Games that are worse than their previous games?

[StreetLife102]

One example is GTA V, which is worse than its previous game GTA IV, because it has better physics, story, plot twists and map.

I apologize if there's already a thread like this

[Zello]

Saints Row 3 and Saints Row 2. Complete downgrade in every way possible.

Edited May 17 by Zello

[Tycek]

There was indeed thread like this, but it died in 2015. 

 

[AkshayKumar]

Far Cry 4 story and character wise was much less interesting than Far Cry 3. It was more of the same as opposed to the revolutionary Far Cry 3 which doesn't make it worse necessarily but FC 3 has a greater legacy that perhaps all the subsequent games haven't matched. 

 

Though there's a fairly vocal opinion that Far Cry 3 was itself inferior to Far Cry 2 lol

[Algonquin Assassin]

-Mafia III. The only thing that saves it at least to me is the soundtrack. Other than that still one of the biggest wastes of potential in the last decade.
 

Unique setting, but the open world itself was so boring and heavily under-utilised. Story was decent, but let down by insane mission design repetition. Where the first two games felt like love letters to what inspired them Mafia III pissed over it and what we ended up with was a poor man’s GTA V in the 60s.

 

-Watch Dogs: Legion. I gave it a chance, but the one thing that I was worried about before playing it the one thing I was worried that would totally ruin it was the ability to play as anyone off the street and yeah that’s exactly what happened. Too gimmicky and robbed the game of any defining identity. This is why playing a specific character is important to me. I don’t want to play as a construction worker or some random PA. Aiden and Marcus had their flaws, but atleast I can remember them. Also near future London felt weird compared to Chicago and San Francisco for a setting where cyber hacking is at the forefront.

 

Edited May 17 by Algonquin Assassin

[Grichka Bogdanoff]

4 hours ago, Zello said:

Saints Row 3 and Saints Row 2. Complete downgrade in every way possible.

This, but it's Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 1 kek

That's probably one of the biggest recent downgrades, but there's many others...

on top of my head I'd say:

Fallout 4 (to NV or even 3). So many things to say, so I'll just sum it up by say they turned a decent/good fps rpg into a generic dudebro looter shooter with Worms Armageddon-tier wriging

Bioshock Infinite. Many issues, cut content, change of direction which lead to a good game but very underwhelming if you come right after playing BS1/2 and had some expetations. 

Just Cause 3/4. Just meh

MGSV The Phantom Pain (to Ground Zeroes). AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I'd break the characters limit if I start writing about it

Resident Evil 3 (not remake, to 2). A rather generic sequel that's carried by its characters and cool locations

Uncharted 3. Snorefest, but had it's 10/10 moments

Devil May Cry 1 never received a sequel so I'm not going to say anything about it

[Lock n' Stock]

Fallout 4 is one for me. It wasn't a bad game by any means, but there were too many weird design choices that took me out the game, like the axing of role-playing mechanics (why remove skills and karma?) and sticking you with a generically-voiced character with a predefined backstory (which limited role-playing potential even further). At least the gunplay and other gameplay mechanics were improved a good deal however. Nonetheless, I put hundreds of hours into Oblivion, Fallout 3, New Vegas and Skyrim alike, and even then I felt like something was off about Fallout 4. I'm hoping Starfield and Elder Scrolls VI don't fall victim to this, especially after Bethsoft's F76 debacle.

 

As for other examples, GTA V is an obvious one that comes to mind, which was a downgrade from IV in various ways despite the larger map and more weapon/vehicle variety. Sh*tstar constantly re-releasing it one generation after another (while milking Online out the ass and completely neglecting single-player) doesn't help one bit either. Saints Row 3 and 4 also qualify, not bad games again but they took the "wacky and zany" nature way too far (in comparison to 1 and 2 which felt more grounded and restrained). Worst of all, Volition still seems to have learned absolutely NOTHING judging by that dogsh*t looking reboot.

Edited May 18 by Lock n' Stock

[ThatBenGuy1998]

For starters, GTA V but I think I’ve been through that enough already.

 

Mafia III as well. It reminds me a lot of The Godfather Part 3 (and yes, I know it’s a movie and not a video game) in a variety of different ways. The first two Mafia games and the first two Godfather movies were hard to beat and I get that. However, Mafia 3 and The Godfather Part 3 seem a bit like they just don’t flow near as well with the first two in their respective series, taking place long after the events of the first two Mafias and Godfathers. They’re both in just of big of need of a rewrite as GTA V if I’m being perfectly honest.

