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Everyone has a Sequel they never got to play
Video game history is filled with game franchises and one off titles that were ripe for more installments that never saw the light of day. Every gamer who has played their fair share of games over the years can rattle of a title or two they wish had a sequel.
In this feature we will take a look at some games that have left gamers begging for more. Games that had promise, games that could have been major franchises, but were cut short for one reason or another.
We also will go into detail about what made these games great and why they haven’t received any more sequels to carry the franchise forward. In every case there are a few key reasons that can be attributed for these series’ unceremonious ends.
Unfortunately these franchises have appeared to hit the game over screen for good, that said, in the gaming industry you can never say never and with that in mind we will also break down a possible scenario for how each these games could make a return.
Freedom Fighters
Developed by IO Interactive and published by EA games, Freedom Fighters was released way back in 2003 for the PlayStation 2, Gamecube, Windows PC, and the original xbox consoles. The game being stuck on 6th generation hardware and being available through physical disc only on PC, has pushed Freedom Fighters into relative obscurity.
In 2003 when Freedom Fighters first hit the scene there was a lot of buzz surrounding it. Squad based action shooters were a fresh and burgeoning trend on home consoles and Freedom Fighters was one of the first to deliver.
Upon release it received favorable reviews and over the years has become something of a small cult hit among action third person shooter fans. A game that was ahead of its time in many ways with DNA that can still found in similar titles today.
What made it special
When I think about what made Freedom Fighters so special, the first thing that comes to mind is the story and gameplay. A third person shooter based around building up and commanding a squad is not something we see very much in the shooter genre.
When we do get a squad based action shooter, it’s usually limited to three or four squad members, Freedom Fighters let’s players command up to 12 squadmates at once. Having command over such a large force of friendly AI characters does a fantastic job of conveying to the player that they really are in control of a small army.
When Freedom Fighters released it was exciting to simply see a small army functioning as a unit fighting alongside the player character. Giving you a large number of AI allies that were competent and fun to play with was remarkable in 2003 and it is a feat that would still be impressive in a game today, nearly 20 years later.
The story of Freedom Fighters was also something that stood out at the time. By today’s standards some of the story beats are a little cheesy but gaming narratives have evolved quite a bit in the last couple of decades. Even still, the concept was cool, drew the player in, and with some tweaks could still be compelling for a modern game.
Freedom Fighters takes place in an alternate universe where the Soviet Union ended World War II by dropping a nuke on Berlin. In the ensuing decades the Soviet Union expands throughout the world and eventually they launch a surprise invasion on modern day New York City.
The main protagonist, plumber Chris Stone, quickly joins the resistance after the initial attack and as Stone you build up your personal army of rebels through a grass roots process. You start the game with just a couple of soldiers but by the end of the game that number multiplies greatly.
Freedom Fighters was an intriguing all around package. Great visuals, fresh gameplay ideas, and an interesting story that had the United States in an underdog position fighting against an overwhelming force.
The battles weren’t taking place in space, or in a foreign jungle, or on some great historical theater of war. These fights were in New York city streets, sewers, homes. You soldiers weren’t grizzled special force operatives, just every day people resisting, banding together, to hang on to their livelihoods.
Why we will probably never see a sequel
It has been 17 years since Freedom Fighters released and there hasn’t been a sequel in sight. It’s likely that most young gamers in their early 20’s or younger never even heard of the game.
Many older gamers who were aware of the game in the past have likely forgotten about it or aren’t as passionate about a sequel as they were years ago. From a pure consumer awareness perspective the game seems to be in a kind of limbo.
The game seemed to sell moderately well and it got pretty solid review scores but the IP is probably not thought to be popular enough for a revival. Without some significant demand it’s rarity that we see old franchises come back to life.
It does happen of course, in the last year we got Shenmue III and Final Fantasy VII. Those franchise have the advantage of having huge passionate fan bases though, Freedom Fighters isn’t in quite the same category.
