What makes a great sequel?
Whenever a great new IP comes along,
people always inevitably ask the same question: “We all loved (insert game name
here), when’s the sequel?” Of course if something turns out to be a big success
story, a developer would have to be insane to not make more eventually, but
sometimes a sequel to a game well received both critically and with the fans
turns out to be…less than impressive.
This year we’re seeing sequels to two
of 2014’s biggest names: Destiny and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Destiny 2 hit store shelves last week,
while there’s still a month before we receive Shadow of War. Despite this, just by looking at the two a clear
victor has emerged as to who created the best successor to the original game. Destiny 2 has clearly been designed with
fans of the previous game in mind, while Shadow
of War has been plagued with No Man’s
Sky levels of controversy over the past month or so thanks to it looking
like it’s being geared specifically towards earning the publisher some extra
cash.
So that got me wondering: what are the
ingredients needed to create a successful sequel to a beloved original title?
Last week when discussing the new Kingsman movie with a fan, Guardians of the Galaxy director James
Gunn had this to say on the topic of what makes a great sequel: “Sequels are
not about “topping.” That framework has destroyed whole franchises. Sequels
should be about evolving.” Gunn had to say. While this definitely true when it
comes to movies (it’s still not easy to come up with too many sequels better
than the original), this definitely is also true when it comes to games. Many
games are way too concerned with trying to top what they did in the previous
game instead of trying to evolve the experience to a new and better level (the Assassin’s Creed franchise is especially
guilty of this).
Another thing that’s been made clear
with both Destiny 2 and Shadow of War is that gamers aren’t
exactly happy when you take stuff from the original game and either change them
for the worse, lock them behind microtransactions, or both. Fans got really up
in arms about how Destiny 2 changed
the shader system to be more geared towards paying for the cosmetics, and I
don’t even want to get started on the cornucopia of ways Warner Bros.
Interactive is using Shadow of War as
a Trojan Horse to make themselves a little bit of extra cash off the name of
one of the biggest multimedia franchises ever.
I think there’s two ways a sequel can
go that can make it great: take James Gunn’s advice and polish the first game
until it shines, or give something completely different. Uncharted 2 is widely regarded as one of the best direct sequels in
gaming for precisely the first reason. It took what worked in Drake’s Fortune and made it even better,
removed what didn’t, and threw in a bunch of new stuff for good measure. On the
other hand there’s games like Breath of
the Wild. Six months after release and fans are still calling it among the
best Zeldas ever made, despite being
incredibly different gameplay-wise from the rest of the series.
I think that’s why Destiny 2 is getting so much praise and
why Shadow of War isn’t. In making a
sequel it decided to improve and evolve on what the original had to offer,
giving returning players a good reason to come back and new players an
excellent starting point. Meanwhile Shadow
of War is tearing itself to shreds for extra cash, leaving fans of the
original disappointed that the long-awaited sequel is arriving as more of a
blatant cash grab than anything substantial. Just what Tolkien wanted, right?
Song of the Week
Main Theme - Destiny
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