[Tycek]

- Watch Dogs: Legion. The two first parts of the series were really cool and well made games for a title that came out of nowhere. I had fun playing them and even the hipster overload in second part didn't hamper my enjoyment. WD Legion however is a game when everything was overshadowed by that one design idea that You will be able to play as every character. It adds some freshness into the series, but the gimmick is so shallow it makes the game so much worse than previous parts. There is nothing new nor cool about the gameplay, map while quite big is no way comparable to huge and diverse bay area of WD2 and lack of any central character killed the story completely. The only good thing is, they added Aiden in the DLC and You may complete the game with him. 

 

- Forza Horizon 4. From game that was the epitome of total freedom, where You were the boss, creating races and upgrading festival sites, picking radio stations, etc. we got game where all fun was replaced by FOMO and constant bombardment of various challenges. You can't have fun anymore if You have a week to complete daily, weekly, photo challenges and complete three championships. And what is even worse the awards You got very often suck - after completing whole series of events You got Fortnite like dance for Your driver, female skirt or chicken suit. I know there are people with various tastes and usually more customization is good thing, but why can't we sell for example things we don't need? Even the main point of Horizon series - big open map feels worse than the Australia from third part. Scotland is cool, but it's not exactly the first location coming to mind when You think about car racing. And the whole season system, while cool on paper didn't change much in the end. 
OST is average and some songs are censored, so what was point in including them in the place if the game is so family friendly? And to show Playground Games approach to their product, look at the station added in Lego Champions add-on. There is new radio station containing one song, which plays on a loop(!). Totally missed opportunity and very mediocre game in comparison to great FH3. 

Edited May 17 by Tycek

[Jabalous]

Mafia 3

 

the only good thing about it is the cinematics. 

[TheSantader25]

- The Last of Us Part II: I consider the story of the first game as some of the best if not the best narration a video game has offered to this date. It's the strongest quality of the series. One that is completely thrown down the toilet in the second game to follow cliche themes which haven't even been executed properly and are paced so horribly that even hurt the gameplay.

 

- GTA IV (if we consider San Andreas as the previous game): but I guess it's understandable to some degree given the new engine.

 

- Far Cry 5: Seems to me that nowadays every Ubisoft game is usually worse than the previous one when it comes to story, fine tuning the gameplay,etc. This one is no different. The game feels very shallow and disconnected to me with so much content but so little quality.

 

 

Edited May 17 by TheSantader25

[Jason]

Hmmm.

 

Saints Row 1/2 > 3/4 - It's already been mentioned and I think everyone on GTAF is in agreement on it so I don't think there's a need to go over it lol.

 

PGR 3 > PGR 4 - I absolutely loved PGR3 and on paper PGR4 seemed like a straight upgrade especially with the weather mechanics but they made some very sh*tty tweaks to some of the most popular online modes that effectively killed a a popular part of PGR3's online from ever transferring over to PGR4. The game never came close to having the community and lifespan PGR3 did in the end.

 

Crackdown 1 > Crackdown 2 - Crackdown 1 was barebones and basic but a ton of fun and while the foundations were there for a more in depth sequel what we got... was garbage. Crackdown 3 is also a poor game but I think it could have recaptured the first games magic if it wasn't for that absolutely disgustingly bad map.

 

[Is this The Guy?]

Dying Light 1 was one of my favorite games when it came out and I put many many hours into it.  Dying Light 2 just doesn’t have the same feel to it.

 

Resident evil 3 remake was significantly worse than Resident evil 2 remake.

 

Wolfenstein Youngblood in comparison to Wolfenstein New Colossus 

[Tycek]

Got another one.

 

- Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. Oh, God don't make me start on that one. From game that was brilliant title revoking all the correct tropes in FPS shooters, had nice storytelling, cool locations, really nice and powerful weapons and intimidating antagonist we moved to game that lacks in every department. It's hard to understand how Machine Games could stood so low. Story is meh and relies mostly on overplayed symbols (to defeat nazis You need commies), half of the game You play as a cripple and second half You walk back and forth on the same maps to collect every enigma code. Weapons are weak and not fun to use, in comparison to first part. What's worse game uses the same cliches that made NWO so good. We went to moon to grab codes to submarine? Here we're going to Venus to grab codes for flying craft.

 

Even the antagonist feels extremely weak. Frau Engel was good as secondary character in NWO, but here her promotion to main baddie, feels weak and even her intimidation feels flat. While I love NWO, I had to force myself to complete TNC. There aren't real boss battles (except that forced battle with just two robots at the end), enemies doesn't feel fresh nor very interesting anymore and game just lost it's charm the NWO was so full of. 

What's even worse the ruined the game with unnecessary DLC, which didn't bring anything good to the table. Wasted potential. 

