two, don't let me down!
When will the new Max Payne be released?
Take the pollThe first Metal Gear was released in 1987 and became one of the first projects in the stealth genre. The player had to not fly at the enemy while holding down the fire button, but act smarter: hide, sneak up and be cunning. The enemies themselves did not allow anyone to get into trouble — having discovered the enemy, they called for reinforcements and started a hunt for Snake.
With each new part, Hideo Kojima became more and more brilliant. In the sequel, Snake could get sick and sneeze if he spent a lot of time in cold water. In Metal Gear Solid, he faced a villain who broke the fourth wall and, no joke, predicted the player's actions. In Metal Gear Solid 3, one of the bosses could die of old age. In Phantom Pain, the final plot twist turned the entire story inside out.
Each Metal Gear had so many little details and sophisticated mechanics that gamers were invariably delighted. But will this ever happen again?
Towards the end of the development of Metal Gears Solid 5, Kojima quarreled with Konami and left the corporation, giving up the rights to the series. Because of this, the fifth part was released unfinished, and the next game with the subtitle Survive turned out to be a nightmare misunderstanding.
The only person who can make a new Metal Gear is Hideo himself. No one else will repeat the same setting, plot and gameplay. Let's hope that one day Konami and the genius will still agree on a new collaboration.
As soon as you turned on Silent Hill at least once, the game captivated you with its surreal atmosphere and thoughtful plot, and at the same time scared you to the bone. Already in the introduction, the developers locked the unarmed hero in an alley and doomed him to death at the hands of bloodthirsty little creatures. That death turned out to be fake, but Harry probably regretted it. Still, he had to wander for many hours through the foggy streets of Silent Hill, solve puzzles and fight off terrible monsters.
The pinnacle of the series was the second part, where the plot blew the mind, and Pyramid Head appeared among the enemies. Alas, not a single sequel was able to maintain the bar — the following parts, although they turned out quite good, did not reach the quality of the sequel.
Silent Hills from Kojima was supposed to change everything. An excellent demo P.T., a technological picture, Norman Reedus among the actors — the game would definitely have turned out unmatched if it weren't for that one conflict with Konami.
As a result, the horror film was cancelled, P.T. was removed from the digital store, and the title disappeared from the radar for a long time. Much water has passed under the bridge since then, but there has been no official announcement of the new game — fans still have to rely on rumors.
One of the main reasons for the success of Deus Ex is the variability of the passage. Most problems could be solved in many ways: negotiate, go ahead, find a secret passage, use one of the augmentations. It's no wonder that gamers loved wandering around the dystopian world of the future.
The most successful part was Human Revolution, released in 2011. The project took two weeks to sell two million copies, and gamers and critics often called it the main release of the year.
But the sequel Mankind Divided didn't work out, although essentially the game was excellent. The versatility was still impressive: to get to his target, Adam Jensen could pick a lock, climb through a window with a powerful jump, sneak past guards while becoming invisible, break through a wall with a punch, or scatter guards with a Typhoon — just to name a few of the possibilities.
And the quests were impressively well-developed. The hero had to look for a maniac, deal with a cult leader, help a rebel newspaper and much more — there were few such tasks, but everyone turned out cool.
Alas, there were also a lot of disadvantages in Mankind Divided. Take, for example, the technical condition, which was terrible at release, and the plot that stopped mid-sentence. As a result, the game failed in sales, and Square Enix, instead of developing the next part, decided to invest in Marvel heroes. Perhaps one day the corporation will return to Deus Ex, but you shouldn't count on a quick comeback.
The creator of the Dino Crisis series is Shinji Mikami, the father of Resident Evil. While in one of his franchises brave heroes were shooting zombies, in another, the seductive Regina was fighting off dinosaurs. But the creatures of the Jurassic Period turned out to be much more dangerous than ordinary walking dead.
It's interesting that Dino Crisis was even more frightening than Resident Evil. Due to full 3D, the horrors looked more convincing, even ordinary velociraptors did not allow you to relax until the finale, and every appearance of a tyrannosaurus made you scream in panic.
The greatest dinosaur knew how to scare. Every now and then he wandered somewhere nearby, growled, rumbled and kept us in suspense in every possible way — but he attacked at the most unexpected moment. The heroine could go into a safe room and relax, when suddenly a tyrannosaurus would break through the wall and force her to run wherever her eyes were looking.
Dino Crisis regularly makes it to the top of the most desired remakes. But so far nothing has been heard about the revival of the series.
