I love Assassin’s Creed. I’ve loved the series from the start and I’ve watched it evolve and change slowly over time. At this point I sort of wish Ubisoft would just reinvent the whole concept from the ground up. How would I do that? I’m not sure…
I think the first step would be a ground up reinvention of how the free-running and climbing works. I’d ground it in reality a bit more, make it a bit weightier, a bit more real. I’d take Assassin’s Creed back to the Crusade time period as well I think.
Really, what I’m advocating here is a reboot. I will play the hell out of Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, but I think the whole ‘take the series to different time periods’ thing is a bit played out. I don’t know if Victorian-era London makes that much sense.
Anyway — how would you reinvent some of your favourite series? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments
51 responses to “Tell Us Dammit: Reinvent A Famous Video Game Series”
I like creed, i just wish they’d ditch the Animus and all that current day BS. Would also love a new Mutant League Football not sure if thats really reinventing though or just Blitz the League III with madden graphics.
Hot Damn I want a new Mutant League Game, Football/Ice Hockey hell I’d even take Mutant League Tiddley Winks! Someone needs to start a Mutant League Kickstarter pronto!
The original creator tried and failed I believe did you ever play Blitz the League? http://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2015/01/61337-video-game-mutant-football-league-still-works-despite-kickstarter-failure/
Have two main characters who run around wearing buttless chaps and are covered in smoothed concrete. Then change the name ever so slightly to Ass Ass In-Screed.
Subtle.
I honestly wish they would re invent the concept of need for speed.
Need for speed 3 was the first pc game I ever played. Played it to death and loved every minute of it. Loved its next few iterations, lost interest when it went ala fast and furious. Had my interest re kindeled when it went back to its roots.
But still feel like it could do with a new lease on life.
I’ll also throw battlefield in there aswell for good measure for a series that needs reinventing and cod
Super Peach Sisters
I’d reinvent Silent Hill using a celebrity figure like, say, Norman Reedus from The Walking Dead fame, just to draw interest from people who’ve not played Silent Hill and to help market the game. I’d probably get a big name game designer/director who has a proven record, maybe Hideo Kojima, and pair him up with a well known movie director, maybe Guillermo del Toro who has a knack for horror/fantasy. Then just see what they come up with.
….. Oh wait….
Comment of the day, surely!
Ok everyone, pack up the internet and go home. We have a winner.
I’d like to reinvent Red Dead Redemption, probably by just making a sequel. Maybe prequel focusing on when John Mrasdon fell in with a gang and playing out the victim bad guy angle.
Or modern day Tenchu. Or just A modern Tenchu.
Not sure why Red Dead’s IP would need to be reinvented, the series is moving in a good way as with most Rockstar IP’s, they have stated that they’d love to revisit it so will see what happens in the next few years as they’ve already told everyone that GTA will not be the next rockstar game.
Fun Fact: Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven had a secret stage you could unlock where Rikimaru went through a portal to the modern day.
I miss my Tenchu. Honestly, one of the best stealth games ever made. I learned those damn guard patterns off by heart.
Poison Rice, poison rice, poison rice, kill the guy at the side, head around the roof, kill the other guy, in through the hole and “It looks like you chose the wrong party to crash!”
Ah, poison rice. Who eats rice thrown strategically on the ground?
They were starving back then! Who has the rights to Tenchu now?
Squeenix?
Rights are held by From Software. That could be amazing!
I can only seem them as James Woods in Family Guy falling for Peters trap, “ooh, a piece of rice…ooh a piece of rice…ooh a piece of rice…”
Reinvent Red Dead Redemption by releasing it on PC
Would love to see Tales of Phantasia reinvented, i loved the side scrolling combat that was in the original one, if they had something like this on 3DS i would play it for years!
Tales series is still going strong, it isn’t side scrolling combat anymore but it does feel similar when you play it regarding moving toward and away from enemies and so on.
Tales of xillia sequel is coming out or is out recently I think. give them a look
Yeah i have played the newer ones but i loved the side scroll-er combat and simple graphics, these days people try to push things like the 3ds too far and go 3d all the time, I’d even settle for a remastered version 😛
Reinvent EA’s PGA series, replacing the golf balls with grenades, hitting them into destructible buildings with an elaborate physics engine in play.
You can, in the style of Dark Souls, invade other people’s games at random and perch off the fairways with a sniper rifle. A meta game occurs when this happens, requiring the golfer to take out the sniper with a hit grenade or chasing them down and beating them to death with their colorful umbrella.
Rabid ducks would also be involved.
I’ve always wanted a Ninja Golf reboot but this is even better!
CoD (dead horse over yonder).
Reinvented without the futuristic bullshit but from past war scenarios.
So based on true story with little Valiant Hearts snippets of information where you’re not playing a made-up situation but with scenarios from WW1 and WW2.
