Poll: Would you ever want your favourite game franchise to end?

[thejboy88]

Title says it all. While we all have individual gaming franchises that we all love to play and expect to carry on, there comes a time when we say to ourselves that, perhaps, it's gone on longer than it should have done. For me, it's titles like Final Fantasy. For others, it could be things like the Sonic games or some other franchise.

So, I would like to know if you, if you had the choice, would have your favoured game franchise end, or just have it continuously carry on.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

YES! FUCK YES!
That way you can get some fucking closure and a half-way decent story that doesn't end with "To be continued for $60+ next year." only to have the developer go belly up and a great big fuck you is felt by all the fans in the world.

Good example would be Space Marine. Ends with Captain Titus getting arrested by the Inquisition for possibly being a latent psyker. And boy is there set up for the next game where Titus can use psychic powers and giant force axes! Except fuck you! That game ain't coming out! He should have just died in the final fight against the daemon prince.

Or Half Life 3. We can all admit its never coming out. Wouldn't it have been better if they just finished the story in 2 instead?

Starcraft really should have ended after Brood War. Starcraft 2 is just god awful.

And the big one should be Mass Effect. Bioware, you wrote yourself not just into a corner, but into a dark, lost corner of the sunken city of R'lyeh filled with spikes and shit.
Leave this poor abused franchise alone.

 

[Artina89]

I would much rather a good franchise end, and end strongly, rather than see it slide into mediocrity. I have not enjoyed a Final Fantasy game since Final Fantasy IX, and I would much rather see it end.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yes to a certain extent.

I mean a couple of my favourites aren't exactly copy and paste like Fire Emblem per say due to each games being different from the last game like the story and setting (yes same fantasy but not the same continment).

Of course games like LoZ and Mario are something I would liked to see closure of.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Absolutely. Not just my favorite franchise, but every franchise. Enough with piggybacking on previous games' successes.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Yes. I would want to make sure everything is wrapped up though. None of this sequel baiting that so many franchises like to do.

No, Resistance, you don't get to hint that there's a race out there that drove the Chimera into a corner.
No, Dragon Age, stop turning everything on its head and raising more questions than answers.
No, Gears of War, you don't get to hint about the origins of the Locust and keep raising questions right up until the end.
No, Dead Space, stop making it seem like everything I do just makes it worse and let me beat these things finally.
No, Diablo III, I don't want to see it suggested that the Angels are now going to become just as big a threat.

The list goes on and on. What's worse is that some of these series don't bother to answer these questions before they stop. I'm so tired of franchises not moving their stories forward, not resolving anything important, just so they can keep getting more games out. Right now, Dragon Age is at the top of my list because of the sudden hard left it took in the last hour or so of the game.
Let it go, developers. End the story. Wrap it up. No loose ends, no way you can squeeze more out. Infamous did a really good job of that with the endings in 2--until the new game came along and ruined it. But for a time, that was how it should have been done.

 

[Burgers2013]

It depends. If there's an over-arching story across all of the games, then hell yes, it needs to end. How can I expect writers/developers to give me a good story with the caveat that they don't know when the story will end? This is what happens to a lot of good TV shows.

Games that exist in the same universe/setting? That's not as straight forward. Of course, Silent Hill comes to mind, as always. I think the way that most of the games work are a great way to continue a franchise. MOST of them are at most tangentially related character-wise (save SH3 and Shattered Memories), but the setting/style tie them all together in some way. This allows each game to tell its own contained story (if desired) and introduce its own ideas/twists on the nature of the setting/themes. Even though it'll never come out, and I'll never stop being butthurt about it, P.T. shows that an old franchise is still capable of generating new/interesting content.

Mechanically, Fatal Frame comes to mind. I love the mechanics of the franchise, and it's pretty unique. I don't know that many other games would find a way to make that work. The individual stories don't interest me nearly as much as the atmosphere, ghosts, and mechanics do. I'm really looking forward to the next one, so I'd be lying if I said I thought it should end at game number x.

It makes sense to bring a franchise to a close either because the narrative is over (I'm looking at you, Assassin's Creed) or developers can't think of anything creative to do game-play-wise. Other than that, I don't see how to determine whether a franchise is worthy of continuing on.

As much as I haven't enjoyed a FF game since VII/tactics, I can't really say that it "should" end. I have a lot of friends that LOVE X, XIII, and (absurdly) XIII-2. If it were up to my personal tastes, FFX wouldn't exist, and I know I'm in the minority there.

I draw the line at pachinko machines.

 

[Nazulu]

When I'm dreaming, No! I want my favourite thing to last forever. Maintaining the quality while slightly deviating from the others over and over.

In reality, Yes! Because nothing great lasts long (or just stays a one hit wonder) as they always become a whole lot worse at some point. Plus we all want variety to spice up this life.

Starcraft really should have ended after Brood War. Starcraft 2 is just god awful.

Yes, it is really bad. I waited for ages for a continuation on Broodwars story, and then SC2 had me excited when it was first announced, only to find that I couldn't even enjoy the game play cause the dialogue and story is so piss poor. Fucking Hell!

