5 Video Game Franchises That Died This Decade (& 5 That Came Back To Life)

E3 2019 has come to a close, and as usual, the event featured a staggering number of games on display, including some promising horror games. With no new Capcom announcement as was rumored, the horror genre was a bit underrepresented compared to previous years, but there were still quite a few impressive horror titles at the s

Microsoft’s premiere RPG franchise is Fable , with the first three Fable games all launching to various degrees of success. But despite their popularity, Microsoft has squandered the IP in recent years, releasing misguided spin-offs instead of proper sequels. However, rumors indicate that the Fable franchise will soon be coming back in a big way on Xbox Series X. According to various reports, Fable 4 is in active development at Playground Games , with the game set to be a major return to form for the series. There’s a chance that Fable 4 could even be revealed as early as next month’s Xbox 20/20 July presentation, so fans of the franchise should be sure to tune in just in c

Bug Fables is weaponized nostalgia. Moonsprout Games set out to make a game that would bring you back to the mid-90s and early-2000s, and if you played RPGs back on the SNES or N64, then this is going to unleash all the tingly feelings of your childhood stored at the back of your br

World of Warcraft lead Ion announced the WoW: Shadowlands expansion with an incredible new cinematic trailer at BlizzCon 2019. The lengthly cinematic continues the story established in BfA and focuses on World of Warcraft lore. It depicts an encounter between Sylvanas, who has traveled to Icecrown, and the current Lich King, Bolvar. Sylvanas arrives at Icecrown in pursuit of something much more nefarious than just claiming the throne for herself though. The trailer’s twist ending sparked a ton of debate on the internet and in the WoW commun

As for the party management portion of the game, Bug Fables is pretty light when it comes to managing equipment and skills. Instead of individual levels, your entire team levels up as one unit. When you gain enough XP, you can then choose to upgrade your health, your Team Points (which is your MP), or give yourself more Medal Points so you can equip more medals. Medals are your main pieces of equipment as there’s no armor or weapons to worry about. These can give you buffs, status ailment resistances, or in some cases, even allow you could try this out to use new moves. The RPG mechanics aren’t very complex, but it leads to a streamlined experience that still forces you to strategize, as you can only equip a limited number of medals and carry a limited number of healing it

An easy contender for Microsoft’s biggest game for 2020, Halo: Infinite , returned to E3 this past summer and received a featured spot at the very end of its annual press conference. The new cinematic footage was more story-centric than the prior year’s atmospheric tease and revealed an unnamed UNSC pilot discovering Master Chief floating in space. After reviving the iconic hero, a mysterious yellow lightning strikes the USNC Pelican, prompting Master Chief to grab a gun and jump out of the ship. For fans wanting more, Microsoft is essentially putting Halo Infinite back on ice until E3 2020 ahead of its holiday 2020 launch on Project Scarlett. We’ll be ready for the next update whenever it arrives over the sum

The Skate franchise has earned just about as much of a reputation as the Tony Hawk games at this point, and it seems like a no-brainer that EA would want to capitalize on its popularity sooner rather than later. When Skate 3 was added to Xbox One Backward Compatibility , many gamers began speculating that a new game was on the way, but no announcement c

One of the more surprising moments during Microsoft’s E3 2019 press conference was the announcement of a Blair Witch video game . Based on the blockbuster found-footage horror movie series, Blair Witch benefits from being developed by Bloober Team, the studio behind hit horror games like Layers of Fear and Observer . Featuring first-person psychological horror front and center, Blair Witch looks to carry on the tradition of those titles, and even better yet, horror fans only have to wait until August 30 to get their hands on the g

While Skate 4 ‘s no-show could be part of a licensing problem – the game would feature a ton of music and clothing brands, after all – it’s nonetheless disappointing that digital skaters have to stick with the last-gen entry if they want to enter the Hall of M

Obviously, the team at Moonsprout Game couldn’t get Nintendo to give them Mario, so they went and created their own tiny world. Bug Fables takes place in a kingdom of various bugs, who by order of the queen of the ants – naturally named Elizant – are searching for an ancient relic known as the Everlasting Sapling which can grant its owner eternal l

Nintendo proved with Super Mario Odyssey that there is still plenty that the 3D platformer genre has to offer, and it would be nice to see Banjo-Kazooie get a modern update as well. Rare doesn’t even have to be the studio to make the game. Microsoft has plenty of studios under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella that could be given the reigns of Banjo-Kazooie – whatever it takes to see the bird and bear make their long-awaited, and much-deserved, comeb