A more dire factor that hurts the odds for a Freedom Fighters sequel is that IO Interactive, the developers of this game, are a pretty small studio. In 2003 they had publishing help from Electronic Arts. A few years later they were under the umbrella of Square Enix. In 2017, IO Interactive managed to gain independence from Square Enix after almost going under and now they are an independent studio.
While being a small independent studio free’s them up to creatively do whatever they want, IO has fewer resources at their disposable. Without a major publisher backing them, they have to make safe bets when it comes to developing games. Right now, their Hitman series is their money maker and that’s where all of their efforts have gone in the past 5 years.
A studio as small as IO in the early days of independence doesn’t have the luxury of gambling on a 17 year old franchise that could flop. They need a breadwinner, and so far Hitman is that for them.
Why there is still hope for a sequel
There are still signs of life for Freedom Fighters and a ray or two of light for the series’ future. When IO Interactive left Square Enix they were able to retain the right to Hitman AND Freedom Fighters.
This means that IO absolutely has the power to make a new Freedom Fighters game if they so desire. No publisher can come in and challenge that decision or meddle in the process of what kind of game a sequel could be, it is IO’s game to make as they see fit.
Although IO Interactive is a small studio trying to survive in an industry that has become increasingly more treacherous for smaller studios to thrive in, they may have an idea for a new Freedom Fighters game they think can make a splash in the market.
There are rumors that they are making an all new IP currently and that may be the direction they are going. That said, maybe this new IP is really just a Freedom Fighters game? It could be a reimagining, it could be a reboot, or it very well could be a new IP but heavily borrow from the Freedom Fighters concept.
At the very least, we know IO loves Freedom Fighters as much as their fans do and they don’t mind talking about it.
Let’s hope that the series does see a return in one form or another and it takes the foundations the first game laid out and builds a new beloved game on top of it.
Def Jam Fight For New York
The sequel to 2003’s Def Jam Vendetta, Def Jam Fight For New York was a fighting video game that wasn’t afraid to embrace over the top action and combine it with rock solid gameplay.
The over the top arcade fighter was heavily anticipated after the surprise success of its predecessor and to this day it’s unique art style, vibrant graphics, and sense of crude humor still stand out.
What made it special
Never before has a game featured so many celebrities and brought them together in a high quality fighting game. Def Jam Fight For New York not only featured several Def Jam records rappers, it also had several other celebrities sprinkled in throughout the roster.
A wide variety of famous likenesses were in the game including Snoop Dogg, Henry Rollins, Omar Epps, Redman, Method Man, Carmen Electra, Ice-T, Jacob the Jeweler, and much more. Each celebrity played a character, an over the top version of themselves or a persona that was tailor made for the game.
Take a bunch of famous people, throw them into a video game, and rake in the money, sounds like an easy cash grab situation right? A game studio banking on celebrity to get sales and push a crappy product; well, that’s probably how this series should have turned out but the reality is that Def Jam FFNY is one of the most memorable and fun fighting games I have ever played.
You heard right, let it be known, this is a quality video game. Def Jam Fight For New York was the years long culmination of the AKI Pro Wrestling game fighting engine that debuted in North America with WCW VS NWO: World Tour for the the Nintendo 64.
FFNY was an incredible amalgamation of years of tight gameplay, quality story, memorable characters, and great graphics packaged into the unlikeliest of games. People who didn’t even care for Hip Hop or the celebrities in the game still bought and enjoyed FFNY because at its core the gameplay and concept was so damn solid. This crazy idea for a video game wound up being a dream collaboration between a video game company and a business brand.
Why we will probably never see a sequel
Unfortunately for all the fans of the Def Jam gaming franchise the odds of a sequel or remake of this game are slim to none. First of all the game was developed by EA Sports and started from their EA Big brand which went defunct in 2008.
EA Big, while not the developers of this game, were a big mover and shaker behind arcade style sports games that were really popular in the early 2000’s.
To learn more about that really interesting time in EA games history check out this informative video essay from Cleanprincegaming.
EA of course is still around and as big of a gaming corporation as ever but in the last decade they have shied away from arcadey over the top sports games and have stuck to simulation based sports titles and action games in other genres. Simply put, they don’t make games like Def Jam anymore.
