Cliffhangers :(

[Hawki]

A lot of discussion about Half-Life 3 has made me wonder...why aren't other games getting their "installment confirmed" meme? Well, probably because HL-3 is in a weird place where Half-Life 2 was successful criticially and commerically, and its developers are still around. Most never-made sequels can generally attribute their lack of existence to failing at least one of these criteria.

So, off the top of my head, in memory of games that ended on cliffhangers but never got their follow up for whatever reason, I shall lay out the following honour role. Or dishonour, in some cases...

-Call of Duty: Ghosts 2
-Darksiders 3
-Dead Space 4
-Fuse 2
-Golden Sun 4
-House of the Dead 5
-Quake 5
-Sonic Chronicles 2
-Wing Commander 6
-Aliens: Colonial Marines 2
-Alien vs. Predator 2 (as in a sequel to the 2010 game)
-Metal Arms 2

So, angels, sing thee to thy rest. And express lamentations while doing so as to what sequels were never seen, for better or worse.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Excuse me, sir? Sir.

I think it's a damn crime that you left off Beyond Good and Evil 2. The fact that it deserves a sequel and the bastards at Ubisoft won't give us one makes pandas cry.

Personally, I've given up on HL-3 since it will never live up to expectations. I don't really care if we ever see a Dead Space 4 since the third one left a bad taste in my mouth, and the rest is 'meh' from me.

Outside of Darksiders 3. I thought the second one did a good job of making the series far more fun and interesting. I think the property is still in IP hell and I don't even remember who owns it right now.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Mass Effect 3? Anyone?!

 

[Mcgeezaks]

MGSV. I mean, there's still alot of story to tell about what happens between MGSV and MG1.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I'm still waiting for a Viewtiful Joe 3. It was planned to be an epic trilogy, but Capcom pulled the plug on developer Clover Studios shortly after Viewtiful Joe 2. The series sputtered and died after two lackluster spin-offs (a gimmicky DS title and a poor Smash Bros. knock-off) and never gave fans the grand finale we so desperately wanted.

Henshin a go-go...more like Henshin a no-no, amirite?

 

[Fox12]

Megaman Legends 3...

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Megaman Legends 3...

Add to that Megaman ZX 3...

 

[Tanis]

Viewtiful Joe 3

Always...Viewtiful Joe 3.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

System Shock 3, although as I type this apparently it's in the works?

 

[Fox12]

Megaman Legends 3...

Add to that Megaman ZX 3...

Megaman in general...

 

[The Madman]

System Shock 3, although as I type this apparently it's in the works?

It is, but I'm of the opinion that perhaps it would be better if it weren't. To quote the fantastic Girl Who Wanted To Be God:

There's never going to be a System Shock 3. We really should be glad.

...

If there's never a System Shock 3, Shodan, in a suitably perverse way, gets the immortality she's chased so desperately through both games. As she is, she's unforgettable. If there was another game... well, Shodan is a villain and villains are entirely unlike heroes. Heroes save the world repeatedly, and each repetition increases their status.

Every time a villain fails to destroy the world, it lessens them.

They become less of a threat, and more of a joke. A second try at storming the Godhead was both new and good for Shodan, with her initial weak position and striving for the impossible goal being striking. There's a determination there which is admirable, so lends her a little dignity. A third try and she becomes less the immortal, perfect machine and just another loser.

And, more than ice-picks to her processing terminals and EMP grenades in her face, the suspicion that she's in fact loser would destroy her - both in her own eyes and in ours. So if you love her, the best thing to do is let her go before she becomes another laughable pantomime dame. Spare her the fate of superhero comic archvillains whose threat is muted by infinitely recurring Pinky-And-The-Brain-esque attempts to conquer all existence. Let's bid Shodan adieu, be grateful that people appear to have learned from her, are inspired by her and she managed to be the conductor through which lightning struck twice. In a real way, she was the electricity which Shock.

But, just for the record, if we had to choose which cybernetic jackboot pressed on the throat of existence for all time, we'd be perfectly unhappy with hers.

 

[Hawki]

Excuse me, sir? Sir.

I think it's a damn crime that you left off Beyond Good and Evil 2. The fact that it deserves a sequel and the bastards at Ubisoft won't give us one makes pandas cry.

Afraid I haven't played it, and since a sequel's being worked on (supposedly), it doesn't quite meet the criteria of series left in perpetual cliffhanger mode.

Personally, I've given up on HL-3 since it will never live up to expectations. I don't really care if we ever see a Dead Space 4 since the third one left a bad taste in my mouth, and the rest is 'meh' from me.

Outside of Darksiders 3. I thought the second one did a good job of making the series far more fun and interesting. I think the property is still in IP hell and I don't even remember who owns it right now.