And Streets of Rage but bought into 3D like.
I’d like to see a reinvention of the original Devil May Cry series that:
– Adapts Nero’s play style.
– Has more interaction with the environment during combat such as wall runs/climbs/launches or being able to throw your sword into the wall and use it as a platform and picking up things and using them as shields or weapons.
– Makes gunplay more useful, like being able to melee or parry with guns.
– Allows you to grab onto the enemy or stab then with your sword and hang on to it.
– Removes any puzzles, “Punishment” rooms (ie. The rooms you have to kill everything in if you screw something up) and boss rushes at the end.
– Returns to the gothic and macabre atmosphere of 1 and 3.
I’d love to see a few:
1) A Double Dragon reinvention – sort of a mix between Sleeping Dogs & Batman Arkham City. Basically a martial arts based game in a 3rd person view. Maybe with RPG elements…I dunno…just think too many games and guns and swords based.
2) On that note…Shenmue…a mix of mystery, revenge and martial arts (think I have something for martial arts???). I don’t know many people that had the pleasure of playing Shenmue, but those who did loved it. More people need to be exposed to games like this.
3) Need For Speed (as stated above) but I think the Fast & Furious theme can work, but make it so that it’s sort of a mix of NFS and GTA. What I mean is – most missions are based around driving, but maybe some can be where you have a mission which ends with a car chase and then the guy you’re after gets out and runs, so you have to pursue on foot. Through the city.
I dunno…bit of a brain dump…i’m sure someone can improve on these ideas. hahaha
I really like these ideas. Would love a good martial arts beat em up.
Sounds like what The Crew was aiming for, but didn’t quite make it.
Phantasy Star as single player JRPGs again.
I would point out Phantasy Star Nova, but it’s both a single player game using the same gameplay style as PSO2, and a game that will never see the light of day outside Japan and the greater Asia region
Actually when I was playing the first AC I remember being convinced that what they needed to do was make an assassin’s game based in Discworld’s Ankh-Morpork.
All the running from rooftops, daring chases, add in a bit more of an interesting less realistic art style, load the whole thing with humour and that Pratchett reflective satire, focus on the plot and creating ridiculously overwrought assassinations.
I think that creating more intriguing/memorable assassinations would help, bring a little more hitman with this meticulously crafted complicated affairs in rather than always relying on a dynamic world that tends to lead players into repeatedly doing the same thing.
Of course that last bit could just be done to AC as is and be a nice improvement.
All that said though I’m rather looking forward to Syndicate in a way I haven’t for some time. But Victorian London has been one of my most anticipated potential periods since the first game, alongside Feudal Japan and well… Now.
Master of Orion 2. Give it a makeover, clean up the micromanagement a bit, and make the tactical battles real time – instant GOTY.
Civilization as a city builder and you upgrade each building individually as time goes on so your barracks gets upgraded to churn out better troops or stuff like adding books and eventually computers to schools and libraries. I bit like Rise of Nations but more city builder and less fast paced RTS.
Half Life to be a truly open world shooter where you run around between various cities and roads & settlements in between fighting the Combine and doing quests for the resistance, but having to make choices between saving one city or another, or rescuing a small group of resistance fighters or getting some ammo or a new weapon/suit upgrade and your choices having actual consequences like the resistance not being as helpful or even turning on you if you don’t save them. No XP or anything, it’s still a FPS, but questing for better weapons or having crafting rewards for a crafting system to better take down gunships or Advisors. Also upgrading Dog.
I like your Half Life idea – I’ve always viewed the second game as being about survival. I’d also like a 3rd person cover mechanic like Deus Ex, also Gordon needs to speak
I’d do a straight reboot of Primal.
Keep the transformation aspect and basic plot framework. Clean up the combat, add more ability based puzzles, make the worlds bigger and perhaps districted. Add a stealth/social element.
I just liked Primal
Pokemon!
I think we’re all ready for that open world home console Pokemon game by now.
Make it for Wii U (or the next Nintendo home console) and it’ll be a system seller!
Maybe do like a new concept where Team Rocket has infiltrated the gym league, and you play as a rookie detective who has to challenge each gym to uncover which gym leaders are Team Rocket or not.
Do what Black and White did though and only have the current gen Pokemon available.
Crash bandicoot and Spyro the dragon – but actually go back to the originals and improve on them because they were the heart and soul of PS1 gaming.
IE: Crash Bandicoot that ends up similar too what it was but 2player co-op like Knack art style and gameplay also adding in Crash Bash into the mix – with a possibility to even combine CTR in the mix too (like Disney infinity style I suppose).
