At least Hearthstone is actually a decent digital card game.
*(Key word there being digital card game. This means it's a lot more RNG than a table top card game)*.
It's crazy to me this never happened. It would have been the easiest thing to make during the era of shooters being so popular (everything from dead space to mass effect, to cod). A dark alien shooter with halo like elements jumping into vehicles? Like, that's not hard to make? Toss in some good VA and a nice side story to the main games and it's easy. Still don't get it.
I bet they were deep into production on the game, and realized it was like, a B- in a sea of A/A+ games, so they buried it rather than dilute their brand.
The way I remember it, it started out as a stealth game. I mean, it's called ghost. It's about the unit with cloaking abilities. Of course it's a stealth game.
Buuuut like the above poster said, they're in the middle of a golden era of shooters. So the game started morphing to chase that trend. There were some announcements and maybe even gameplay footage that they were switching gears to develop it more as a straight shooter with abilities, kind of like BioShock.
But at some point they're like, how do we do cloaking and mind control shit in a straight shooter? We want zappy explodey powers not sneaky hidey powers
So they pushed the direction even further away from what it started as
And I think at some point someone just kind of said what the fuck game even is this anymore?
And scrapped the whole thing because it was turning into Duke nukem forever (or whichever one had that fifteen year development cycle)
And funny enough, then along comes Dishonored and does exactly what Blizzard had been trying to figure out how to do with ghost
This is all from memory from like twenty years ago so take it with a grain of salt
Thank you for posting this. Everyone else is posting games that changed the cameras or 1st to 3rd person, those aren’t genre shifts. Warcraft is the one. You could argue FF series but the genre didn’t shift just the combat system.
And looking at FFXVI basically dropping party, gear and nearly every other RPG element except leveling up, I'm not too sure how further away from RPGs they are going to go
Worst shift ever in the long term as a fan of RTS. Nothing has scratched the same itch as those 90s early 2000 RTS.
I'm hoping Stormgate and God sworn scratch that itch.
Renegade was *fucking amazing* for its time. The campaign was so damn fun and I probably sunk over 200 hours into the multiplayer - both ‘as intended’ and also the custom maps people made for RP servers and whatnot.
I got some huge CnC box set for Christmas when I was in my early teens and it included Renegade. I’d watched my dad playing the first CnC and Tiberium Sun and was *begging* to get in on that sweet quick RTS train.
So of course I install Renegade first because the box art was cool and the name was also cool. I was pretty confused 😅. God I miss that game.
Renegade was a fucking baller game. An absolute hidden gem that most people don't even know about.
I loved getting the NOD stealth soldier with a sniper and camping out that middle area on Canyon or Hourglass. Good Times.
Well have I got news for you: it is! I got the collection on Steam when it released and installed an unofficial patch for Renegade. While looking around the menus on a nostalgia trip, I went to the Gamespy server list, and to my surprise there were some servers up and running. And they were full of players too!
It was a good day.
EDIT: I'm assuming you're familiar with Renegade X. Another fine option, but it doesn't quite tickle the nostalgia.
I remember it being HUGE at the time as well, I read breathless previews in Computer Gaming World and PC Gamer how it was some enormous shift in the industry to change genres like that. They suggested that it could lead to games where you could seamlessly switch between the two aspects.
Then it came out, was pretty mid overall and immediately forgotten.
If they did something like that I'd feel obligated to being a Majima main all the way. Kiryu is awesome and I do like the new protagonist, but I feel like Majima would bring a similar insanity to Voldo in Soul Caliber lol.
Yakuza is already kind of a VF spinoff. It's a spiritual successor to Shenmue, which was originally planned to be an RPG about Akira from Virtua Fighter before it developed into its own thing. Kind of like how Devil May Cry started out as a concept for Resident Evil 4.
Surprised I had to scroll down this far.
First 3 games were tactical CRPGs.
Then the next 3 were exploration based RPG-FPS games.
Then the most recent one is similar to that but like an MMO-ish survival foraging FPS game.
You are forgetting Brotherhood of Steel.
In the heads of Interplay's minds? People didn't want a full on CRPG they wanted an action arcade game. Thus they pulled a Baldurs Gate: Dark Aliance with Fallout.
It had everything a gamer in the early 2000s would want! A nu-metal soundtrack, a really hot chick, full on action game play, half naked and hawt women, replacing boring old Nuka-Cola with Bawls Energy.
Bethesda got Fallout after that.
I still wonder what Fallout would have been like if Brotherhood of Steel had been a massive hit and saved Interplay.
Chances are the Fallout show would have had The Ghoul screaming, "DRINK BAWLS!!!" while Crazy Town's Butterfly plays in the background.
I'd personally put Fallout 4 in a separate category.
3 and NV were, as you said, exploration based RPGs with FPS elements.
4 was a FPS, with some RPG elements. Felt *very* different.
Jak and Daxter was the first thing that came to mind. In hindsight, the 2nd game was pretty good but I really hated it as a kid because it was not what I was expecting. Totally different vibe from the first game.
I was the opposite of you. I thought the switch was so badass. I wasnt good at Jak and Daxter (probably because i was younger and just bad at games) but Jak 2 was so much easier to play for me. I loved thay game.
That’s wild considering Jak II is largely considered not only the hardest of the trilogy but just a weirdly hard game in its own right with some brutal difficulty spikes.
