Video game franchises have a tendency to go on seemingly forever. Pushing out games as long as people are buying them, most of the time just repeating what has worked in the past to appease the shareholders. However, sometimes a franchise needs a mix-up to keep gamers on the hook and excited for the next installment.
Sometimes, a series just needs a fresh start. A chance to reinvent itself and try something new, either to appeal to changing tastes or just to re-assert itself in the consumer consciousness. Some of these attempts do exactly that, while others might provide enough of a reason to bury a franchise in the dust for good.
The best reboots don't lose sight of what made their predecessors great and bring those time-honored lessons to a new audience. Whether it be an update to the gameplay mechanics, continuing a beloved story or even a mere graphical overhaul, reboots have the potential to re-spin the wheel and remind us why we loved these franchises to begin with.
On the other hand, you will notice that the franchise reboots lacking in quality tend to stray from what fans loved in the original entries. A reboot lacking the same soul as its original has no chance of standing up to the scrutiny of an army of passionate fans.
Digging deep through the annals of video game history, let's take a look at 15 video game reboots that succeeded in what they set out to do and 15 that missed the mark.
30 Hit: God Of War
The God of War series has long been a favorite for PlayStation gamers since the first was released for the PS2 in 2005. Fans were initially skeptic to see that the series was going to take a new direction with the reboot which dropped for the PS4 in 2018. Not only did the reboot shift the background from Greek mythology to Norse mythology, but it also took a more grounded approach to tell a story of a father and his son. The payoff has been huge as God of War quickly became a killer app for the PS4 and surely will be one of the top contenders for game of the year.
29 Flop: Aliens: Colonial Marines
Aliens: Colonial Marines sought to bring back the most memorable parts of the Alien Vs. Predator series, and boy did it ever fail. Universally panned for its buggy, bland and just all around uninteresting presentation. Even worse, Aliens: Colonial Marines forgot everything that made the original Alien movies great.
Rather than a slow and dreading experience being hunted by the ultimate predator we were instead treated to a failed attempt at an FPS were the supposed most dangerous predator in the universe kindly walks into your line of fire for you. Thankfully, the fantastic Alien: Isolation came along a few years after and provided an essential experience for Alien fans.
28 Hit: Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time
The original Prince of Persia was groundbreaking for Jordan Mechner's revolutionary approach to animation. The series has played dormant for four years before Ubisoft surprised the world in 2003 with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
Sands of Time soon became one of the keystones of that console generation for its acrobatic platforming and stylistic fighting system. Not to mention the ingenious mechanic that let you rewind time to correct your mistakes. The Sands of Time not only stopped the prince from making a fatal mistake but also brought the series back from obscurity into the limelight.
27 Flop: Alone In The Dark
1992's Alone in the Dark was groundbreaking for being one of the first fully 3D survival horror games. 2008's Alone in the Dark was a disappointing mess of a game that tarnishes its name. It's sad to see a series which used to be praised for its great world building and setting be reduced to a bug-ridden, cliched story that is hardly worth the packaging it comes in. The repetitive gameplay certainly did not help, and with that, the Alone in the Dark series went back to the darkness.
26 Hit: Prey
In 2006, Prey, a new IP, was released on the world and what an impact it made. Well after a sequel which got lost in development hell, Arkane Studios picked up the rights to the property and put their own spin on it. Prey, released in 2017, is completely unrelated to the original Prey but is no less impactful. An excellent classic science-fiction story wrapped up in a fully realized world complete with its own imagined history, Prey brought the thoughtful, contemplative gameplay seen in Bioshock into the future. Sometimes new beginnings can lead to truly great things.
25 Flop: Altered Beast
You might remember the classic Altered Beast letting you thrash through the countryside beating up a whole pot purri of enemies. While the original Altered Beast might've been a cult classic and favorite thanks to its repetitive but fun gameplay, any attempt to bring it to a new generation has not taken off. The attempt was made to bring it into the 3D era on the PS2. However, the old gameplay of the arcade era simply does not hold anymore. It just goes to show that some things should just stay in the past.
24 Hit: Return To Castle Wolfenstein
As they would later do with Doom in 2016, id software would take one of their oldest, most-beloved franchises and bring it to a new console generation. Enter Return to Castle Wolfenstein which would take the fast-paced shooting action we all know and love from Wolfenstein 3D and give it a graphical facelift.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein was a springboard for the revitalized Wolfenstein series which brought us the excellent Wolfenstein: New Order and its sequel The New Colossus.
As if that's not enough, Return to Castle Wolfenstein also gave us an incredibly fun multiplayer mode that was the reason for many late nights back in 2001.
23 Flop: Duke Nukem Forever
After fifteen years of development, the amount of hype that preceded Duke Nukem Forever was truly impossible to live up to. But the game that we got, as a result, will go down in history as one of the worst pieces of interactive entertainment to exist.
Terrible controls, an unfunny script, and uninspired gameplay do not even begin to describe the train wreck that is Duke Nukem Forever. The gamer is even offered the privilege of finding stuff in toilets and then throwing it around — gross. Considering this is funner than most of the game tells you everything you need to know.
22 Hit: Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Deus Ex is often given a rightfully deserved spot on many best game of all time lists. Instead of forcing players down a path, Deus Ex opened the world up as a digital playground allowing players to find their own unique solutions to the problems faced by them.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution carried with it the complex, conspiracy-ridden plot and totally free-form style of gameplay we expect from Deus Ex. Human Revolution is a reminder that there is still a hunger for the immersive sim genre of game that the original Deus Ex crafted.