Another major factor is all the licensing issues. Most of the people who appeared in these Def Jam games were Def Jam artists. Their music was featured heavily as well. Any remaster of this game would likely be a negotiations hellscape just to get the rights to the music and artists.
The cost of negotiating these deals alone may be too much to make any kind of revival possible. Unlike movies, gaming seems to constantly get mired by expired music licensing issues.
Licensing deals have been a huge hurdle for some older games who over the years have had to be pulled from market places due to their music licence deals running out.
A lot has changed in the last 15 years and simply negotiating with Def Jam records may not be enough depending on who owns the rights to certain music and likenesses. The juice of remastering or making a new game may not be worth the squeeze for EA.
Lastly there is the matter of AKI corporation, the developers of the fighting engine for the first two Def Jam games. The AKI engine is one of the main reasons why Def Jam and the Nintendo 64 era Pro Wrestling games were so popular.
It’s an extremely fun and intuitive combat system and and pretty much the heart and soul of every game it’s featured in. Without the AKI engine, the series isn’t the same. EA tried to get away with this in the Sequel to Fight For New York, Def Jam Icon, and it was a flat out disaster.
AKI corporation is now known as Syn Sophia but it is unknown if they still have their old fighting engine or if they would be willing to partner up with EA again to recreate it. It’s been a very long time since Syn Sophia has released a game with anything like the classic AKI engine so the possibility of them getting on board seems very up in the air.
Why there is still hope for a sequel
With as old as the Def Jam series is and with all the music and artist tied to the previous games, there isn’t a lot of hope that a sequel will be made. Not only are there a slew of licensing issues but EA seems wholly out of the arcade fighter business and AKI corporation is no more.
Still, hope is ever present.
Def Jam’s official twitter account has tweeted teases and references to the Def Jam series on multiple occasions in the past two years.
These are in no way indications that new games are being made but there is clearly some fan interest and the Def Jam brand recognizes this. The series isn’t totally forgotten and that is better than absolutely nothing.
So what would a new Def Jam look like? Best case scenario would be a direct sequel to Fight For New York (Please bury Icon and never speak of it again).
EA could publish the game and maybe somehow get the old AKI engine from Syn Sophia back up and running again on current generation hardware.
The new game could feature some old favorites but all new artist from Def Jam and the game could be a direct continuation of the franchise. I think old fans would rejoice and new fans would easily join in if the new game shows similar promise to the original two.
Another option, one I think would be a natural progression is that EA could possibly bypass Def Jam all together and just make a new spin off series featuring celebrities.
Fight For New York was already extending its celebrity roster to non music artist and people outside of the Def Jam umbrella. EA could jump over the hurdle of music rights and artist deals and simply go for a hodgepodge of celebrities to throw into the game.
It would still have the appeal of playing with characters people are familiar with and they could maintain a story about underground fighting. They could still sign some Def Jam series favorites to individual deals and as long as the gameplay and arcade like violence rings true to the classic Def Jam, I think fans will be happy to play any iteration of a new game.
Other Omni Game Player articles: Game Pass Subscriber? 20 of the best games you can play on Xbox Game Pass
NFL 2K/College Hoops Series
Sports games are a staple of the video game industry. Every year a new title is released for every major sport and every year they sell incredibly well. Non sports gaming fans reading this right now are probably thinking,
“Why the heck would we need even more sports games?”
The answer is simple, NFL 2K5 and College Hoops 2K8 are two of the greatest sports games ever made. Sports video games fans know that these games offered unprecedented simulation experiences that are sorely desired all these years later.
What made these games so good?
Many consider NFL 2K to be the greatest Football game series ever made with the last entry, NFL 2K5, being the crowning jewel of video game sports titles. Right along with NFL 2K5 stands College Hoops 2K8. My personal favorite sports game of all time and another sports game that has set a bar so high, it can be argued that no other basketball game has met it since.