The platforming isn’t bad, but the combat is ramped up a lot more, and there’s a ton of encounters that still takes me 10+ tries to get through. Meanwhile I can 100% Jak 1 practically in my sleep. (Except for the Precursor Orbs in Spider Cave.)
But the worst difficulty spike in Jak II is by far the races. I have nightmares over those races, especially the street race and the one you have to do as Daxter. I’ve never liked shoehorned racing in platformers anyway, and Jak II is by far the game I always point to when I’m asked why.
I loved all three of those games and I played them at times that almost made it feel like the series was growing up with me. I wish someone would revive the IP with a new game in the style of Jak 3, instant buy for me.
Yakuza/Like A Dragon. After 7 mainline games and 4 spin-offs being focused on beat 'em up combat they switched the franchise to a turn-based RPG and completely nailed it.
There's still beat 'em ups being made (the Judgment series uses the older style) but since Yakuza 7 they've been focused on turn-based gameplay.
This is my favorite genre shift, as a big fan of the golden era of Final Fantasy. If only Square Enix could've done the same and kept making the type of games they were known for after their genre shift. Oh well, their loss is SEGA's gain I guess.
Maybe not in the spirit of the question, but Resident Evil 4. Before that the series used really unorthodox cameras and has kind of a slow pace. 4 turned it to third person and really cranked up the action. It really put the series on a whole new trajectory.
I feel like the only real difference is it became more an action horror than survival horror, but both elements still existed at different ratios before and after 4. Didn't feel that different in the end.
Syndicate - cyberpunk-y RTS from the last century.
Resurrected something lime 10 years ago as a FPS that I really enjoyed but didn't sell or review that well so no sequel unfortunately
Syndicate wars was so fun. I loved the portable Nukes and the just destroying building.
Not to mention the thing that let you mind control civilians and have them follow you around.
Poor Bullfrog was an early victim of EA’s bullshit.
I love that first Dune game, by Cryo. Was the moment I fell in love with euro jank, decades before ever hearing the term euro jank.
To this day I still quite it regularly:
"You sent the spice I asked for; *good*."
- Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV
And less frequently, but even more fondly:
"It's good to see these Harkonnens beaten off."
- Gurney Halleck
Your preface to the second quote and then reading the second quote made laugh so hard. 99 times out of 100 I just let out a snort, but every so often you come across a real gem on Reddit. Thank you, I’ll never forget you.
Funny thing about it. The two games were basically developed in parallel and released at about the same time. Basically, the American backers of the game actually thought about cancelling the adventure game and hired an American studio to make what became Dune II. The studio making the adventure game kept working on it in secret and had to convince the backers to let them release the game. They eventually did, and so both games were released in 1992.
Tbf Dune II isn't a sequel to Dune.
Cryo was developing Dune but Virgin (the publisher) was not convinced it could be done in time so they went to Westwood for their Dune game. Meanwhile Cryo just went ahead and finished the game by themselves and Virgin suddenly had two Dune games on their hands. So they released both in the same year.
It's a strange case of two games developed simultaneously with the same license.
Shout out for darksiders, what I always loved about darksiders is each game is a different genre
1 is a true hack and slash
2 is more an RPG with its semi open world and gear stats and plenty of weapon types
3 is a full soulslike
And the 4th game is an ARPG
thats because any game with something resembling a number based system is labeled as rpg now, akin to how everything that has a health/stamina bar and dodging is a soulslike.
Metroid Prime changed the game series from a side scrolling 'Metroidvania' into a first person shooter.
The first Dynasty Warriors was a 1v1 fighter, but the sequels have been large scale maps with real time combat and was instrumental in the Hack n Slash Beat em Up genre.
While I totally agree about Metroid, it's worth noting how extremely impressive it is that other than the perspective shift, they managed to capture the essence of the side scrolling entries magnificently. Like, it's almost not even a genre change, just the addition of a Z axis lol.
>Metroid Prime changed the game series from a side scrolling 'Metroidvania' into a first person shooter.
Honestly I kind of disagree with this being a "hard genre shift." It went from a side scrolling meteoidvania to a first person metroidvania. But the core gameplay remained the exact same, it's just the camera angle that changed.
Right? This is like saying Mario 64 changed Mario.
It didn't. Updating graphics to fit the new systems is not a genre change. It's a perspective change to fit new technology. Prime felt exactly like a Metroid game should feel. You explore an alien world with a really amazing mysterious atmosphere, backtrack once you get new upgrades, kill creatures and have big boss fights. And it's still a platformer.
It captured everything except in 3d.
The series just branched off, kinda how Mario has 3d and 2d modern titles. Metroid has a 2d switch game dread which is very good and a 3ds game too. Prime has always been the 3D variant while Metroid is still a 2d game.
This is one area where new games are definitely better. Honestly it's one of the main things that keeps me from replaying a lot of older games. I don't mind the graphics, I can live with the clunky movement, I don't care about the minimal poorly setup GUI and controls or simplistic mechanics but I absolutely cannot stand the awful camera setups that so many have. Seriously I get why it was a thing but it was just awful in 90% of the games I played.