 

[Hawki]

It depends on a case by case basis. Usually, it's a case of story, but also a case of what kind of story that is. For instance, if a series employs loose continuity (or no continuity), continuation doesn't become an issue for me - to use examples from this thread, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, Mario, and Fire Emblem are examples of this, where each installment is relatively self-contained. However, if a series has overarching continuity, I think it behoves itself to eventually end. To use more examples from this thread, Gears of War, StarCraft, Dead Space, Resistance, Dragon Age, and Diablo are examples. To throw in another example, Halo - IMO, it should have stopped at Reach. But since 343 took over...yeah. And to be fair, while I think Halo 4 is sub-standard in both gameplay and story, a lot of my disgruntlement stems from my feeling that the series didn't need continuation beyond H3/Reach from a story standpoint. Likewise, as much as I love StarCraft II for both story and gameplay (yes, I did play SC1/BW, since the flames have started, loved them too), I think Legacy of the Void should keep up the promise of being the overall conclusion to the saga. That, and the statement that any SC3 will effectively begin a new story.

That said, there is an exception to this, of what's listed here - Mass Effect. I've only played the first game (bar some of two), but I'm aware of the ME3 ending SNAFU. Personally, I'm content with the series ending as per the extended cut, but I'm genuinely curious about Andromeda, considering it's tangental to the series. It's content to use what came off as a starting point, but (in theory) do its own thing. A series branching off like this is something I can get behind. A more recent example for me is Terminator: Genisys - controversial opinion, I know, but to me, it was the best film in the series since the first two. And a key difference from 3 is that while 3 carried on from 2 and ended up diluting what came before as a result (in T3's mind, fate actually IS a thing, for instance), 5 uses 1 and 2 as a jumping off point to do its own thing - different timeline, and all that, less aping, and more homage, while also going in its own direction. So whatever you think of T5, in my mind, it can't harm what came before in the same way that 3 did.

Certainly there's many series that I think should have ended before they did, but I think series can survive indefinately if they employ loose continuity and/or branch off significantly enough to stand alone.

 

[09philj]

For most franchises, it depends whether they can keep making good games. I want to see more Fire Emblem and Bravely games be made, but if they stop being good it might be time to end it, or at least sit on the IP for a while. The only exception is Mass Effect. That told one story with a beginning, middle, and end. Going back is just trading on nostalgia. If Bioware want to go back to space, they can start from scratch.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Of course. The resolution of a story arc is just as important as the arc itself - perhaps even more so. We need to feel that all of that time ... all of that effort ... all of that energy ... has been for something, and although offering up episode 6 of 23 is a great way to keep the franchise flowing from one generation to the next it's also a poor way to reward the folks who've been onboard since early-doors.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Truthfully for Halo? (Just one of my favorites.) I'm gonna be the first one here to say no. Not really, no. As Frankie said an age ago when Halo 4 was first being developed, this series has so much potential still in both gameplay AND story. I think there's still so much we could do with it.

HOWEVER, having said that, I'm not quite sure anymore if 343 is really fully up to the task of developing future Halos.

 

[The Enquirer]

You left the question very... open ended, so I said no. Mostly because some games I play aren't too heavily based in story and you can continue to evolve and refine gameplay mechanics in those. In others that involve a story, provided each story arc gets some sort of closure, I'm fine with it continuing.

What I'm not fine with is developers milking the game like a cow and not doing anything innovative with it.

 

[Callate]

"Forever" is, in the words of Prince, a mighty long time. I wouldn't want any franchise to go on so long that everyone involved was just phoning it in for a paycheck.

 

[FoolKiller]

I would like some to wrap up. I loved the Legacy of Kain series but I was glad the story ended.

I don't care if Silent Hill and Final Fantasy keep going because each game is standalone. Final Fantasy only tends to overlap in title and Cid. Silent Hill is unique because while there was some continuity, the town is just host to a bunch of different stories.

I would love to see Resident Evil end. I would love to see Halo end. It really did after 3 (as Reach was a prequel). Same with Gears. They finished the epic bromance of Marcus and Dom, and even had a prequel with Baird and Cole as the stars. There doesn't need to be more to the Gears story.

 

[Sable Gear]

Yes and it should have a WHILE ago (seriously, Metroid Prime: Corruption would have been a convenient stopping point). I hate to say it but I think we should put poor Samus out to pasture.

 

[Andy Shandy]

It depends. If there's a very apparent overarching story, then yes.

However, something like Sonic where the core mechanics and even the characters may stay the same, but the story of each game is different, I have no problem with continuing.

 

[verdant monkai]

Depends on what sort of series.

A series like Metal gear then YES. As its multiple games following the same characters, and a definitive ending is the only way we can get closure on their stories.

A series like the Tales of series then NO. As its a franchise of games following the same formula and thats all. Each time one of the games end we get some closure, the formula just happens to work so I love seeing different stories implemented in the same style.

 

[Godhead]

Yes, especially if the franchise has already died and then gets rebooted.