What game franchise story turned to shit?

[Daedalos]

We all know a couple of great game franchises that turned to shit, and numerous examples of this is is to be found in the likes of Fallout, Starcraft, Diablo and many many others. What game do you think had its story turned to utter shit? Is it on the list? Or something else?

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

Only 3 choices? wtf man

 

[racofer]

I would pick Fallout, but then it would have had to be a good game to begin with.

 

[Daedalos]

Only 3 choices? wtf man

So you have to choose, which ones are the worst 3

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

So you have to choose, which ones are the worst 3

You should probably rename the poll and thread to 'Which game franchises are the worst'.

 

[pippin]

Tomb Raider should be there as well, just like Hitman, the character went to shit when they actually gave Lara a backstory and wanted her (and you as the player) to go through stories rather than focusing on what the game's supposed to be.
That and the torture porn. Dude, those deaths in the 2013 reboot are nasty. And you get to watch everything and hear how she suffers. It's like someone at the dev's office was constantly getting off to that. Ironically, the writer for the game was Rhianna Pratchett, who did everything she could to make her a sjw posterchild.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

Tomb Raider should be there as well, just like Hitman, the character went to shit when they actually gave Lara a backstory and wanted her (and you as the player) to go through stories rather than focusing on what the game's supposed to be.
That and the torture porn. Dude, those deaths in the 2013 reboot are nasty. And you get to watch everything and hear how she suffers. It's like someone at the dev's office was constantly getting off to that. Ironically, the writer for the game was Rhianna Pratchett, who did everything she could to make her a sjw posterchild.

You mean 'The Last Revelation' wasn't a game where you played one of Lara's stories/backstory?

 

[Hoaxmetal]

All of them, everything is shit

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

Why are Star Wars and 40k there?

 

[Neanderthal]

Witcher 3 kind of let me down, good fucking game and I more than got me moneys worth, but Hunt being such non entities when compared to Jacque/Alvin and Letho is fairly unarguable. *SPOILERS HEAD* They made White Frost itself the real baddy, and this Ciri's story, now that I liked but i'd have bound it together: Have the planet and life devouring entity using the Dearg Rhudri as its heralds, as it certainly seems to grant em powers and they use elementals like their hounds, and spend more time in their Elven world doing the rebel thing and finding out about the fuckers.

Maybe some flashbacks to when Geralt was a rider an all, as well as how Ciri freed him, get to know all the riders and your enemies personally and catch glimpses of what they're serving. Could be Eredin killed his king and turned to the White Frost to save his people, the Hunt serves it so that their world is spared, give them some time to find and unlock Ciri's Elder Blood shit.

 

[rado907]

Probably all of them.

Though... I remember trying to pay attention to the plots in games when I was a kid. Then at some point I must have decided that all stories in games are shit anyway and not worth listening to. Because nowadays I don't pay much attention to the story. "OK, I'm the good guy, that's the bad guy, that's the NPC who is going to betray us, shut up and let's get on with it. I'm here to shoot guns and swing swords, explore the world, do quests, and minimax my stats. If I want a story I'll go read a book."

So maybe it isn't that the stories in games became worse. Maybe it's just that our tastes became better. (Hopefully.)

 

[Jick Magger]

Dead Space - Think it's more that it went to shit the moment it started trying to have a story. Second game's one is a shitty mess and the third one's even worse because it focuses on this nonsensical love triangle.

Metal Gear Solid - Die hard fan of the series, but the story really started falling apart after MGS3. It's pretty obvious that Kojima really didn't want to continue the series after MGS2, and didn't know what to do with it even if he did. MGS4 is a mess of retcons and asspull plot twists, with an obvious meta overtone of self-loathing and the desire for things to just get over and done with for the Solid Snake saga. Peace Walker's a bit better, but I couldn't really get over Kojima's rather naive veneration of Che Guevara. Then MGSV came, which to put it frankly was an unfinished mess that leaves a lot of unnecessary questions and pulls some of the most utterly retarded retcons in series history for the same of answering some minor to the point of utterly insignificant plot holes from Metal Gear 1 and 2.

Silent Hill - this is probably the most tragic of the lot. After Team Silent split up for good with the release of SH4, Konami basically prostituted the series out to z-list developers who had utterly no clue with what makes horror work, let alone what makes Silent Hill works. Basically the devs thought that the entire series = Silent Hill 2, so each and every game post SH4 followed the same tired formula of a main character in denial/forced amnesia being forced to confront their own demons, often with an antagonistic figure with an oversized weapon and a big stupid thing on their head hounding them throughout, and grade-school tier jump scares thrown throughout. It's fucking embarrassing to see how sharply the quality of the series went downhill after SH4, and how horribly Konami handled the IP, especially with that fucking ghastly HD collection that replaced the original VA with anime-tier garbage.