What made both of these series great is that they were excellent simulations of their sports not only on the field and court but outside of it as well. Both NFL 2K5 and College Hoops 2K8 feature full fledge sportscenter like shows with highlights, weekly rundowns, stats, commentary, the whole works.
15 years later, no other sports game goes as in depth as these two did on the presentation end of things and it’s a real shame that we haven’t been able to see a natural evolution of these two hallmark titles. What would either game look like today if they had over a decade of iterations and improvements?
Why we will probably never see a sequel
There are two different but equally crushing reasons why there have never been more sequels to these games. In the case of NFL 2K5, after its surging success against Madden NFL Football 2005, EA Sports locked a deal down with the National Football League to become the exclusive maker of NFL simulation games.
Ever since that deal in late 2004, the only official AAA NFL game to be made has been Madden. In 2007, 2K Sports attempted to make a non licensed Pro Football called All Pro Football 2K8.
All Pro Football was a nice effort and it did bring back a lot of what people loved about NFL 2K but without the NFL license, current NFL players, no franchise mode, and limited online play, the game didn’t take off.
2K never made another All Prop Football game and EA continued to renew their NFL deal. As recently as of May 2020 EA games and the NFL have come together again to renew this exclusivity deal for several more years and any hope of NFL 2K continues to be buried.
College Hoops 2K8 stopped in short because the NCAA doesn’t want college athletes to be financially compensated for using their own likenesses. The NCAA has been notorious for profiting greatly off of college athletes while not allowing them to be compensated in any meaningful way outside of student scholarships.
There is a lot of that goes into why college sports games don’t get made anymore when they were popular and recurring titles a decade ago but there is so much to go into, we won’t detail it all here. If you are interested in knowing more, check out this article by The Video game Virtuoso, it does a really good job of breaking down some of the issues.
Why there is still hope for a sequel
In the case of NFL 2K, there really isn’t much hope. The EA Sports/NFL deal is pretty ironclad and the NFL seems to be very happy with only having one company make its game. As a consumer it feels like a mistake, competition is partially what helped Madden and NFL 2K get to the levels of quality that they enjoyed.
Consumers were able to vote with their wallets as to which game was better and it was really nice having the option to get one game over the other or in some cases, both.
Maybe one day we will get a new All Pro Football or maybe someday college football games will return and 2K will put all their football efforts there. Don’t know but nothing is likely.
College Hoops 2K8 does have slightly better odds of seeing a return. NBA 2K is the hottest basketball game on the market and lately, the only one. 2K has dominated the NBA landscape. NBA 2K is also routinely one of the hottest selling video games each year.
I point this fact out to say that basketball video games are really hot right now. There seems to be a big market for them and there is room for more games to benefit from that market.
Recently the NCAA has opened up to allowing college players to profit from their likenesses being used. SI.Com explains this in an article they put out earlier this year.
In 2020, with the Coronavirus pandemic stopping sports in their entirety and leaving fans desperate for their return, and with the NCAA is now considering new legislation to allow student-athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL) the door could reopen for the series return.
SI.com on the return of college sports video games
To read the Sports illustrated article, click here for even more details.
Essentially, there is some light at the end of the tunnel for college sports games to return. There is no guarantee that 2K would even want to make another College Hoops game but there seems to be a lot of hunger for it.
Being the first official college sports game in years, consumers would probably jump at the chance to get the game. Currently, the most recent college sports games like NCAA March Madness 2010 and College Hoops 2K8 sell at inflated prices because the demand is higher than the supply.
There are gamers out there, hungry for college sports games to return and with the NCAA opening some pathways to make it viable I think there is a good chance we will see something in the future, there is simply too much money being left on the table not to do it.
TimeSplitters
I myself have never had the pleasure of playing a Timesplitters game. Somehow I missed all three entries of this series despite the fact that I have owned and heavily gamed on nearly every platform these games have released on.
Even with my lack of personal experience I have heard on numerous occasions how great these games are. Developed by Free Radical, a team comprised of many former RARE employee’s, Timesplitters is somewhat of a spiritual successor to Goldeneye 64 and Perfect Dark, two classic console shooters made by rare on the N64.
