3 Iconic Game Series That Desperately Need a Reinvention

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New video games come out constantly, and popular series keep going strong. But a few franchises have been incredibly successful for decades, and they show no signs of losing momentum. They usually follow a predictable pattern: a new game is released, it sells incredibly well, everyone talks about it online, and for a short time, it feels like the whole world is playing. Then, the cycle starts all over again the next year, often with only small updates.

As a long-time fan, I’m starting to feel like a lot of my favorite game franchises are just
going through the motions. When a series comes out every single year, it feels like they stop trying new things, and honestly, even the best ones are starting to suffer. It’s not that the games are bad, necessarily—some are definitely better than others—but they’ve become predictable. I really think these franchises need to take a break, step back, and come up with something genuinely fresh if they want to be great again.

3) Assassin’s Creed

As a longtime gamer, I’ve always felt like Ubisoft jumps on whatever’s popular instead of really sticking to what makes them unique, and nowhere is that more obvious than with Assassin’s Creed. It started as this really cool, focused stealth game where you blended into crowds and basically went on historical field trips. But it’s changed so much, turning into this huge open-world RPG. Honestly, it worked for a while – Assassin’s Creed Valhalla made a ton of money, over a billion dollars, I heard. But the reviews weren’t as great as they used to be, landing in the low to mid-80s on Metacritic. It’s definitely a step down from when the series was really hitting its stride.

The biggest problem lately is that new games are getting much larger, but without a clear reason. They feel overly stuffed with the same tasks repeated over and over, and the original idea of being a stealthy, precise assassin has been lost in a focus on constant fighting. We’ve seen this before – games like the initial release of Assassin’s Creed Unity tried to do too much, weren’t fully polished, and received poor reviews, ultimately hurting players’ confidence in the series.

Reinventing Assassin’s Creed doesn’t require drastically changing the type of game it is. Instead, it needs a renewed focus on what originally made it great – tighter, more focused experiences, improved stealth gameplay, and stories that don’t waste players’ time. Simply adding more content isn’t the answer; quality is more important than quantity. Assassin’s Creed Shadows demonstrates that the series needs to change course and eliminate unnecessary features to regain its former appeal.

2) Pokemon

PokĂ©mon is a hugely successful entertainment franchise – the games have sold over 480 million copies worldwide. But this success has made it difficult to have honest conversations about the quality of recent games. While newer releases like PokĂ©mon Scarlet and Violet have sold incredibly well – over 10 million copies in their first three days – they’ve received some of the lowest review scores in the series’ history, currently sitting in the low 70s on Metacritic.

The game unfortunately launched with a lot of technical problems, including performance issues, visual glitches, and bugs. Beyond that, it doesn’t feel very fresh – the core gameplay hasn’t changed much despite attempts to make it an open-world experience. Combat is similar to past games, the difficulty is uneven, and the story doesn’t always feel engaging. While Pokemon Legends: Z-A offered some improvements, they weren’t enough to fully address these issues.

Look, games like Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl really showed me that you can’t just rely on nostalgia to make a good game. They felt
stuck in the past, and reviewers definitely noticed the lack of new ideas. If Pokemon wants to really reinvent itself, I think they need to slow down how often they release games, put some serious effort into the tech, and trust us players to handle more complex gameplay. These are Pokemon we’re talking about – the most famous creatures ever! They deserve worlds that feel fully realized and alive. I’ve seen the leaks, and if they’re accurate, this could be exactly the direction the franchise needs to go, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

1) Call of Duty

The Call of Duty franchise is a defining force in modern gaming, having sold over 425 million copies and consistently topping sales charts. For example, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II earned over a billion dollars in revenue in its first ten days. However, while the series remains a commercial success, reviews have been getting worse. Newer games typically score in the 70s and 80s on Metacritic, a significant drop from the almost perfect reviews that earlier titles like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare received.

Honestly, the biggest problem with this series is how tired it feels. They rush out a new game every year, and it just doesn’t leave enough time to really do anything new. It’s always just little changes here and there, never a big leap forward. The stories are all over the place too – some are great, some are way too short, and some, like Call of Duty: Ghosts, were just
 disappointing, scoring around a 75 and leaving fans feeling let down. The multiplayer still gets people playing, but it feels like they’re more focused on keeping us hooked with constant updates than actually making a well-designed game.

The success of Warzone showed that the Call of Duty franchise can still innovate. Despite following a familiar formula, it felt new, bold, and exciting. Call of Duty needs to recapture that spirit. To regain its creative spark, the series could benefit from longer development times, fewer annual releases, and a fresh look at how players progress and how the game is funded. Call of Duty doesn’t need to end, but it definitely needs some time to recharge.

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2026-01-15 03:13