THQ Nordic owns it. They've re-released the original games. Could be working on a third, but it's all hearsay right now.

MGSV. I mean, there's still alot of story to tell about what happens between MGSV and MG1.

Does it end with a cliffhanger though?

The last Metal Gear game I played was Snake Eater apparently, but at the least, even if we don't know all the details, we still know how Big Boss's story ends, so it's not in the same vein as other entries.

 

[DoPo]

Afraid I haven't played it, and since a sequel's being worked on (supposedly), it doesn't quite meet the criteria of series left in perpetual cliffhanger mode.

The thing is, the sequel is being worked on (apparently) after YEARS of it being "worked on". There were multiple times when Ubisoft said the game is in development with absolutely nothing to show about it. As if, it wasn't in development. This became more and more evident when later on Ubisoft started to use the game as a carrot on a stick "If game X sells well, we will consider making Beyond Good and Evil 2".

The latest news we have is them basically saying "Guys, now it's finally actually really being developed" very specifically because it hasn't been until now. And even then with over a decade of false promises, and...well, being Ubisoft, I'm not entirely sure how much trust you can put in this.

OT:

The Legacy of Kain series: it is apparently dead from all accounts, which is a shame. There actually were two games that were being produced and they both got canned - one fairly early on, although it was playable, to an extent (so, after the concept phase), another one that was very late in the development cycle but got cancelled. I don't know if you want to count Nosgoth in there, as it's not a continuation of the series (it's a multiplayer-only offshoot) which got to open beta stage but servers were shut down due to lack of interest.

Technically, the game does not end on a cliffhanger, however, it does with the promise of the story to be finished. Seeing as the series is very heavily story focused, so is a sequel that was supposed to happen but never did.

 

[Saelune]

Assassin's Creed series before 3. They clearly were building up to a game where Desmond, having learned how to be a Master Assassin through the bleeding effect, would use his skills to finally take down Abstergo in the modern world.

Why did this not happen? Literally cause they did not know how to add modern guns into the gameplay.

May not be exactly the cliff-hanger you were suggesting, but it is for me.

 

[Igor-Rowan]

I'm gonna be honest, video game cliffhangers is something that needs to stop.

I know that they must tease another one in an attempt to ensure a sequel, but they usually forget to make a good game in the process, and then there are the other cases where the story simply feels hollow because it has been built up for a whole lot of nothing.

I am going to do something really stupid right now and look up Battlefield 1 and COD: Infinite Warfare's total lenght of cutscenes on Youtube, around 2h and 30min, and use that as some sort of standard, why? Because even if some other games don't have the same budget, roughly 1,5 hour of cutscene is more than enough to tell a good story, that's the lenght of a movie, composed entirely by cutscenes, not counting the things that happen in-game such as monologues, dialogues and worldbuilding through 'show don't tell'. I'm not saying that's impossible for them to make us care about the characters and the world to warrant a sequel, but I think there are better ways to end a story, than a cliffhanger.

 

[Mikejames]

I still weep for D4's cliffhanger cancellation and the loss of a chance for Deadly Premonition 2.

I think it's a damn crime that you left off Beyond Good and Evil 2. The fact that it deserves a sequel and the bastards at Ubisoft won't give us one makes pandas cry.

And they keep teasing us with mini-trailers and out-of-context concept art throughout the years to keep a small painful flame of hope alive.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Excuse me, sir? Sir.

I think it's a damn crime that you left off Beyond Good and Evil 2. The fact that it deserves a sequel and the bastards at Ubisoft won't give us one makes pandas cry.

Afraid I haven't played it, and since a sequel's being worked on (supposedly), it doesn't quite meet the criteria of series left in perpetual cliffhanger mode.

They've been teasing images for years, and nothing has come about. It's a damn shame. Also, you should totally play it because it's fucking great.

I still weep for D4's cliffhanger cancellation and the loss of a chance for Deadly Premonition 2.

I think it's a damn crime that you left off Beyond Good and Evil 2. The fact that it deserves a sequel and the bastards at Ubisoft won't give us one makes pandas cry.

And they keep teasing us with mini-trailers and out-of-context concept art throughout the years to keep a small painful flame of hope alive.

They're monsters.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

Does it end with a cliffhanger though?

The last Metal Gear game I played was Snake Eater apparently, but at the least, even if we don't know all the details, we still know how Big Boss's story ends, so it's not in the same vein as other entries.

MGSV ended VERY abruptly, I had to actually go to google and look up if it actually was the end of the game. Never had to do that with any other game.

Yeah I guess we know that, but we know very little about what he was doing between MGSV and MG1 or even MG2. Hideo could've maybe filled the gaps if it wasn't for all that Konami bs, now we'll probably never know.