The first Syphon Filter was released in 1999 and became one of the most technologically advanced games for the PlayStation One. She looked cool, fascinated me with interesting tasks, and surprised me with her attention to detail.
Gamers could destroy most light bulbs with a shot, a volley from an electric taser would gradually set opponents on fire, and armored villains had to be gassed. Some mechanics are not even found in modern games, but back then it was something stunning.
The driving multiplayer is also worth praising. Even though it was easy to identify an imbued weapon, the cuts behind one screen still turned out impressive.
The last Syphon Filter was released in 2007 — little has been heard about the series since then. Recently there was a rumor that Sony offered to resurrect the Bend Studio title, the authors of Days Gone. It's just unknown how the negotiations ended.
In the mid-nineties, Duke Nukem was considered one of gaming's greatest heroes. Wielding guns and boots, the muscular guy rushed like a hurricane through the hordes of aliens and did it as fun as possible.
It was possible to exterminate the invaders in Duke Nukem 3D with original guns — just look at the reducer, which either turned humanoids into pathetic insects, or, on the contrary, inflated them to such a huge size that they burst. It was exciting to fight with such guns.
Plus the game was impressive with its interactivity. In a bar it was not forbidden to play billiards or watch an action movie with O. J. Simpson on TV, and in a strip club you could pay a dancer a dollar or sing Born to Be Wild at karaoke. It was the interactivity of the game world that was the main feature of Duke Nukem 3D.
After all, Nukem himself was an unconventional hero. He made jokes like «my boot, your face is a great match» considered the ladies his property and used the aliens' heads as toilets. Today, such a character could easily be canceled — this is one of the reasons why Duke disappeared from the radar.
However, the main reason for oblivion was the disastrous Duke Nukem Forever, which ended up in production hell, spawned many legal disputes over the rights and turned out to be a lousy game. It's not surprising that the developers don't want to take on a sequel.
Condemned was one of the best games of 2005 and certainly the most original. The main character was a cop who was hunting for a bloodthirsty maniac, but fell into a trap. As a result, the madman pinned a couple of corpses on the policeman and forced him to go on the run.
To clear his name, the hero had to sink to the very bottom of life, where the homeless, drug addicts and other scum live. Since a loaded barrel was a rare guest in Condemned, it was necessary to fight off the villains with pieces of wood, metal sticks and other improvised means.
But it was not so easy to defeat the scum. They turned off the lights to sneak up on the hero unnoticed, hid behind covers and mannequins, and attacked from behind. Given the gloomy atmosphere and poor lighting, the enemies managed to scare worse than scary monsters.
At the same time, we should not forget that the hero was conducting an investigation. Periodically, he had to investigate crime scenes, collect evidence and draw conclusions — this mechanic also turned out to be successful.
Unfortunately, Condemned 2 was unable to replicate the success of the original, and Monolith Productions switched to games based on Warner Bros. franchises. Perhaps after Wonder Woman they will still return to the dark title?
It's hard to name a series that is more loved in the CIS than Heroes of Might and Magic. The cult third part was so outstanding that old people are still playing it — fortunately, an HD re-release was released in 2015. But no matter how glorious the classic was, gamers would not refuse the new part.
The series has experienced difficult times more than once. If the fourth and fifth parts developed in Russia were received ambiguously, but were still mostly praised, then since the rights ended up in the hands of Ubisoft, the franchise has definitely begun to fade.
Negative reviews, weak sales, the anger of fans who reproached the studio for all its sins. All this was the reason why they tried to quickly forget about Heroes of Might and Magic.
Last year, the main competitor of Heroes of Might and Magic returned from obscurity. Let Disciples: Liberation turn out to be controversial, but the very fact of the revival is encouraging. Perhaps «Heroes» will come to life one day?
The development of every BioShock has been challenging. Ken Levin used to come up with so many grandiose mechanics that you could implement them for the rest of your life. Effective managers had to regularly visit the studio, cut off everything unnecessary and lead the project to release. The trouble is that Infinite came out eight years ago, which is too long a break even for BioShock.
There are a lot of rumors about the new part. Someone says that the scene will be two cities at once, one of which is above the ground, and the other on the surface directly above it. Someone sends a hero to Antarctica. There is even speculation that the fourth part will be called Isolation.
Alas, there is no confirmation of these speculations, and BioShock 4 may well change the genre from immersive sim to a typical shooter. After all, creating variable games is a big risk; too often they don't pay off.
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As you can see, there are plenty of great series that have disappeared from the radar. What titles would you add to this collection? Write in the comments!
Which series are you most looking forward to seeing revived?
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