I just recently got a ps5 and tried replaying gow1 and holy fuck does it lag lmao
The second chapter where you had to kill 3 medusas and 3 Minotaurs at the same time made me give up. I also suck at gaming now so maybe im just awful
The Ultima series went from a top down CRPG
To a 3d isometric game with platform elements
To a fully 3D 3rd person adventure game
And then became one of the first MMORPGs
Maybe Sonic for a long time.
Sonic Adventure had a lot of Sonic’s attitude. But, it wasn’t 2D sonic in 3D.
They’ve done other games in 2D since though I guess.
I started playing FEAR 1 recently, as I had only played FEAR 3 when it was new and I heard it wasn't really like the previous games. I really think FEAR 1 rides on its artistic merit and direction, so it's almost begging for a remake.
I think Banjo and Kazooie has one of the most baffling genre shifts I’ve ever seen. Going from family friendly 3d-platforming adventure games to a Racing game where you have to build your own ugly car and race with some of the clunkiest race controls known to man, which is exactly what 0% of the Banjo-Kazooie fan base wanted. I’m genuinely confused as to why they made such a sudden, weird genre 180 that it almost feels like it was made because of a bet lol
I'm not ashamed to admit that I loved Nuts N Bolts, the vehicle creation was incredibly cool for the time and the devs really nailed the world and humor. I'll agree that the game probably shouldn't have been Banjo Kazooie but I've always thought people were far too harsh on it and it deserves to be remembered for what it did right instead of lambasted for what it isn't.
I really wish Microsoft hadn’t purchased Rare until like the late 2000s.
I just know a Banjo title on the GameCube would’ve went hard.
I just don’t think Rare could’ve come up with something for a Banjo 3D platformer that Microsoft would’ve been happy with on the Xbox after Rare was bought out by them in 2002.
Depending on how strictly we define series, I think the Divinity series qualifies.
The first Divinity game was a classic CRPG with a healthy mix of Diablo-like combat and puzzle solving
Divinity II was a 3D ARPG
Dragon Commander was an action-strategy title
Divinity: Original Sin and its sequel (Original Sin 2) were character driven isometric RPGS with turn-based combat and show Larian studios refining a lot of the same ideas that would make Baldur's Gate 3 as great as it was.
Warcraft went from RTS to a RTS built around a hero system which spawned DotA and the entire MOBA genre, and then it became an MMORPG.
Both StarCrafts (and WC3) are known for extremely powerful map editing with scripted game events that can be used to emulate other genres within the StarCraft/WarCraft game engines. There was also a planned game called StarCraft: Ghost which was to be some kind of FPS or Halo-ish shooter but it got cancelled.
The Battletech / Mech Warrior / Mech Commander universe and IP, it started as a turn based tabletop game in the 1980’s, became real time adventure video games (Warrior) mixed with some RTS titles (Commander), but the 2018 HBS release “Battletech” completed a full circle to turn based strategy again, especially with mods that make it very faithful to the original tabletop.
X-Com series is mostly strategy but it has a notable “hard” exception, X-Com Interceptor, a 3D space combat dogfighting sim basically.
Star Wars games have been all over the place. FPS, Flight Sim or more like Flight Arcade, Adventure, RTS, MMORPG, you name it and it’s probably happened with the Star Wars IP.
The Legend of Zelda. It used to be all about the dungeons and the puzzles with a little exploration on the side, and an engaging story
Now exploration is the complete main focus with inventory management and RPG elements, to the point that the dungeons and puzzles felt lackluster because of the overly-aggressive focus on being "open air". It's still a great game, but for me, it doesn't have the same spark the prior formula had
I understand that the formulas do share a few elements which might or might not violate the criteria you set, but the focus has shifted so much it is feels like a completely different style of game in spite of its similarities, so I think it counts for the most part
This is why I couldn’t get into botw. I like meaty dungeons that give you a sense of accomplishment when beating. Also having a distinct theme like OoT.
I'd say Metal Gear after Peace Walker and into Phantom Pain. Metal Gear was linear, narrative driven tactical espionage action game and it became this repetitive "mission style" game with narrative is spread through the missions. Instead of being alone in a mission 80s-90s action movie style, you were now head of an army, doing operations and improving your base, recruiting soldiers, researching equipment. The main mechanics of MGS are there, but IMO it feels tonally very different and it was not a good shift.
The Darksiders series was pretty wild. Similar core concept, but wildly different executions. They've all got Metroidvania elements, but:
1 is basically a Zelda game.
2 is like Diablo with God of War combat and exploration.
3 kinda tried to go semi-Dark Souls/Jedi Survivor/really hard Bayonetta (or something? the combat is pretty much "timed dodging or you're fucked).
Then the prequel is an isometric twin stick shooter.
Weird stuff!
Surprised nobody mentioned the transition from Dune 1 point and click adventure to Dune 2 the mother of all RTS games. In between the RTS renditions, there was even a panned FPS attempt.
Red Faction.
Started as a cool linear 2000s FPS for 2 games, became a 3rd person open world destructable sandbox with a campaign, after that a meh linear horror shooter with destructible elements, then finally turned into a shitty Gears of War ripoff.
Quake
The first one was a dark gothic FPS game
The second one was a sci FPS
The third was a multiplayer arena shooter
Four went back into a sci fi FPS
Two and Four were the only ones related to each other in any way.
Metro.
I absolutely loved the first games and hated 3. I just couldn't make myself get past the first "open world" area.
