Sequels: A great way to prolong a good thing, or the greatest blight on modern gaming? Depending on who you ask, you might get either response. Sure, a sequel provides plenty of opportunity for growth/improvement and returning to a familiar world can be quite pleasant, but it can also lead to a lack of creativity and stagnation in the gaming industry. Yeah, it leads to brand recognition and there's plenty of cases where you'd buy the next entry just because you liked the first. But that could possibly be a lost sale for an equally good or possibly better new IP. I have a feeling many people would probably lean towards dislike of sequels simply on principal, but I'm sure those same people would count numerous sequels among their favorite games. And if not, then they've clearly gone insane, as there are any number of great sequels out there, and short lists of my favorite games would include quite a few digits among their ranks. And personally, I consider myself at least somewhat informed on what constitutes a good game.

This topic briefly came up during an online gaming excursion, and after a short while of random thinking, I figured it might possibly make a somewhat decent wall o' text thread or two if I ever wind up bored. As such, I shall commence a TLR post where I put some random thoughts to text.

At a basic level, the sequel allows the developers to reward the fans with more of the story they enjoyed with potentially more polished and improved gameplay. The way I see it, this is the whole reason why people would like sequels. The audience was left wanting more. And it shows. Go to any gaming site or forum and you'll no doubt see numerous statements that X series needs a new sequel, Y needs to come back, or someone ranting about the newest entry in Z series with regards to its predecessors. In other cases, you'll see the term "proper sequel" pop up, in the case where fans were displeased with the existing sequel. Because, after all, the creation of a sequel is often a crapshoot and you are not always guaranteed to end up with something you like. Especially if you happen to hold absurdly high standards and beliefs on what a sequel to this series should be.

On the downside, the sequel can simply be a shameless cash in. You'll often find games that were so rapidly pumped out that the sequel plays almost identically to the original. In days past, this was pretty much the cardinal game developer sin with which companies like EA and Activision were damned to the point where you could not bring up one of their series without inciting sneers from the more "hardcore" crowd. While it has become less severe as of late, it still lingers about much like a particularly foul bout of flatulence. The "sequel" might also not truly be a sequel at all, something many fans will no doubt point out in some way. If the game was at any point in its development not supposed to be a sequel to something else, you'll be hearing that all the damn time, even if massive script revisions and concept changes rendered it more pertinent to the central plot than some other entries in the series. Often the claim of a non-true sequel happens because fans are not too pleased with the direction taken, or it was not quite what was expected. Or, perhaps, they just want to claim that their favorite game is the superior one in the face of an influx to the fanbase from the "new" entry.

And then we have sequel's ugly cousins "reboot" and "remake". In this case, the developer decides to not so much make a continuation of the story as retell it whilst changing details. Or perhaps retell the original story with improved graphics and some new features. In this case, it's kind of hard to defend it against the "cash-grab" torch bearers, since seemingly someone thinks that if you like the game so much, surely you'd buy it again (and again, and again, and again, and again....). However, the case isn't all bad. The remake can allow you to put in plot details that were not introduced until the story continued elsewhere, which often leads to a more cohesive plot. If it's a reboot, you can go in a very different direction, which is great if the original direction happened to be over a rather steep cliff. In the case of both, it can allow people who came late to the party to familiarize themselves with what came before, which is especially important in today's sequel and storyline minded gaming market, even moreso if the original happens to be rather hard to get your hands on for one reason or another. But no matter how hard you try, you're going to wind up enraging fans of the original who'll view it as a way to cash in on nostalgia at best, and a bastardization of something they loved at worst. One wonders why these fans do not opt to simply not purchase the game in question or ignore its existence, but I fear logic is not something heavily practiced in gaming circles.

And to wind up the sequel gang, we also have our good buddies "genre shift" and "new team sequel". We've been seeing a lot of these lately. Someone stumbles across an old abandoned IP that can work and has a somewhat recognizable brand and decides to make a new one. The problem is that the original team is long defunct and the gameplay style may not work in today's market. Or perhaps the style goes against what the development team is good at, with the logical choice being to adapt it to something that plays to the developer's strengths rather than their weakness.

This is probably the touchiest of subjects when it comes to sequels, since gamers aren't exactly open to the idea of change, be they retro gamers who generally refuse to acknowledge anything made since 1996 or the modern gamer who has created a gaming landscape as steeped in numbers as a desert is in sand. Often you'll find people rushing to point out that there was a change in teams for this "sequel", and that the person who started it isn't involved. Due to some sort of delusional love of the original team/game(s)/developer, they're often blind to the merits of the game in question, often focusing solely on the perceived negative details. It gets especially strange when a developer shift or team shuffle actually ends up making the game better, or creating a game of similar quality to the earlier ones. An argument with someone like this can perhaps best be described as attempting to tunnel through concrete with a very thin sheet of paper.

And what would a group be without a tag-along? That's where our good buddy "spiritual successor" comes in. The way this works, the team in question may have salted the earth when it came to making a direct continuation. Perhaps they're the more artsy type and hate the concept of sequels. Maybe they just don't want to make a game that's like the last one, but they still want recognition for being responsible for it (IE: the sales and publicity). Maybe the original didn't quite meet sales expectations but managed to build a cult following that you fear alienating by not continuing their story, but you want to increase your fanbase (and by extension cashflow) by doing something different. Perhaps they just want to move away from what made them famous, but they don't want the fame to go away with it. Perhaps someone else holds the rights to a series you want to make a sequel to, so you have to be sneaky about it.

In that case, a spiritual successor is what you're looking for. It's never quite a sequel, but it is perhaps a sort of "sequel lite". I picture it as filling the role of sequel's little brother who occasionally hangs around with them but isn't exactly a part of the group. As long as you can even remotely justify it, you can call ANYTHING a spiritual successor. It doesn't need the same team, the same setting, the same gameplay, the same story, or even the same company. It appears to be seeing increased popularity lately, often due to copyright disputes and a lot of developer changeovers. You often see references poked in to what came before, but sometimes they seek to simply move completely away from the predecessor. It's simply another type of name recognition, and it works quite well with several game devs getting somewhat of a fan following. I think part of its popularity is that it allows plenty of freedom as opposed to the more constricted form of sequel normally seen, where you simply must continue onward from the first game and do so in a manner that feels natural.

The best part of all is that people are often a lot more forgiving of the spiritual successor. It avoids the sequel hating group, it provides something the fans can enjoy, any changes in gameplay style/tone/whatever are quickly glossed over without that eyesore of a number (or subtitle if we're talking about something from ~ 2000-2005) being present, and if the game ends up sucking you can simply bury it later before anyone notices (in some cases only to create another spiritual successor that hopefully fares better). It even covers you in the event you're taking ideas from an earlier game. Rather than trying to pass off your new developer sequel with probable genre shift off as a new entry in the series, you can simply have some people go on record as being huge fans of the original and taking ideas from it. Hire a person or two from the old team as a consultant and you can even stick that information on the box somewhere. Get the company that made the original to publish it. Whatever works. This also protects you from any claims of ripping something off if you happen to do it right.

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Hmm, it appears I've rambled for too long. I had plans to eventually get into some discussion of how exactly a sequel should be handled along with some more direct thoughts with elaboration, but I'll probably leave that for another post at some point. In any case, there's some information on how sequels work and the sort of shit I've been noticing. Feel free to point out that I'm an idiot and a loudmouth or how this is all clearly stuff people were already aware of.