IE: Spyro with quests and a more advanced skill tree – like it was (similar to Mario 64 feels) but you end up becoming a big dragon in the meta (have PVP dragons lol)
(Honorable mentions:)
– Final Fantasies going back to PS1 era gameplay but new story telling and 2015 graphics
– A Bugs life – “I need more BERRY POWER” – include assortment of different bugs to control
– Twisted Metal – Because this game series just needed to go back to its roots with 2015 Graphics and I wasn’t overly impressed by the latest installment)
– Would love a new game that is on par with Tombi (Tomba for the Americans)
– Killzone – I loved the first one – even with its terrible aiming system but they ended up making it clunky and never again appealed to me.)
– A Monster Rancher Battle Cards reboot
COMMAND & CONQUERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRERERERRRRRR
i miss it so much. Tiberiun Sun….welp.
It’s not really a series or particularly famous, but I’ve always felt you could reboot Bungie’s Pathways into Darkness into an incredible Survival Horror / Action Platformer-style game, along the lines of the recent Tomb Raider reboot. It wouldn’t take too much work to do. Go deeper on the conversations with the ghosts and the whole idea that there’s been multiple failed expeditions into the place. Keep roughly the same plot.
Does it even need to be said?
Pokemon! Needs to be a huge world, think Skyrim but much larger. Needs to be 1st/3rd person, great visuals, etc. This could be the game to end all games for me!
Still waiting for a GTA V Pokemon mod lol.
im changing my vote to this too.
I’m surprised it hasn’t been brought up yet (well to be fair after their last reboot attempt I shouldn’t be) but I’d reboot Sonic the Hedgehog, remove any major story elements and keep it purely a 2/2.5D platformer with Sonic facing Eggman/Robotnic. However I would also include in the game a fairly robust level editing tool ala Megaman powered up or the upcoming Mario Make. The Sonic modding community has shown in the past that given the right tools (or making them if they don’t exist) they can make some really interesting things. I think an official channel for them to utilise that creativity could be really cool.
Mortal Kombat done in the pit-brawl style of Def Jam Fight For NY.
I want the Spies vs Mercs mode from Splinter Cell Blacklist to be available as a standalone multiplayer game on the current gen.
I also want a reboot of Killer7 with logical controls
Legend of Mana series. Action RPG, 3 of possible 6 playable cast with coop mode, campy bad guys, eclectic variety of areas, flammie! mana beasts, crystals, rabbites, golems and so on. Either add a new game or give Seiken Densetsu 3 (mana 2) a remake/western release
Mario’s plumbing business was failing. Being the hero of a magical kingdom does not pay the bills no matter how much free cake you eat, and he needed to find some work, fast.
The latest note arrived: “Mario, help me! I forgot to latch the screen door and Bowser kidnapped me yet again but was nice enough to let me write this note! – Yours Truly, Princess Toadstool, Peach”
“I’m-a sick of this-a bullshit” said Mario to himself. “I have-a these tax forms to fill-a out, I no have-a time to go rescuing again”
After permanently blocking off the pipe to the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario set about redeeming himself in the real world. Shaving off his 80’s moustache and loading up his work van, he set out to unclog Mrs Jenkins toilet. He was all set to go until he got a call from Luigi.
“Marioooo! I’m-a in trouble with the police!” said Luigi.
Luigi had not taken to the real world as well as Mario. He had taken a liking to having super powers and fantastic adventures, and now that he no longer had access to those things he had fallen in with a rough crowd and turned to drugs in order to recapture the highs he was used to.
Need a modern reboot of Streets of Rage but in a 3D almost Assasins Creed style, but with an Ong Bak type of fast paced, relentless action style to it. I guess it would be a lot like Assasins Creed but jumping off the walls rather than running up them and lots of Kung Fu style kickey-punchey.
Id take Burnout Paradise and put a 2 on the end of it.
With Assassin’s Creed, I would ditch the side quests, ditch collectables and all of that filler bullshit, ditch ships and all that crap and just go back to basics: assassination. Focus on making a really great assassination game with multiple ways of completing the objective. I would also make the parkour manual. Actually making the player perform each jump with a button press would make the parkour feel more satisfying and would make the player feel like they’re actually doing something instead of being on autopilot. I would also ditch the Arkham Asylum inspired combat in favour of a weightier system, more akin to Dark Souls, where timing and studying your opponent is important.
Also ditch the Matrix style sci-fi plot and go back to the crusades.
True Crime
Give me an open world like GTA , but you choose the good or bad cop, and have to maintain it through the game. Neither side is straight black and white. You need criminals to falsify evidence to get the right guy in jail. And you need to obliterate evidence when the perp is morally right. Basically the witcher in an american borugh of NY. And your boss fight? the freaking justice system. Bonus points for a prior record, negative points if the perp has no prior record… make it a full grey area. The guilty party is decided when you launch the game. All the evidence can lean one way or the other, regardless of the perp’s actions.