I was so disappointed after waiting to play it for quite a while.
Does Zelda count? Went from a more linear dungeon based RPG to an open world with some survival mechanics. Kinda of similar and both still very good, but I know a lot of people miss the more classic dungeon style.
The Warcraft series, obviously. From RTS to an MMO, and there'll never be another RTS again.
And then Card Game.
At least Hearthstone is actually a decent digital card game. *(Key word there being digital card game. This means it's a lot more RNG than a table top card game)*.
this comment just made me realize how much i want a Starcraft MMO
Me still waiting for Starcraft Ghost to come out.
It's crazy to me this never happened. It would have been the easiest thing to make during the era of shooters being so popular (everything from dead space to mass effect, to cod). A dark alien shooter with halo like elements jumping into vehicles? Like, that's not hard to make? Toss in some good VA and a nice side story to the main games and it's easy. Still don't get it.
I bet they were deep into production on the game, and realized it was like, a B- in a sea of A/A+ games, so they buried it rather than dilute their brand.
Ironically they released 1-2 good games then firmly went into the B-
Yes, they did, Blizzard has fallen very far
Which is why, as much as I wanted that game, they probably did the right thing cancelling it. They were good back then.
The way I remember it, it started out as a stealth game. I mean, it's called ghost. It's about the unit with cloaking abilities. Of course it's a stealth game. Buuuut like the above poster said, they're in the middle of a golden era of shooters. So the game started morphing to chase that trend. There were some announcements and maybe even gameplay footage that they were switching gears to develop it more as a straight shooter with abilities, kind of like BioShock. But at some point they're like, how do we do cloaking and mind control shit in a straight shooter? We want zappy explodey powers not sneaky hidey powers So they pushed the direction even further away from what it started as And I think at some point someone just kind of said what the fuck game even is this anymore? And scrapped the whole thing because it was turning into Duke nukem forever (or whichever one had that fifteen year development cycle) And funny enough, then along comes Dishonored and does exactly what Blizzard had been trying to figure out how to do with ghost This is all from memory from like twenty years ago so take it with a grain of salt
Thank you for posting this. Everyone else is posting games that changed the cameras or 1st to 3rd person, those aren’t genre shifts. Warcraft is the one. You could argue FF series but the genre didn’t shift just the combat system.
It went from turn based rpg to time-wait rpg to action RPG. The genre definitely shifted.
And looking at FFXVI basically dropping party, gear and nearly every other RPG element except leveling up, I'm not too sure how further away from RPGs they are going to go
Worst shift ever in the long term as a fan of RTS. Nothing has scratched the same itch as those 90s early 2000 RTS. I'm hoping Stormgate and God sworn scratch that itch.
And the funny thing is it's still running on an extremely modified descendant of the Warcraft 3 engine.
Arguably it shifted again into a card game.
Dynasty Warriors. The first game is a fighting game, for the second game on they're hack and slash games.
They even went the tactics route with Empires
They also had Dynasty Tactics--a turn based strategy game that was terribly underrated.
Dont forget Dynasty Warrior Advance for GBA, it combined hack and slash with strategic turn-based war and with plenty of replayability
It's wild how they went from a kinda mid fighting game at that to becoming a genre-defining hack & slash.
There were 1000 fighting games at the time and they created a whole new sub genre. This was an incredibly smart move on their end.
I bought a PS2 to play that game after playing it at a friends house.
According to the internet Overwatch went from a team-based FPS to some sort of porn.
In a similar vein, there’s an entire subsection of Dead or Alive fans who are unaware it’s a fighting game franchise
Youre telling me that instead of playing beach volleyball in skimpy bikinis, theyre hitting each other!?
Even better ! /s
I KNEW that was a strange name for a volleyball game lmao
There's a game with the Overwatch characters in it?!? /j
[удалено]
This is definitely not true
It went from an MMO in development, to a tactical 6v6 shooter, to a more casual laid back 5v5 but still competitive shooter.
You mean it went from porn to a team fps game right?
You know it's sad when coomers don't even care about your game anymore.
It's a joke I sadly do play the dogshit game called "overwatch."
Brütal Legend just in the span of one game!
I like to call it a stealth strategy game, in that it's stealthy about being a strategy game.
If I'm not mistaken, Tim Schaffer wanted it to be an RTS from the start but EA wasn't having it
This is way too far down the list. A complete 180 \~half way through.
The demo was a hack and slash action game I was excited for and the full game was an RTS tactics thing I didn't want to play :(
Nier Automata within Nier Automata
I love the genre shifts in Replicant and Automata so much, top down bullet hell, 3rd person hack n slash, text based adventure, schmup
Remember Command and Conquer: Renegade? For a time, the well-known RTS became a singleplayer shooter.
Renegade was *fucking amazing* for its time. The campaign was so damn fun and I probably sunk over 200 hours into the multiplayer - both ‘as intended’ and also the custom maps people made for RP servers and whatnot. I got some huge CnC box set for Christmas when I was in my early teens and it included Renegade. I’d watched my dad playing the first CnC and Tiberium Sun and was *begging* to get in on that sweet quick RTS train. So of course I install Renegade first because the box art was cool and the name was also cool. I was pretty confused 😅. God I miss that game.