21 Flop: Bionic Commando
Playing Bionic Commando on the NES back in 1988 must have been nothing short of a revelation for gamers. Mixing the shoot em up gameplay we know from Contra and giving players spiderman-like swinging abilities sounds like a match made in heaven. And take it from me, Bionic Commando on the NES played exactly as awesome as that sentence sounds. So then what happened in 2009 when Bionic Commando was rebooted? The gameplay was inconsistent at best and dull at worst, the best word to describe it was generic. Some series probably should have just stayed dead.
20 Hit: Doom
id software upped the ante in 1993 with Doom, a fast and furious first-person shooter which, at a time, was installed on more computers than Windows 95. It is only fitting that they would reboot Doom in 2016 and once again change how we play first-person shooters.
Doom is a direct response to Call of Duty and its army of FPS clones that have flooded the gaming market.
Rather than hiding behind cover waiting for your health to recover, Doom encouraged the player to get up close and personal to rip and tear. No cover to be found here, Doom reminded us how much fun total carnage can be.
19 Flop: Bomberman: Act Zero
Bomberman has had a long and storied history of entertaining us on a range of consoles from the MSX, NES and even the Game Boy Colour. Imagine the disappointment when the cutesy Bomberman we all knew and loved was exchanged for a dark and edgy Bomberman inhabiting a dystopian future. Attempting to update the series for the next generation of consoles, on the Xbox 360, developer Hudson Soft traded in the vibrant environments of past titles for a dreary, grey futuristic city. While the gameplay remained the same, the game was slammed for being rough on the eyes and just not being fun to play.
18 Hit: Resident Evil VII: Biohazard
Following the success of the Resident Evil IV. The series turned away from its survival horror roots and embraced a full-on action movie approach, notably jumping the shark with Leon Kennedy punching a boulder into submission.
Resident Evil VII is a haunting reminder of what kind of emotions can be brought on by a terrifyingly well-crafted horror experience.
Then imagine Resident Evil fans breathing a collective sigh of relief when it was revealed that the seventh entry in the series would go back to its roots. We got treated to the most intense, haunting and smartly designed survival horror we have seen in years. The Baker house brings back what we loved most about the original Spencer Mansion complete with puzzles, hidden passages, and secrets galore.
17 Flop: Splatterhouse
Splatterhouse started its life in the arcades of the 80s as an action-packed beat em up. Making its way to the PC and TurboGrafix-16, it quickly became a favorite for its visceral gameplay and gorgeous graphics (at the time). Fast forward to 2010 and the same cannot be said for its reboot. Hoping to evoke a similar sense of shock and awe, Splatterhouse's reboot went way over the top with its brutality and adult themes. None of that, however, was enough to save the reboot from a life of mediocrity stemming from its lackluster and repetitive gameplay.
16 Hit: Ninja Gaiden
Starting off in the arcade before being ported to the NES, the original Ninja Gaiden allowed the players to step into the shoes of master ninja Ryu Hayabusa. Fast forward to 2004 and Team Ninja brought Ninja Gaiden back and better than ever on the original Xbox.
Ninja Gaiden started a trend in punishingly difficult but extremely satisfying gameplay that we still see today.
Bringing back with it lighting fast, combo-based gameplay requiring split-second precision. Ninja Gaiden also brought back its not-for-the-faint-of-heart difficulty challenging even the most seasoned master ninja.
15 Flop: Medal Of Honor
While not a complete flop in the true sense of the word, 2010's Medal of Honor was disappointing simply because of its mediocrity. A series once praised for its cinematic merit (the story of the first three games were penned by none other than Steven Spielberg) it is truly unfortunate that the series was rebooted to appeal to the lowest common denominator and turn into yet another Call of Duty clone. It is ironic that Call of Duty developed its flair for bombast from the tense scenes of the original Medal of Honor and yet now Medal of Honor is nipping at Call of Duty's heels.
14 Hit: Metroid Prime
Metroid put players in the shoes of bounty hunter Samus Aran, exploring a wide-open world and fighting space pirate Ridley. If that sentence does not make you want to play this series then I think you might be a lost cause and there is no better place to start the series than Metroid Prime.
Taking the traditionally side-scrolling series into a first-person perspective, Metroid Prime let players embody Samus in every sense of the word.
Universally praised for how it broke the mold of the FPS by combing platforming, puzzles and an engrossing story. It goes without saying that Metroid Prime 3 cannot come soon enough.
13 Flop: Thief
Similar to Deus Ex, Thief allowed players to get creative in how they overcame the obstacles in front of them, giving players a wide array of tools at their disposal. Being a squishy kleptomaniac, Thief encouraged a non-confrontational approach since protagonist Garrett could not last long in a straight up fight. The series had been dormant for about a decade until it was revived in 2014 to an underwhelming response. Linear gameplay inhabited by cognitively defunct AI all framed in a lackluster, unoriginal story meant that the reboot of Thief will probably send the series back to its grave.
12 Hit: XCOM: Enemy Unknown
X-COM: Terror from the Deep was a hit turn-based strategy game from 1995. Taking place on two maps of vastly different scales, a worldwide geoscape, and a smaller tactical map, X-COM allowed difficult but satisfying tactical gameplay and wider resource management.
Firaxis' eye for details and experience with strategy games was a natural fit as they brought the alien-blasting gameplay to gamers in 2012. An endlessly replayable campaign with deep customization options, it's easy to see why XCOM: Enemy Unknown breathed life into this seemingly dead franchise.
11 Flop: SimCity
Simcity used to be a beloved series that is the golden example of how to make a great city building game. Cities: Skyline, Banished and even the Tropico series would follow in its footsteps and be put up against the entries in the Simcity series.
The most recent release in 2013 was slammed mostly for the fact that it had tough DRM protection which prevented players from playing the game unless they were connected to the internet. SimCity also gave players a small area to build their city in, leaving a bad taste in the player's mouths.