How to Title Your Stupid Sequel
If you have to make a sequel, try being creative with at least the title.
Read Full Article
If you have to make a sequel, try being creative with at least the title.
Read Full Article
How to Title Your Stupid Sequel
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Wish we had that reboot=death penalty thing in real life. It would be a cleansing i would look forward to anyway.
As for the names, subtitles would have helped with distinguishing sequals from each other.
Half Life 2: Aftermath would stand out more among its bigger brothers if it hadn't been named Episode 1.
As for the names, subtitles would have helped with distinguishing sequals from each other.
Half Life 2: Aftermath would stand out more among its bigger brothers if it hadn't been named Episode 1.
Bravo, Yahtzee. But how then do we classify the Final Fantasy series, which has numbered sequels that have buttfuck all to do with each other?
Redemption Resurrection Insurrection Requiem Retribution Evolution Revolution Extinction Extermination... I'll take the numbering system over this any day.
Halo 4 is a confusing title numerically as well, as it is the sixth fps in the series. Seventh game, if you count Halo Wars.
And can we talk about Assassin's Creed for a moment? Just because your games take place in the same time period doesn't mean they're not proper sequels. It's an annual-release franchise. AC3 deals directly with the events of Brotherhood and Revelations.
Category three is a happy medium, but it does confuse me. As much as I love Dreamfall, I refuse to call it The Longest Journey: Dreamfall. That's just silly. I'd love to see a project with the confidence to use #4, but most examples I can think of are more easily classified as "spiritual sequels" than directly tied by narrative. I was going to say Virtue's Last Reward, but that actually sort of retconned the the whole series as "Zero Escape: Subtitle Here".
Can anyone think of an example of a true game sequel with a completely different title?
My closest attempt is Ico and its tangentially connected prequel Shadow of the Colossus.
And can we talk about Assassin's Creed for a moment? Just because your games take place in the same time period doesn't mean they're not proper sequels. It's an annual-release franchise. AC3 deals directly with the events of Brotherhood and Revelations.
Category three is a happy medium, but it does confuse me. As much as I love Dreamfall, I refuse to call it The Longest Journey: Dreamfall. That's just silly. I'd love to see a project with the confidence to use #4, but most examples I can think of are more easily classified as "spiritual sequels" than directly tied by narrative. I was going to say Virtue's Last Reward, but that actually sort of retconned the the whole series as "Zero Escape: Subtitle Here".
Can anyone think of an example of a true game sequel with a completely different title?
My closest attempt is Ico and its tangentially connected prequel Shadow of the Colossus.
And now we've reached a point of wonderful sequel ambiguity: does the "13" at the end of a game title refer to the 13th installment of a series, or the release for the year 2013?
(The correct answer: It doesn't matter, the game most likely sucks either way.)
(The correct answer: It doesn't matter, the game most likely sucks either way.)
But... Dreamfall follows lesson #3 almost to a T. "Dreamfall: The Longest Journey" is never uttered like that. It's always just "Dreamfall", the "Longest Journey" part just serving to indicate it's in the same universe, though it's widely known that it is. Dreamfall by itself is sufficiently distinct and known to be used as the only title. It's distinct enough to name its sequel without the Longest Journey in it. I'm glad since "The Longest JourneyDondonalien44 said:
reamfall:Chapters" is way too unwieldly. Not that folks at Activision know this. I mean "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Black Ops [insert number here]". Come on, now, you know they're one step away from merging them all like that to maximize sales.An oddity I can think of would be the Gabriel Knight series. They all start with "Gabriel Knight", but although they all have a relatively unique subtitle ("Sins of the Fathers", "The Beast Within", "Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned"), they regularly get abbreviated into Gk1, Gk2 and Gk3, respectively. I think that's a shame, since the subtitles have a lot of peotry in them and are poingant when you learn the entire story in the game.
Sometimes sequel naming becomes amusing.
In the early '90s people had learned that anything with the number 2 in it usually sucked. So publishers started using the number 2000. It's a very big number and also refered to the year 2000 that was coming up in the near future. Big numbers with a futuristic sound that had to be good, right? So SimCity 2000 and Gunship 2000 among others were born. But then what do you call the next installment when the year 2000 hasn't even arrived yet? The good guys at Maxis certainly didn't seem to be in any doubt, SimCity 3000 seemed like the natural title.
In the early '90s people had learned that anything with the number 2 in it usually sucked. So publishers started using the number 2000. It's a very big number and also refered to the year 2000 that was coming up in the near future. Big numbers with a futuristic sound that had to be good, right? So SimCity 2000 and Gunship 2000 among others were born. But then what do you call the next installment when the year 2000 hasn't even arrived yet? The good guys at Maxis certainly didn't seem to be in any doubt, SimCity 3000 seemed like the natural title.