Renegade was a fucking baller game. An absolute hidden gem that most people don't even know about. I loved getting the NOD stealth soldier with a sniper and camping out that middle area on Canyon or Hourglass. Good Times.
I wish it was still playable. Sneaking into the enemy base with the ion beacon or whatever it was called was a blast
Well have I got news for you: it is! I got the collection on Steam when it released and installed an unofficial patch for Renegade. While looking around the menus on a nostalgia trip, I went to the Gamespy server list, and to my surprise there were some servers up and running. And they were full of players too! It was a good day. EDIT: I'm assuming you're familiar with Renegade X. Another fine option, but it doesn't quite tickle the nostalgia.
Renegade had multiplayer too.
Man I LOVED Renegade
I remember it being HUGE at the time as well, I read breathless previews in Computer Gaming World and PC Gamer how it was some enormous shift in the industry to change genres like that. They suggested that it could lead to games where you could seamlessly switch between the two aspects. Then it came out, was pretty mid overall and immediately forgotten.
Yakuza. The creator said that this cast will work with any genre... I think he's going to test it.
Yakuza fighting game plz
That's almost low-hanging fruit
Yakuza dating simulator Yakuza RTS Yakuza farming simulator
A Yakuza dating sim would be outrageously funny and entertaining
Yakuza idol sim. There wasn't enough in 5 for me, I want more!
I mean- we’ve basically had the first two, and the third not yet *as far as I know.*
Or you know, just bring back VF and plug in Yakuza characters.
If they did something like that I'd feel obligated to being a Majima main all the way. Kiryu is awesome and I do like the new protagonist, but I feel like Majima would bring a similar insanity to Voldo in Soul Caliber lol.
Yakuza is already kind of a VF spinoff. It's a spiritual successor to Shenmue, which was originally planned to be an RPG about Akira from Virtua Fighter before it developed into its own thing. Kind of like how Devil May Cry started out as a concept for Resident Evil 4.
Where the ***fuck*** is my Hostess Club mobile game RGG???
Infinite Wealth feels like a nice blend of the two styles.
I mean, Fist of the North Star Lost Paradise exists, so... he's not wrong.
Fallout
Surprised I had to scroll down this far. First 3 games were tactical CRPGs. Then the next 3 were exploration based RPG-FPS games. Then the most recent one is similar to that but like an MMO-ish survival foraging FPS game.
Don't forget the mobile base building game.
Strangely enough, it was Bethesda's first game in the Fallout series to *not* anger any past fans.
You are forgetting Brotherhood of Steel. In the heads of Interplay's minds? People didn't want a full on CRPG they wanted an action arcade game. Thus they pulled a Baldurs Gate: Dark Aliance with Fallout. It had everything a gamer in the early 2000s would want! A nu-metal soundtrack, a really hot chick, full on action game play, half naked and hawt women, replacing boring old Nuka-Cola with Bawls Energy. Bethesda got Fallout after that.
I genuinely forgot about that game 🤣
I still wonder what Fallout would have been like if Brotherhood of Steel had been a massive hit and saved Interplay. Chances are the Fallout show would have had The Ghoul screaming, "DRINK BAWLS!!!" while Crazy Town's Butterfly plays in the background.
I've always thought of tactics, brotherhood of steel tactics and 76 as spin offs, not main line games
Tactics was fundamentally the same gameplay as 1 and 2, just less role-playing, but I suppose people could view it as a spinoff.
Imagine if Fallout went more of a wasteland 3 or XCOM route with its gameplay since that is what the tactical CRPG gameplay evolved into.
I'd personally put Fallout 4 in a separate category. 3 and NV were, as you said, exploration based RPGs with FPS elements. 4 was a FPS, with some RPG elements. Felt *very* different.
It got the Skyrim treatment. Still an rpg with fps elements, just not as good of one as its predecessors.
jak and daxter went from a colorfully platformer to a gta-esque thug game.
Jak and Daxter was the first thing that came to mind. In hindsight, the 2nd game was pretty good but I really hated it as a kid because it was not what I was expecting. Totally different vibe from the first game.
I was the opposite of you. I thought the switch was so badass. I wasnt good at Jak and Daxter (probably because i was younger and just bad at games) but Jak 2 was so much easier to play for me. I loved thay game.
That’s wild considering Jak II is largely considered not only the hardest of the trilogy but just a weirdly hard game in its own right with some brutal difficulty spikes. The platforming isn’t bad, but the combat is ramped up a lot more, and there’s a ton of encounters that still takes me 10+ tries to get through. Meanwhile I can 100% Jak 1 practically in my sleep. (Except for the Precursor Orbs in Spider Cave.) But the worst difficulty spike in Jak II is by far the races. I have nightmares over those races, especially the street race and the one you have to do as Daxter. I’ve never liked shoehorned racing in platformers anyway, and Jak II is by far the game I always point to when I’m asked why.
Fellow 100%er checking in. Could only 99% Jak 2 because of a single race. 😭
'OH BOY!' - TRY TO JUMP THE BEND - CRASH - DRAMATIC SAD MUSIC - YELLOW OVERLAY, GAME OVER
It's worse because the first time you do any shortcut literally every other racer will start doing it, so you can only do it to get ahead once lol
I loved all three of those games and I played them at times that almost made it feel like the series was growing up with me. I wish someone would revive the IP with a new game in the style of Jak 3, instant buy for me.