 

[Adon]

Don't know why Hitman is up there. The stories in those games were always 'meh'. Tbh a lot of these I don't consider to have had great stories to begin with.

Silent Hill is one of them however, as not any of them past 4 are really worth playing. Not even just from a story perspective, but even the gameplay seems to completely miss the mark. Shattered Memories was interesting, but that's it, just interesting. Post-SH4 games are just constantly ripping off SH2, and obfuscating the story because apparently people think the SH games can "just mean anything" and be as open-ended as a book with nothing but blank pages. Although that was mostly a problem for Downpour, I don't remember the other ones being as bad about it.

Can't really say much more than what Jick Magger said about MGS. Well, I probably could, but anything more and I'd just be indulging myself. I guess I could say that the shift in the backdrop really exemplifies how the games changed post-MGS3 and became less interesting. Even from the thematic standpoint.

 

[Space Insect]

In my opinion, most of those games had shit stories to begin with. Star Wars? More or less generic. Bioshock? Still butthurt about the ending and the fake C&C btw. Assassin's Creed? Do I even have to explain? (I only voted 40k because of all the shit GW has put it through by this point in time.)

 

[Serious_Business]

I would pick Fallout, but then it would have had to be a good game to begin with.

Pretty sharp, racoher. However you have lost your edge long ago... if you even had it to begin with. Step down before you get hurt, old man

 

[Beowulf]

The question is asked in the wrong way. It would make more sense to ask - What game franchise story didn't turn to shit?
And add the none/kingcomrade option, that most (except for fanboys and guilty pleasure exceptions ) would pick.
Also, add Deus EX so I can tick one more box (figuratively speaking, I'm not even going to try).

 

[PlanHex]

The question is asked in the wrong way. It would make more sense to ask - What game franchise story didn't turn to shit?
And add the none/kingcomrade option, that most (except for fanboys and guilty pleasure exceptions ) would pick.

Like you say, all franchise stories turn to shit given enough instalments, so the question is redundant. It'd either be none or a list of "franchises" with very few instalments.
Really the question should be something like: "Which gaming franchise has had the biggest drop in writing quality?"
Of course that brings a whole bunch of new issues with it. Is it from one specific game to the next in the franchise? Is it overall from the first to the latest? What about stuff like Silent Hill or Legacy of Kain that has peaks and valleys? And so on.

Also, regardless of what the question is, do spin-offs count?

 

[Cyberarmy]

%90 of them...

 

[Kefka1134]

I can't really think of a single franchise that's overall in a better position than when it started, enjoyment wise at any rate (not sales)

Warhammer might be the exception, Space Marine was pretty cool whereas I can't really member any solid Warhammer games before that point. Warhammer Online was pretty cool also.

There are certainly some better iterations than others though within a given franchise, that's actually pretty commonplace.

Also the reality is most of those games weren't really less fun because the "story" went south, they usually became less fun because story was increasingly emphasized.

Early Final Fantasy for example is pretty bare bones, but increasingly had a stronger kind of anime influences (the cheesier kind at any rate). Assassin's Creed 1 was more of an open world with different ways to attack missions, but then had a stronger Hollywood influence ultimately.

 

[Kefka1134]

I've almost reached the point where when someone says something has a bad "story" I'm like great! Let me play that!

Conversely when something has a good "story" I'm like oh no stay away!

 

[Havoc]

Thief. Fallout. Ultima. Wacraft. Starcraft. Witcher.

The rest on the list were not interesting, had already shit story or didn't change much to be considered rape.

 

[bloodlover]

Fallout and Warcraft. Especially Warcraft, they fucked it up so hard with the MMOs.

Wasn't AvP story shit to begin with? I don't really remember it for being special or good in any way. And who is playing Tomb Raider for the story lololol?

 

[Kazuki]

I think most franchise is started becoming shit when it started becoming franchise.

Just do one time only please and move on, rather milked it to the death.

 

[Lemming42]

Seconding Tomb Raider, although I'd say it went to shit with TR4 (the story, not the game itself, which was fine) because it was about her boring-ass backstory rather than about being catapulted around the world through a bunch of interesting locations on a flimsy-but-good-enough context, which is what made the previous entries ridiculously fun.

It's tempting to say Final Fantasy but really all the stories were pretty fucking stupid, excluding VI and IX (which were still awash with plotholes and inexplicable things). IV is my favourite Final Fantasy but the story is hilariously retarded.

 

[Daedalos]

Added Deus Ex, Tomb Raider and The Witcher and various adventure games to the list, might consider removing some, as the overall story of some franchises were never great to begin with. It's all subjective though.

Also upped the max votes to 6