5 More Sequels That Need To Be Made

If you liked our earlier article on 5 Game Sequels we are waiting for—here’s my take on an additional 5 more sequels that need to be made—since Avinash’s was primarily geared toward the action genre.

StarCraft 2
Blizzard’s StarCraft franchise was a milestone in Real-Time Strategy gaming, where it set the bar for all the RTS’ that followed. The game’s cutscenes were stunning, and all the races in it were designed perfectly. It had the best gameplay of its time and genre, where all the races (the Zerg, the Protoss, and the Terran) played differently and had their own strengths and weaknesses. The diversity of gameplay, coupled with Blizzard’s awesome work with Battle.net (their online gaming portal), made StarCraft one of the best Real-Time Strategy franchise of all time. The game became so popular that it sold over 9 million copies worldwide, and it’s still played online to this day. The game even featured something most other RTS’ did not—an awesome storyline. You’d probably think that a game based on a war between alien races would have a bland or totally non-existent storyline, but that wasn’t the case in StarCraft; each faction in the game had their own tale to tell and their own history, which was interlinked with the others’ in someway or another. The storyline in the original had some very interesting twists, which led to the making of the expansion ‘Broodwar’ which was as badass as the original, if not better.

Probability of this happening: Very good
Blizzard had announced that they will be making a tactical action game in the StarCraft universe named StarCraft: Ghost, but after a large number of delays, in March 2006, it was announced that the game will be ‘indefinitely delayed’ (which means that it’s cancelled most probably). On the bright side though, in the German Games convention this year, this is what Blizzard Chief Operating Officer Paul Sams told gaming website IGN :
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“StarCraft is my absolutely favorite game of all time. As you probably already know, there is no doubt that we will continue the StarCraft and Diablo franchise, and trust me, I will be the happiest person in the world when we announce StarCraft 2.”_
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Diablo 3
Ask any Role Playing veteran what his favorite RPG is, and his answer will almost certainly be Diablo. Owing to them being such perfectionists, Blizzard picked up all the best elements of the RPG genre, polished them, added their own flavor to the mix (like the trade mark extreme eye-candy visuals and cutscenes) and gave us Diablo. In my eyes, no RPG after Diablo has reached the zenith of perfection that it did (not even Baldur’s Gate or Neverwinter Nights). Diablo’s hack-and-slash gameplay was appealed to even new RPGers, who would find the well designed user-interface very easy to understand and get acquainted to. The game offered you great customizability through talent trees, which would become part of almost all RPGs that followed. Although the gameplay was repetitive, and the monster models and sounds were the same throughout the game, the game still managed to retain some freshness through its challenging gameplay and gripping storyline. The sequel Diablo II and its expansion ‘Lord of Destruction’ didn’t disappoint Blizzard’s fans either, as they managed to add enough AAA content by giving them 5 new classes and good amount of new dungeons to explore and bosses to slash at.

Probability of this happening: Pretty bright
The Diablo series was made solely by Blizzard North, which was supposedly working on Diablo 3 a few years back. Although in 2003, it seems that quite a few of their staff left the company to form new companies, after which there was no real evidence of the game. But, even now, hardcore Diablo fans await a sequel, and if you want one too, sign the petition at this popular Diablo 3 fansite .
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Thief 4
Thief was the best stealth based game I’ve played to date, based in a world where the game’s protagonist ‘Garrett’ and his antics seemed very believable. The aphotic lanes of the medieval metropolitan city, and the dark rooftop of its dingy houses, formed the perfect setting for Garrett’s shady deeds, and made game’s world more believable and in-tune with all of its occurrences. The storyline would keep you hooked throughout the series, while the gameplay would keep you on the edge of your seat, as you’d try to peer over a corner or listen for thumping footsteps while you’d hide the corpse of a patrolling guard in the game. Even though the third installment in the series, ‘Deadly Shadows’, wasn’t as good as The Dark Project, or The Metal Age, it was at par with most of the other stealth based games I’ve played to date. Another thing I’ve loved about this series is that you could go about completing your missions in many ways, you could choose to slaughter all the guards in the level, or you could take the more subtle alternative route and sneak around in the rafters throughout the game.

Probability of this happening: Very slim
Thief’s original developers, ‘Looking Glass Studios’, went out of business in 2000, which was a big blow to the series. When Ion Storm Inc. picked up the franchise and gave us Thief: Deadly Shadows, the game just wasn’t as good as the original. However, there is no indication of a sequel so far, so let’s keep our eyes peeled in case we do come across some evidence of its development.
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Freelancer 2
In the original Freelancer, you played the role of Edison Trent, a freelance space pilot who gets stuck in the middle of a crap-load of government conspiracies and a secret political battle. The storyline evolved slowly, revealing more of the true nature of the world around him, and in doing so, immersed gamers into its deeply involving gameplay. The relative open-endedness and the ability to pilot your ship around the galaxy freely, added a new element to the game, allowing gamers to explore a visually stunning galaxy in third-person and make allies and enemies as they pleased. Freelancer allowed you to choose from an large selection of ships, and customize them for battle or transport, depending on what you want to do in the game. Another thing that stood out about the game—that the game doesn’t end where the storyline does, after you finish the last mission of the game—you can roam around the galaxy buying new ships and upgrading them to do what you want. Once customized for battle, the dog-fights in the game are fun as hell and can keep you hooked on for a long time.

Probability of this happening: Uncertain
Digital Anvil, the game’s creators, have been bought over by Microsoft games. Microsoft has a large number of other successful franchises to focus on, so we can’t really say if they’re going to make a sequel for this game, as there is no word out yet.
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Silent Hill 5
Silent Hill breaks away from your traditional survival horror game, where a bunch of zombies are thrown at you, just to be slaughtered by your sawed-off shotgun (a.k.a. Resident Evil). This game takes a different approach to the horror genre, where its less of a gore-fest and more of a creepy atmospheric experience, where each passing minute of game builds fear in you. The game refrains from using the most common sources of fear (zombies, ghouls, vampires, etc.) and instead dives deeper into the human psyche and uses a more innate and primal form of fear. For instance, the original had you walking around the streets of a isolated town (named ‘Silent Hill’ of course), where you were lonely and cold, and you couldn’t see more than two feet ahead of yourself—in this case the game uses loneliness and fear of not knowing what lies ahead, to enhance the spooky feel of the game. The game’s sound also added to the spooky element, as it was usually silent through out the game, and all you could hear was the haunting wind howling, most of the time. But whenever you’d move close to a monster, the silence would be replaced by the static sound from your pocket radio, which really starts to spook you out if you have no clue of where the monster is. Although Silent Hill 2 was awesome too, the other 2 expansions that followed didn’t quite hit the mark.

Probability of this happening: Very Good
After the success of the movie, through which the game series received quite a lot of exposure, I doubt that Konami will let go of this opportunity of cashing in one the series, since Silent Hill 5 will probably sell more titles than its predecessors. Konami seems busy with Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot, at the moment, so I don’t think that we’ll be seeing Silent Hill 5 any time soon.