Much of the charm of those two previous games can found in Timesplitters in addition to a completely new and original IP mixref with a healthy dose of comedy.
What made these games so good
Goldeneye 64 and Perfect Dark were some of the biggest games of their time. They revolutionized the first person shooter genre on home consoles while at the same time introduced so many young and new gamers to this style of game.
When Free Radical decided to carry that Rare first person shooter torch, many of their Rare fans followed, and although none of the Timesplitters games managed to reach the commercial peak of Rare’s early shooters, they were the only games to carry that legacy forward as Rare would be sold to Microsoft and go in a different direction, pivoting away from first person action games.
When asking Timesplitters fans what makes these games special you will get a lot of answers. Some still love the gameplay though it is painfully outdated by today’s FPS standards. Others will note the at times juvenile comedy, and others still will talk about the games overall charm delivered by its lighthearted narrative and characters.
Timesplitters always had an emphasis on action but the games often managed to spice it up and not take themselves too seriously. The third Timesplitters game didn’t pigeonhole itself to being just a straight shooter, there were several game sequences that kept the game feeling fresh and the overall approach to the FPS genre was different enough that even today the games would stand out amongst the crowd of super serious shooters.
If you want to take a deep dive into Timesplitters, check out this retrospective by Blondguygamer
Why we will probably never see a sequel
Free Radical themselves are were shut down in 2009. The team was acquired by Crytek and turned into Crytek UK. Then Crytek UK was closed down and much of the team was again moved into a new studio called Dambuster Studios.
That is a lot of studio name changing and hoping going on there right? Now I don’t know who personally works there but I would imagine that there has been a significant turnover through the years.
If a new game was made, it is questionable if the people working at Dambuster Studios now could successfully recreate the soul of the earlier games.
There may have even been a Timesplitters 4 in development when Crytek purchased Free Radical but the game was shelved soon after those rumors surfaced. Year after year no new game was released and faith in a new game coming out died off.
In 2014 Timesplitters was asked about again and we got some news.
In July 2013, TechRadar spoke to the Timesplitters series developer Steve Ellis. When he was asked if Timesplitters 4 would ever see the light of day on the 8th generation consoles, he replied “I don’t think there’s any chance that’s going to happen, you always got to the point where the marketing person in the room would say ‘I don’t know how to sell this’ because they want a character that they can put on the front of the box. Every marketing person and every publisher we spoke to [said] ‘You can’t have that as your selling point’ and maybe the sales figures of previous games backed that up.” This statement suggests that it is very unlikely that Timesplitters 4 will ever be released.[2
Timesplitters Wikipedia page
The last game that Dambuster Studios has worked on was Homefront: The Revolution in 2016, another super serious first person shooter that was nothing like the Timesplitters games before it. It looks like they have recently taken over development of Dead Island 2, a first person zombie action game so they may have their hands full.
Timesplitters hasn’t had a game since 2005 and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of faith in the franchise from a commercial standpoint. Unlike the protagonists in the Timesplitters games, this series may not travel through time and be forever stuck in the early 2000’s.
Why there is still hope for a sequel
Timesplitters does still have a recognizable name. It may not be that big or carry a lot of weight but a good brand will often get kicked around for a possible retooling.
One advantage the Timesplitters series has is that it isn’t like most other shooters on the market today. Timesplitters can be goofy, it can be funny, it can be more concerned with evoking joy from gamers than being cool. Something that stands apart from other shooters in the genre still has a chance to find a viable market.
Another advantage that Timesplitters has is that it seems that the team who made it is still around in some capacity. Even with several name changes and moves Dambuster Studios still works for a company that owns the IP.
Last year a very excited redditor also made an interesting discovery. One of the original founders of Free Radical, Steve Ellis, joined up with Deep Silver and Dambuster Studios.
The pieces are in place to get a new Timesplitters up and running with some of the key people who were there when it all started. Could it just be the case of familiar staff working together again or could it be a prelude to something bigger?