But catering to "easily frightened thickos who only want to watch what they're familiar with" is the whole reason sequels exist in the first place. And I can think of at least one franchise that tried the new-name thing and apparently suffered for it because they stopped doing it: the Pink Panther series. The second movie was called A Shot in the Dark, but every movie after that had "Pink Panther" in the title despite having nothing to do with the titular gem.Yahtzee Croshaw said:
No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of their audience, after all.
But then again, I've heard some people use the phrase "Double-Oh-Seven Skyfall" verbally, because "Skyfall" is shorter and a bit more generic than most other Bond titles.
Here's another example of stupid naming:
Star Wars: Dark Forces
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
Good point as usual, keep em coming!
Now here's to hoping some genius in marketing at a big publisher also follows your columns!!!!
Now here's to hoping some genius in marketing at a big publisher also follows your columns!!!!
First Blood
Rambo: First Blood Part 2
Rambo 3
Rambo
Confusing, inconsistent, and the last one isn't even a reboot! It's not just games that can't figure out naming.
Another shitty practice is to add or remove the word "the". Final Destination and The Final Destination are entirely separate entries in the same series.
P.S. Thanks
P.P.S.
Rambo: First Blood Part 2
Rambo 3
Rambo
Confusing, inconsistent, and the last one isn't even a reboot! It's not just games that can't figure out naming.
Another shitty practice is to add or remove the word "the". Final Destination and The Final Destination are entirely separate entries in the same series.
P.S. Thanks
P.P.S.
Windows 1.0
Windows 2.0
Windows 3.0 - So far so good
Windows 3.1 - Pretty major revision, deserves more than a .1
Windows NT 3.1 - Confusingly, the first release of the Windows NT line.
Windows 95 - Goodbye version numbers.
Windows NT 4.0 - But the NT line still uses 'em
Windows 98 - Continues with the year trend, only confusing because the NT line is running at the same time and has the same look and feel
Windows 2000 - Uh oh, an NT release with a year number, but not NT in the name.
Windows ME - Letter name? This must be the successor to NT, right? Nope, it's the next 9x.
Windows XP - This marks the fusion of the 9x and NT families. Doesn't match a naming convention, but if you know it's the latest you're good.
Windows Server 2003 - Years are now being used for yet another new family of products.
Windows Home Server - A new family, not a successor to Windows Server 2003
Windows Vista - Successor to XP.
Windows Server 2008 - Successor to Server 2003, based on Vista
Windows 7 - Hello again, version numbers, successor to Vista. No matter how you count it, 7 is wrong.
Windows Home Server 2011 - Successor to Home Server, based on Server 2008
Windows 8 - The most consistently named version in a decade.
Windows Server 2012 - With the discontinuation of the Home Server line, this is the successor both to Server 2008 and Home Server 2011.
So yeah, I think Windows takes the cake for confusing naming schemes. And this is just for their desktop products. It gets even weirder once you include their integrated versions (CE, RT, Embedded Automotive, Phone, etc).
Windows 2.0
Windows 3.0 - So far so good
Windows 3.1 - Pretty major revision, deserves more than a .1
Windows NT 3.1 - Confusingly, the first release of the Windows NT line.
Windows 95 - Goodbye version numbers.
Windows NT 4.0 - But the NT line still uses 'em
Windows 98 - Continues with the year trend, only confusing because the NT line is running at the same time and has the same look and feel
Windows 2000 - Uh oh, an NT release with a year number, but not NT in the name.
Windows ME - Letter name? This must be the successor to NT, right? Nope, it's the next 9x.
Windows XP - This marks the fusion of the 9x and NT families. Doesn't match a naming convention, but if you know it's the latest you're good.
Windows Server 2003 - Years are now being used for yet another new family of products.
Windows Home Server - A new family, not a successor to Windows Server 2003
Windows Vista - Successor to XP.
Windows Server 2008 - Successor to Server 2003, based on Vista
Windows 7 - Hello again, version numbers, successor to Vista. No matter how you count it, 7 is wrong.
Windows Home Server 2011 - Successor to Home Server, based on Server 2008
Windows 8 - The most consistently named version in a decade.
Windows Server 2012 - With the discontinuation of the Home Server line, this is the successor both to Server 2008 and Home Server 2011.
So yeah, I think Windows takes the cake for confusing naming schemes. And this is just for their desktop products. It gets even weirder once you include their integrated versions (CE, RT, Embedded Automotive, Phone, etc).
I can't believe I never noticed the whole re- thing in the subtitles. Halo REach, Assassin's Creed REvelations, The Matrix REvolutions, Metal Gear Solid: REvengeance. It's so obvious when you think about it.