Edited May 18 by Tycek

[sabitsuki]

Mafia 3, Saints Row 3 and IV, Black Ops 3, Battlefield V and 2042.

 

I think the most disappointing aspect of each of these games is that, the previous games have features and atmospheres that fans love, and yet the devs choose to, or are forced by upper management or by time constraints, to ditch them entirely. Canning features like food and enterable areas in Saints Row 2 and Mafia 2 and opting for a less gritty, 180-turn on the aesthetic like in SR2 and BF1 just to make it more acceptable and cookie cutter for the general demographic is almost always going to kill the franchise, as the Saints Row Reboot and 2042 prove well enough.

Edited May 18 by sabitsuki

[ThatBenGuy1998]

I’ve got another one to add to my list.

Call of Duty: Ghosts. Very weak in comparison to the previous Call of Duty games and kinda started a brief chain of subpar Call of Duty games that lost their historical and modern day feel.

[Craigsters]

I liked Fallout New Vegas more then Fallout 4 , not sure if it was because Obsidian  made it, but Obsidian entertainment   always seems to make a better Fallout game then Bethesda does

 

 

Maybe Bethesda should leave the Citie builder option out of the next make, owe and let Obsidian entertainment make the next one

Edited May 18 by Craigsters

[Jabalous]

21 hours ago, TheSantader25 said:

- The Last of Us Part II: I consider the story of the first game as some of the best if not the best narration a video game has offered to this date. It's the strongest quality of the series. One that is completely thrown down the toilet in the second game to follow cliche themes which haven't even been executed properly and are paced so horribly that even hurt the gameplay.

 

Completely agree on this one. nice gameplay, breathtaking graphics, and "absolutely sh*tty story". 

[Lock n' Stock]

5 hours ago, Craigsters said:

I liked Fallout New Vegas more then Fallout 4 , not sure if it was because Obsidian  made it, but Obsidian entertainment   always seems to make a better Fallout game then Bethesda does

 

Maybe Bethesda should leave the Citie builder option out of the next make, owe and let Obsidian entertainment make the next one

It's a possibility, seeing as both Bethesda and Obsidian are now owned by Microsoft. The issue is that both companies are occupied with their own projects, so it's unlikely we'll see another Fallout for a long time unless some other MS-owned subsidiary makes a spin-off (like Inxile).

[Jason]

1 hour ago, Lock n' Stock said:

It's a possibility, seeing as both Bethesda and Obsidian are now owned by Microsoft. The issue is that both companies are occupied with their own projects, so it's unlikely we'll see another Fallout for a long time unless some other MS-owned subsidiary makes a spin-off (like Inxile).

 

There was a report a little while ago that there were some very early basic talks about a New Vegas 2 by Obsidian. MS knows there's a demand for it and one of the benefits of all these acquisitions is the ability to do stuff like that, so I think there's a really good chance of it happening one day.

 

Probably won't be soon though, as their next two games are already announced and in development - Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2.

[Zello]

On 5/17/2022 at 9:12 AM, Algonquin Assassin said:

-Watch Dogs: Legion. I gave it a chance, but the one thing that I was worried about before playing it the one thing I was worried that would totally ruin it was the ability to play as anyone off the street and yeah that’s exactly what happened. Too gimmicky and robbed the game of any defining identity. This is why playing a specific character is important to me. I don’t want to play as a construction worker or some random PA. Aiden and Marcus had their flaws, but atleast I can remember them. Also near future London felt weird compared to Chicago and San Francisco for a setting where cyber hacking is at the forefront.

 

I agree. I didn't mind multiple protagonists but playing as everyone was dumb. They could have given us 3-4 protagonists as part of a hacker group and made it work. Each one playing differently. Ones the hacker, the others the gunman, ones a good driver, etc. A small team that covers everything with their own stories not play as everyone in London who all felt generic and boring with no backstories. Also the futuristic setting was dumb I didn't mind London but I would have loved it if it was present day a lot of the current stuff going on with the internet and these big large corporations, government intervention are a big thing in the present choosing the future was dumb as the commentary and themes wouldn't be the same and I'm sure a lot of Londoners wanted to see their city in the present not the future.

 

Getting rid of riding trains and making them fast travel was also a bad idea. I wanna get on the train and actually ride it not get a loading screen. No store interiors also.

Edited May 19 by Zello

[Badman_]

Mass Effect 3 is not a bad game but it is worse than Mass Effect 2 (which is the best in the franchise). Plus Andromeda is even worse than ME 3.

 

I felt at the time that God of War II (2007) was an inferior sequel, not because of gameplay or graphics (these were actually improved) but because the narrative was inconsistent and silly when compared to the original.