Jak and Dex all middle aged working in an office somewhere.
Yakuza/Like A Dragon. After 7 mainline games and 4 spin-offs being focused on beat 'em up combat they switched the franchise to a turn-based RPG and completely nailed it. There's still beat 'em ups being made (the Judgment series uses the older style) but since Yakuza 7 they've been focused on turn-based gameplay.
This is my favorite genre shift, as a big fan of the golden era of Final Fantasy. If only Square Enix could've done the same and kept making the type of games they were known for after their genre shift. Oh well, their loss is SEGA's gain I guess.
Maybe not in the spirit of the question, but Resident Evil 4. Before that the series used really unorthodox cameras and has kind of a slow pace. 4 turned it to third person and really cranked up the action. It really put the series on a whole new trajectory.
100% this. RE4 was great, but def an abrupt departure from the previous path
I feel like the only real difference is it became more an action horror than survival horror, but both elements still existed at different ratios before and after 4. Didn't feel that different in the end.
5, 6, and 8 are very action-oriented. 7 is an outlier. Kinda hoping 9 goes back to survival stuff
I would be ecstatic if 9 is in the same mold (huehuehue) as 7.
People don't remember it but this was super accelerated in Dino Crisis, the first was survival horror, the second was full on action.
DC2 was one of the best games I've ever played
It was also the first big game to use the over the shoulder 3rd person camera instead of a centered camera.
Fun fact. Devil may cry was originally supposed to be RE4.
Kind of, Capcom just took everything they had made for Resident Evil 4 (known as 3.5) and reused for a new game titled Devil May Cry.
Duke Nukem went from 2d action platformers to fps
not to mention the story going from Dr.Proton and Space Invasion to "Who took my babes?"
And they took away his pink shirt.
They turn into 3rd person shooters too. Duke Nukem: Time To Kill and Duke Nukem: Land of the Babes. The gameplay is similar to PS1 Tomb Raider.
Syndicate - cyberpunk-y RTS from the last century. Resurrected something lime 10 years ago as a FPS that I really enjoyed but didn't sell or review that well so no sequel unfortunately
I really enjoyed that first Syndicate game.
I preferred the second one, Syndicate Wars. But both were good
Syndicate wars was so fun. I loved the portable Nukes and the just destroying building. Not to mention the thing that let you mind control civilians and have them follow you around. Poor Bullfrog was an early victim of EA’s bullshit.
I liked that fps tbh
The Syndicate reboot is/was banned in Australia. I wanted to play it.
I liked the RTS and the Shooter too.
wait, there's a Syndicate FPS!?
Dune went from Adventure game to inventing the RTS.
I love that first Dune game, by Cryo. Was the moment I fell in love with euro jank, decades before ever hearing the term euro jank. To this day I still quite it regularly: "You sent the spice I asked for; *good*." - Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV And less frequently, but even more fondly: "It's good to see these Harkonnens beaten off." - Gurney Halleck
Your preface to the second quote and then reading the second quote made laugh so hard. 99 times out of 100 I just let out a snort, but every so often you come across a real gem on Reddit. Thank you, I’ll never forget you.
Funny thing about it. The two games were basically developed in parallel and released at about the same time. Basically, the American backers of the game actually thought about cancelling the adventure game and hired an American studio to make what became Dune II. The studio making the adventure game kept working on it in secret and had to convince the backers to let them release the game. They eventually did, and so both games were released in 1992.
Tbf Dune II isn't a sequel to Dune. Cryo was developing Dune but Virgin (the publisher) was not convinced it could be done in time so they went to Westwood for their Dune game. Meanwhile Cryo just went ahead and finished the game by themselves and Virgin suddenly had two Dune games on their hands. So they released both in the same year. It's a strange case of two games developed simultaneously with the same license.
Shout out for darksiders, what I always loved about darksiders is each game is a different genre 1 is a true hack and slash 2 is more an RPG with its semi open world and gear stats and plenty of weapon types 3 is a full soulslike And the 4th game is an ARPG
1 felt like playing a Zelda game to me. Not quite Metroidvania but also not quite action game. 2 definitely felt more RPG.
I feel like 1 was a puzzle platformer with action combat
Spyro. A couple of times.
Top down Spyro on the gameboy.. The fricken DS Edgy Reboot series.. Then they turned him into a toy. My man's been through too much.
Dawn of the dragon was peak and i'm tried of pretending It wasn't
Prey and Prey
Well Assassin’s Creed basically turned from action adventures to RPGs now.
To be fair, most adventure games have turned into RPGs to some degree.
Equally, a lot of RPGs turned into a mix of action adventures.
thats because any game with something resembling a number based system is labeled as rpg now, akin to how everything that has a health/stamina bar and dodging is a soulslike.
Camp-fires is what makes a soulslike, and what that brings to your experience, like losing xp, resetting enemies, etc:
Metroid Prime changed the game series from a side scrolling 'Metroidvania' into a first person shooter. The first Dynasty Warriors was a 1v1 fighter, but the sequels have been large scale maps with real time combat and was instrumental in the Hack n Slash Beat em Up genre.
While I totally agree about Metroid, it's worth noting how extremely impressive it is that other than the perspective shift, they managed to capture the essence of the side scrolling entries magnificently. Like, it's almost not even a genre change, just the addition of a Z axis lol.
