axl, on 06 January 2018 - 12:09 AM, said:
I remember a few years back thinking the same thing about the Mortal Kombat franchise. After MK3 the series went downhill and we got some abhorrent releases as MK Mythologies, MK Special Forces, MK Armageddon, ... Till 2011 when the new Mortal Kombat reboot was both a critical and commercial success.
I'm sure there are other examples as well. It all starts with a "good" game.
The fun part of that example: Netherrealm did not even have to invent the wheel to make MK successful again. I mean Capcom was the company that basically said "fuck it, just because you have to make 3D games now you don't have to make the gameplay 3D" so they made Street Fighter 4, a 2D fighter with 3D graphics and it was a huge success. MK9 went back to the roots of the franchise the same way, they added the meter management aspect of the gameplay from Street Fighter 4 and the thing just worked wonderfully. The only thing they innovated with was the awesome story mode, something that existed even in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe but that game was terrible so it never got much attention.
So yes, we really only need a good game and to the contrary of what Randy says you don't even have to come up with some super innovative thing to make that work. Just copy stuff from the right games and make all of that stuff a bit better than it was before.