The rumor mill has been churning recently so keep crossing your fingers Timesplitters fans. Something may be afoot.
Sleeping Dogs
Sleeping Dogs was the unlikely resurrection of what was once the True Crime series. The True Crime games were open world action adventure titles that were heavily inspired by Grand Theft Auto.
While the first two games, True Crime: Streets of LA and True Crime: New York City were fairly popular and were received moderately well, they were always a significant step behind other games in the same genre.
Out of the three games in the loosely connected franchise, Sleeping Dogs is the one that comes closest to capturing the top tier AAA quality of a Grand Theft Auto game while also forging it’s own identity and adding something to the genre.
What made it so good?
Sleeping Dogs is one of the few GTA like sandboxes where you actually play as the good guy. You are Wei Shen, an undercover cop in Hong Kong, attempting to take down a major criminal organization. Unlike the other popular sandbox titles it models itself after, Sleeping Dogs puts a heavy emphasis on melee combat over shooting.
While Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto are all about the shootouts and guns and explosions. Sleeping Dogs’ combat primarily focuses on martial arts. The developers really wanted to capture a Hong Kong action flick essence and they did a pretty great job of pulling it off.
Kung Fu takes about about 70 percent of this games combat. There still are guns, explosives, and other methods of doing bodily harm but good old fashioned fist of cuffs are the star attraction; a major differentiator that has garnered Sleeping Dogs a vocal fanbase.
Why we will probably never see a sequel
Although Sleeping Dogs came out not too long ago (2012), was a commercial success, and had plans for an ambitious sequel in the works, Sleeping Dogs 2 is not likely to happen.
Developer United Front Games was shut down in 2016 and so were any plans and hopes for a Sleeping Dogs 2. It has been 8 years since the release of the first game and the gaming landscape has changed somewhat since then.
Sandbox open worlds games are not quite as in vogue as they had been, Rockstar Games still holds the crown with juggernauts Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, but a lot of the other games in that same genre have fallen by the wayside.
Sleeping Dogs, Saints Row, Mafia, have kind of been on the back burner in the last several years. Gamers tastes has slightly shifted and newer titles and genres have sprung up and seem to be filling that void and it just doesn’t seem like there is a lot of interest from any company to bring back Sleeping Dogs.
Why there is still hope for a sequel
Even though the “GTA Clone” sandbox open world city game genre seems to have cooled off a little bit in recent years, the monstrous success of Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 show that these genres are still extremely healthy and profitable.
Sleeping Dogs does have a loyal following and the game has a decent level of popularity. Square Enix has released definitive editions of the game for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles and the games has been given away for free on services like Xbox Live.
There are a lot of gamers out there familiar with Sleeping Dogs and there is already an installed base of fans who would welcome a sequel. If Square Enix decided to fire up a Sleeping Dogs sequel they can get a new developer to helm the project.
If the genre takes off again after a couple of hot releases that aren’t made by Rockstar, Square Enix may be tempted to get in on that potential revenue stream and get the wheels churning on producing a sequel, it’s not much more than a pipe dream now but the potential is still there.
L. A. Noire
Team Bondi’s first and only game, L. A. Noire had lots of hype upon its release. Coming out in November of 2011, expectations were high as the game was published by the infamous Rockstar Games and was using state of the art technology to deliver a neo-noir detective game set in the 1940’s.
The game used (at the time) cutting edge motion scan technology that featured 32 cameras surrounding an actor and capturing their facial expressions.
Headed up by one of the biggest publishers in the world and featuring a game style that appeared to be similar to other famous Rockstar games, L.A. Noire was poised for success and it did do well upon its release.
On the day of the game’s U.S. release, shares in Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar Games’ parent company, closed up 7.75% on the day; a three-year high for the company. The rise was attributed to the positive reviews that L.A. Noire had been receiving.[88] In the last available figures from February 2012, the game had shipped almost 5 million copies.[10]
According to NPD Group, L.A. Noire was the best-selling game in the United States in May 2011, at 899,000 copies across the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
L.A. Noire Wikipedia Page
What made it so good?