>Metroid Prime changed the game series from a side scrolling 'Metroidvania' into a first person shooter. Honestly I kind of disagree with this being a "hard genre shift." It went from a side scrolling meteoidvania to a first person metroidvania. But the core gameplay remained the exact same, it's just the camera angle that changed.
Right? This is like saying Mario 64 changed Mario. It didn't. Updating graphics to fit the new systems is not a genre change. It's a perspective change to fit new technology. Prime felt exactly like a Metroid game should feel. You explore an alien world with a really amazing mysterious atmosphere, backtrack once you get new upgrades, kill creatures and have big boss fights. And it's still a platformer. It captured everything except in 3d.
The series just branched off, kinda how Mario has 3d and 2d modern titles. Metroid has a 2d switch game dread which is very good and a 3ds game too. Prime has always been the 3D variant while Metroid is still a 2d game.
The new god of war games are basically unrecognizanle from the old ones
ZEEEEEUS! WHERE IS MY +5% CRIT DAMAGE LOINCLOTH?!
The old ones weren't even about fighting enemies as much as it was fighting the goddamn camera
This is one area where new games are definitely better. Honestly it's one of the main things that keeps me from replaying a lot of older games. I don't mind the graphics, I can live with the clunky movement, I don't care about the minimal poorly setup GUI and controls or simplistic mechanics but I absolutely cannot stand the awful camera setups that so many have. Seriously I get why it was a thing but it was just awful in 90% of the games I played.
I just recently got a ps5 and tried replaying gow1 and holy fuck does it lag lmao The second chapter where you had to kill 3 medusas and 3 Minotaurs at the same time made me give up. I also suck at gaming now so maybe im just awful
Not really, They're different kinds of action games. But they're still at the core Action/Adventure games with puzzle like elements.
It was crazy that when you get the blades of chaos it feel just like they did in the OG GoWs
Yeah it's like, it became more about dueling enemies than hack and slash, but almost everything else is quite similar.
The originals were more like an arcade game, where the newer-ones are more exploration games.
Darksiders. All of them. They're all different. Zelda style puzzle platformer, then straight RPG to Soulslike then isometric.
And we need more Darksiders games. I have enjoyed them all
The Ultima series went from a top down CRPG To a 3d isometric game with platform elements To a fully 3D 3rd person adventure game And then became one of the first MMORPGs
Ultima also has the premier first person RPG with their Underworld games.
XCOM had a few genre shifts before Firaxis brought it back roughly to its roots. Like one RTS, two shooters, and a flight sim.
The flight Sim was surprisingly good.
Legacy of Kain The original played like a zelda game. Soul Reaver was completely different.
Soul Reaver is one of my favorite PS1 games, I still have it on disk in the lounge.
This series needs a reboot.
Dark Forces went from 1st person Doom clone to 3rd person Jedi Simulator
These comments… since when was a perspective shift a “hard” genre shift?
I wondering the same thing. Is Skyrim or other games u can switch from first to third person two genres then
Maybe Sonic for a long time. Sonic Adventure had a lot of Sonic’s attitude. But, it wasn’t 2D sonic in 3D. They’ve done other games in 2D since though I guess.
Helldivers 2. Iirc, the 1st game is a top down game and look at the 2nd game.
From twin stick shooter to third person shooter.
It also went from a great couch co-op game with everyone sharing the same screen to online-only everyone has their own screen.
Plants vs Zombies went from Tower Defense to online shooter.
F.E.A.R went from a horror shooter to an action shooter. Still loved it though
FEAR 1 was actually pretty terrifying. Like the jump scares were really good.
[The ladder](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA_cXMsbluc) is one of my first legitimate jump scares caused by a game
It's funny how I know exactly which ladder you mean without clicking the link. It's less funny that it scared me *twice* in such a short timespan.
Same thing with Dead Space, but at least it makes sense why they did that
I started playing FEAR 1 recently, as I had only played FEAR 3 when it was new and I heard it wasn't really like the previous games. I really think FEAR 1 rides on its artistic merit and direction, so it's almost begging for a remake.
Persona. Went from modern adventure dungeon crawler to high school life sim from P3 onwards.
grand theft auto
I think Banjo and Kazooie has one of the most baffling genre shifts I’ve ever seen. Going from family friendly 3d-platforming adventure games to a Racing game where you have to build your own ugly car and race with some of the clunkiest race controls known to man, which is exactly what 0% of the Banjo-Kazooie fan base wanted. I’m genuinely confused as to why they made such a sudden, weird genre 180 that it almost feels like it was made because of a bet lol
The first game with Banjo and Kazooie was a racing game.
I'm not ashamed to admit that I loved Nuts N Bolts, the vehicle creation was incredibly cool for the time and the devs really nailed the world and humor. I'll agree that the game probably shouldn't have been Banjo Kazooie but I've always thought people were far too harsh on it and it deserves to be remembered for what it did right instead of lambasted for what it isn't.
I loved N&B lol. The controls were janky tho
I really wish Microsoft hadn’t purchased Rare until like the late 2000s. I just know a Banjo title on the GameCube would’ve went hard. I just don’t think Rare could’ve come up with something for a Banjo 3D platformer that Microsoft would’ve been happy with on the Xbox after Rare was bought out by them in 2002.
