A sequel must aspire to be even greater than its predecessors, but that’s not always true. These are four inferior sequels to great games.
We’ve seen games like The Witcher 3, Dark Souls III, and God of War: Ragnarok that managed to surpass the already excellent prequels in almost every aspect. But some sequels truly disappoint us due to budget limitations, cash grab attempts, glitches and bugs, mediocre writing, and many other reasons.
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In this list, we take a look at four such inferior sequels to great games.
Far Cry 6
Far Cry 5 wasn’t a perfect game by any means. It had many flaws and there are a great number of reasons why many players might dislike it.
However, we can all agree that its story, setting, gameplay, and many other aspects were really well-designed. Especially, the character writing of many villains of the game was absolutely beautiful.
Far Cry 6, however, managed to disappoint many players. While the mediocre and repetitive gameplay, boring traversal, the sheer volume of bugs and glitches, and other aspects are reasons for it, the characters and the story truly let players down.
Ubisoft had Giancarlo Esposito, the great actor who played Gustavo Fring in Breaking Bad, play the villain in FC6. However, despite the marketing being always focused on him, he didn’t have enough screen time. The only characters that had remotely good writing were the villain, Castillo, and the player character.
In many ways, FC6 really let us down.
Just Cause 4
Just Cause 3 is probably the best game of the series right now. With a massive playground for you to explore and cause chaos at your pleasure, the Just Cause series always offers unique and extraordinary gameplay experiences. And Just Cause 3 doubled down on many features of its predecessors and delivered a top-notch experience.
However, Just Cause 4 was a big letdown. One of the best features of JC3 and even JC2 was excellently satisfying outpost liberation. But that aspect of JC4 was really poorly designed.
For me, it was almost unbelievable how frustrating it was at some points, whether due to bugs or simply bad design choices. The vehicles felt extremely janky and annoying to control. Many missions were very repetitive and boring. The series really took a bad hit with this entry.
Fallout 4
One of the main reasons why Fallout 4 felt really inferior was because Fallout New Vegas was an absolute masterclass of the RPG genre. Sure, its gameplay mechanics were obviously worse but the story, dialogue, RPG elements and replay value all outshines Fallout 4 to this day. The in-depth and complex story with all of its small details and beautifully-written dialogue helped Fallout New Vegas become a legendary title.
I sometimes think if Fallout 4 was compared to Fallout 3 instead of New Vegas, it wouldn’t have gotten such a bad reception. The inferior quest design, bad dialogue, and mediocre RPG elements were only a few aspects of why Fallout 4 was worse than New Vegas. It’s certainly not a bad game and it’s really enjoyable, but it’s not as good as New Vegas by any means.
This comparison really tells us how great of a developer Obsidian Entertainment was at the time of New Vegas’s development.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
Like Far Cry 5, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey wasn’t an excellent game by any means. I’d say it was inferior to Origins in certain ways, but not all players think so. Something many of us can agree on is how much of a drag and a boring mess Assassin’s Creed Valhalla truly was. At least Odyssey had great combat, decent storytelling, and okay quest design.
But Valhalla sort of doubled down on everything that was bad about Odyssey and delivered one of the most boring, sluggish, and meaningless gameplay experiences in recent memory. Its storytelling, quest design, and dialogue were needlessly long, dragged, and downright boring.
The combat felt extremely repetitive, it was similar to the quests in this regard. And the overall gameplay hardly felt rewarding enough. It’s understandable why many players dropped the game before completion.
