The Problem with Threequels Pt. 2
The video game industry has such a bad habit of ruining third installments, I decided to break this up into 2 parts when I realized how long it was getting. Maybe someday I’ll make a list of threequels that changed everything for the better, but for now, here are some more threequels that are the black sheep of their franchise.
Shenmue III
Shenmue 3 infamously suffered from a laundry list of problems during its life cycle. But getting into the details of its troubled development is tale unto its own, so I’m going to focus on a specific creative decision made by the games director, Yu Suzuki, that was the final nail in the coffin that housed any hope of Shenmue 4 ever getting made.
Ignoring the troubled development and the bad gameplay, and focusing only on the story. One of the main things that fans were looking for in this game was to find out what happens next, to see the story advance, and to see Ryo finally avenge the death of his father… and it doesn’t happen.
At the end of Shenmue 2, Ryo watches as Lan Di gets away, creating one of the most famous cliffhangers in gaming history. At the end of Shenmue III, Ryo watches as Lan Di gets away… again.
Usually seen in trilogies such as Mass Effect, this is a situation of a developer not knowing how to end their story, or in this case, simply progress the story. Yu Suzuki always planned on Shenmue being an epic saga spanning multiple games, but after 18 years of waiting and 20-something hours of gameplay, Ryo is no closer to completing his quest than he was when he started, quite possibly making Shenmue 3 the most anticipated filler arc ever.
Batman: Arkham Origins
Batman: Arkham Origins is an example of a series that peaked with its second entry. The developer and publisher knew they wanted a third game but didn’t know how to improve on the second, and ended up making a sequel that was all to similar to its predecessor. Critics agreed that the well-received elements from the previous game were not significantly developed or augmented, and resulted in the game feeling routine rather than inspired.
Further more, in order to capitalize on the series’ momentum, Arkham Origins was rushed to publication, resulting in a myriad of technical issues. These included, but were not limited to: lagging; unending "falling" in the game world; no "continue" button on the startup screen, forcing players to start the entire game over; and progression rewards failing to unlock. On Windows, a bug prevented players from accessing one of Enigma's towers; and on the Xbox 360, save files became corrupted and unplayable, alongside crashing and freezing problems.
Developer WB Montréal would release a number of updates in the following weeks to address some of these issues, but nowhere near all of them. Many consider the game to still be in a state that is virtually unplayable to this day. This is because, as bad as the game’s launch was, the controversy didn’t peak until about 4 months later in February 2014, when WB Montréal made the short-sighted, tone-deaf announcement that they would not be releasing any additional patches, due to the development team focusing on the upcoming single-player DLC.
This raises an entirely different issue, unrelated to threequels, where failed games are abandoned by their studios, leaving the players who paid for them with a product that doesn’t work, and never will.
Project Cars 3
Unless something dramatic happens in the next few years, Project Cars will go down in history as a sad story of what could’ve been; the tale of a series that had the potential to be an all-time great.
Project Cars was praised for its astonishing attention to detail. In Project Cars 2, they fixed many of the problems from the first and dove even further into the handling of the cars, improving their realism. This resulted in even higher critical praise, and led to speculation that if the series continued improving as it did, it could eventually overtake Forza and Gran Turismo as the premier driving simulator.
However, Project Cars 3 slammed right into a brick wall. First, the developer ignored fan requests and suggestions regarding fixes and improvements that should be make to the game, and second, they inexplicably removed all of the realistic driving controls. Immediately upon release, the game was panned for its poor controls, unrealistic sounds, and horrible cosmetic damage. Nearly every aspect of the series' charm and personality seemed to have been removed from the third game.
Why would the developer do such a thing?
Turns out they were trying to make the game more appealing to a wider audience, which meant abandoning the racing-sim persona and making the game more akin to an arcade racer. Of course, instead of attracting a new audience, all they did was alienate their old one.