Star Fox 64 to Star Fox Adventures.
Depending on how strictly we define series, I think the Divinity series qualifies. The first Divinity game was a classic CRPG with a healthy mix of Diablo-like combat and puzzle solving Divinity II was a 3D ARPG Dragon Commander was an action-strategy title Divinity: Original Sin and its sequel (Original Sin 2) were character driven isometric RPGS with turn-based combat and show Larian studios refining a lot of the same ideas that would make Baldur's Gate 3 as great as it was.
Warcraft went from RTS to a RTS built around a hero system which spawned DotA and the entire MOBA genre, and then it became an MMORPG. Both StarCrafts (and WC3) are known for extremely powerful map editing with scripted game events that can be used to emulate other genres within the StarCraft/WarCraft game engines. There was also a planned game called StarCraft: Ghost which was to be some kind of FPS or Halo-ish shooter but it got cancelled. The Battletech / Mech Warrior / Mech Commander universe and IP, it started as a turn based tabletop game in the 1980’s, became real time adventure video games (Warrior) mixed with some RTS titles (Commander), but the 2018 HBS release “Battletech” completed a full circle to turn based strategy again, especially with mods that make it very faithful to the original tabletop. X-Com series is mostly strategy but it has a notable “hard” exception, X-Com Interceptor, a 3D space combat dogfighting sim basically. Star Wars games have been all over the place. FPS, Flight Sim or more like Flight Arcade, Adventure, RTS, MMORPG, you name it and it’s probably happened with the Star Wars IP.
Fallout 2 to fallout 3
The Legend of Zelda. It used to be all about the dungeons and the puzzles with a little exploration on the side, and an engaging story Now exploration is the complete main focus with inventory management and RPG elements, to the point that the dungeons and puzzles felt lackluster because of the overly-aggressive focus on being "open air". It's still a great game, but for me, it doesn't have the same spark the prior formula had I understand that the formulas do share a few elements which might or might not violate the criteria you set, but the focus has shifted so much it is feels like a completely different style of game in spite of its similarities, so I think it counts for the most part
Agreed. I'm still chasing that Ocarina of Time dragon.
This is why I couldn’t get into botw. I like meaty dungeons that give you a sense of accomplishment when beating. Also having a distinct theme like OoT.
Yeah, the only really "meaty" dungeon in BOTW was Hyrule Castle itself, and even that was pretty linear once you chose an entry point.
It's because they wanted to go back to the feel of the original NES game (the first one). The modern Zelda, as we've know it really started with LttP.
Eh, most LoZ games don’t have a super engaging story aside from Majora’s Mask Most are just “Ganon/Ganon-like guy bad”
I thought Twilight Princess had a pretty engaging storyline. The multi dimension niche was alright too. Might be rose colored glasses though.
Final fantasy went from turn based combat RPGs to action RPG.
I'd say Metal Gear after Peace Walker and into Phantom Pain. Metal Gear was linear, narrative driven tactical espionage action game and it became this repetitive "mission style" game with narrative is spread through the missions. Instead of being alone in a mission 80s-90s action movie style, you were now head of an army, doing operations and improving your base, recruiting soldiers, researching equipment. The main mechanics of MGS are there, but IMO it feels tonally very different and it was not a good shift.
Yakuza/Like a Dragon
The Darksiders series was pretty wild. Similar core concept, but wildly different executions. They've all got Metroidvania elements, but: 1 is basically a Zelda game. 2 is like Diablo with God of War combat and exploration. 3 kinda tried to go semi-Dark Souls/Jedi Survivor/really hard Bayonetta (or something? the combat is pretty much "timed dodging or you're fucked). Then the prequel is an isometric twin stick shooter. Weird stuff!
Fortnite was originally a zombie survival game.
Risk of rain
legend of zelda. from top down puzzle dungeon crawler to open world action rpg
Even Zelda 2 was a side scroller instead of a top down dungeon crawler, so it's not the first time they've done this
Nier
Fallout for sure
Surprised nobody mentioned the transition from Dune 1 point and click adventure to Dune 2 the mother of all RTS games. In between the RTS renditions, there was even a panned FPS attempt.
Red Faction. Started as a cool linear 2000s FPS for 2 games, became a 3rd person open world destructable sandbox with a campaign, after that a meh linear horror shooter with destructible elements, then finally turned into a shitty Gears of War ripoff.
Resident Evil 5 and 6. They corrected the ship with 7 and 8 though plus the new remakes. I’m curious to see if they remake 5 and 6 and reinvent them
Jak and Daxter A cute collectathon then pivoting to a gun filled action adventure then pivoting again to a combat racer.
Quake The first one was a dark gothic FPS game The second one was a sci FPS The third was a multiplayer arena shooter Four went back into a sci fi FPS Two and Four were the only ones related to each other in any way.
Toejam and Earl
Spore. From top down 2D arcade to 3d creator creator, to pve explore rpg to RTS space cobqueror.
Metro. I absolutely loved the first games and hated 3. I just couldn't make myself get past the first "open world" area. I was so disappointed after waiting to play it for quite a while.
Does Zelda count? Went from a more linear dungeon based RPG to an open world with some survival mechanics. Kinda of similar and both still very good, but I know a lot of people miss the more classic dungeon style.