The facial capture animations and the performances in L.A. Noire were top notch. When playing the game you are heavily awarded for paying attention to details and and Team Bondi’s recreation of downtown 1940’s Los Angeles is incredibly realized.
At the time of releases I hadn’t played any games quite like it. It had elements of Grand Theft Auto but you weren’t a criminal, you couldn’t go on random rampages. You were a police detective and you had to play the game with some level of restraint.
The investigations were the biggest draw of the game, there would be interrogation sequences where you had to try and watch a characters visual and vocal reactions and discern if they are telling the truth or not. There is collection of evidence, research, and other details that help you solve the various cases in the game.
You can get some details wrong and come to the wrong conclusions and the player is graded after every case on how well they did. L.A. Noire is a cool concept that is executed well and it’s a shame that we never got to see where the series could have gone with a few sequels that could iterate on the initial idea.
Why we will probably never see a sequel
Team Bondi is another developer that went up in smoke after making a game on this list. in 2011 Team Bondi was dissolved and much of the talent there moved on to a new company, KMM Interactive.
KMM Interactive was set to make a spiritual successor to L.A. Noire by releasing a game titled, Whore of the Orient. The launch window was set for 2015 but KMM Interactive had its own difficulties and the studio shut down just as Team Bondi had before. Whore of the Orient disappeared and so did the chances of a follow up to L.A. Noire.
in 2013 some talent yet again broke off from KMM to form another new studio, Intuitive Game Studios. So far no major games have been released from them and it seems very unlikely they will make anything L.A. Noire related as they appear to be focused on smaller, independent projects.
Why there is still hope for a sequel
Even though Team Bondi is long gone, Rockstar games still holds the IP for L.A. Noire and they could decide to make a new game. Back in 2012, Rockstar did say that they wont rule out a future L.A. Noire title even though Team Bondi was no longer a studio at that time.
While there won’t be any more DLC or additional content for the current release of L.A. Noire (we’re all too busy working on Max Payne 3, GTAV and other games to come), don’t count out the possibility of a new game in the L.A. Noire franchise in the future. We simply have not decided anything. We’re all very pleased with how that game turned out and are considering what the future may hold for L.A. Noire as a series. We don’t always rush to make sequels, but that does not mean we won’t get to them eventually – see Max and Red Dead for evidence of that – we have so many games we want to make and the issue is always one of bandwidth and timing.
Rockstar Games Blog from 2012
Now that blog post was from over 8 years ago and there hasn’t been a whole lot of speculation or rumor about a new game in the series since then so the odds aren’t too great that we will see a new game. That said, Rockstar is known to take their sweet time when it comes to developing in house titles, it wouldn’t be unheard of to see a new L.A. Noire a decade after the first games release.
Another factor in L.A. Noire’s favor is that time has been really kind to the franchise. The name also still has a lot of recognizability in gaming circles, the IP seems healthy. Rockstar Games hasn’t forgotten about the franchise as the game has been re-released just as recently as 2017.
The thread is thin but there is still some chance a new game gets made eventually. What it will look like without the direct input from Team Bondi is another question. There could very well wind up being an L.A. Noire 2, it just may be a totally different product from its predecessor when it eventually does get made.
Making games and keeping game studios going is damn hard work
Looking over this list of games and thinking about how great each and every one is in their own, unique ways really drives home the point of how devastatingly brutal the video game industry is.
You can make a critical hit that gamers love and still find your studio going out of business or pivoting direction to work on a different project.
Each game on this list brings something to the table that is needed and missing in today’s gaming landscape but due to extenuating circumstances, we will never see a continuation of most of these projects.
Even still, It’s always fun to speculate and ask “what if?” What would the evolution of these game series be if they take the next step forward? Could they recapture the magic of their originals? Can they make new magic and leave new lasting impressions on future games going forward?
Let’s hope that one day we get the opportunity to find out.
Are there any games you think need to make come back? What are they? Comment below and join in on the discussion. Hit me up on Twitter or Instagram if would rather shoot the breeze there.
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