 

And I could use the same argument when talking about The Last of Us 2. As someone already mentioned, TLOU2 is an amazing technical upgrade but it failed to deliver in storytelling terms.

 

Also, in my opinion, GTA IV is a different but also inferior GTA SA sequel.

Edited May 20 by Badman_
English.

[Aquamaniac]

Forza Horizon, I liked the first Horizon the best, haven't played 5 yet though.

 

Also I liked Forza Motorsport 4 more than 6 and 7

 

Ghost Recon Wildlands was also better than Breakpoint

 

The Crew was also better than The Crew 2

 

Wasteland 2 is better than Wasteland 3

 

Often it are menus and stuff like that make games worse.

[TwistOfLime21]

The Resident Evil 2 remake was fun but the short length of the sequel was hard to ignore. 

[Paper Mario]

i don't play toooo much anymore, but here's some of my choices

 

- Halo 4, Halo 5 and Halo Infinite all suck. 343 is just not a good Halo developer. the best they have done was making halo mcc, and even that took years to be in a playable state. luckily it is on steam now too, so the xbox has basically become obsolete to me.

- The Worms series. man.. team 17 is really disappointing these last years... worms Armageddon was the best 2D one, and Worms Ultimate Mayhem was peak in 3D. their latest release, Worms Rumble, albeit a spin-off, is just another poor attempt at trying to ride the trend train with the stupid real-time battle royale mode... 

- like others have mentioned, only saints row 1 & 2 were great

- gta 5 indeed sucks compared to gta 4 and former installments when you look at specific elements, such as physics. it is not too bad, but.. less good than previous installments.

- fallout 4 as well.. i liked it at the time, but stopped playing before finishing the story. fallout 3 had me way longer hooked

[justinlynch3]

I liked GTA IV but found it a bit boring in places and the driving was awful.   Small sedans took corners like a semi truck sliding on ice.    GTA IV was also very... how to say it... grey, I guess?    Driving (although a bit to arcady in places) is all around infinitely better in GTA V and I rather love doing races in online.    The map and world in GTA V is also a lot more vibrant and colourful.     Story I guess is overall better in GTA IV, but Trevor is one my favourite GTA characters so far.

 

In terms of realism SnowRunner is a downgrade from Spintires and MudRunner.   

 

I gotta go against the grain again though, I'm sorry but I actually love Fallout 4.     Got all DLC's, 100% on it and lost count of how many times I played though it.    Though I don't have that much to compare it to other then Fallout 3 that I remember beating with a friend (yes couch co-op days back then), but I barely remember it by now.    I think we started New Vegas but never finished it, at least he never finished it with me.

 

WWE 2K20 was a downgrade from 2K19, though 2K22 seems to be going pretty decent so far.

[LittleBlueTroll]

Fable 3 was worse than Fable 2. 

I felt like it just lost some of that charm. 3 was still decent, but 2 was superior. 

[StreetLife102]

In my opinion GRID 2019 is better than its latest game in 2022, GRID: Legends. The car handling, camera and lighting in 2019 is kinda more realistic than Legends imo

[DODI3OG]

On 5/17/2022 at 6:28 PM, Tycek said:

There was indeed thread like this, but it died in 2015. 

 

I was also disappointed by GTA V a bit. But, it as mostly those preview articles that talked about mission-locked features being "base-game" features and I was let down by those.

 

On 5/18/2022 at 4:45 AM, TheSantader25 said:

- GTA IV (if we consider San Andreas as the previous game): but I guess it's understandable to some degree given the new engine.

I was also disappointed by GTA IV, considering there was barely anything left to do after completion. I was expecting Liberty City to be jam-packed with activities.

 

 

On 5/20/2022 at 11:16 AM, justinlynch3 said:

I liked GTA IV but found it a bit boring in places and the driving was awful.   Small sedans took corners like a semi truck sliding on ice.    GTA IV was also very... how to say it... grey, I guess?    Driving (although a bit to arcady in places) is all around infinitely better in GTA V and I rather love doing races in online.    The map and world in GTA V is also a lot more vibrant and colourful.     Story I guess is overall better in GTA IV, but Trevor is one my favourite GTA characters so far.

Anybody who's ever driven a car would say that GTA V's driving was more on point. People keep saying that GTA IV had better physics, but the physics were obviously exagerrated compared to real-life. Although, tbh, the vehicles in GTA V accelerated too fast, I just hope it had manual transmission and signal lights. XD

[flow_42]

the FAR CRY series. it just got worse with every game, went from f*ck YEAH to NOT AGAIN with every release.