Top 10 Franchises With Only One Outstanding Game

Welcome to WatchMojo and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the top 10 franchises with only one great game.

For this list, we’re looking at video game franchises where one of the titles is just a cut above the rest; this doesn’t mean the other games in the series are bad, they’re just nowhere near the same level.

Let us know in the comments which of your favorite franchises made our list.

Though it initially started life as just another “GTA” clone, coming hot on the heels of “Vice City” and “San Andreas”, “Saints Row” eventually developed into its own beast. This formula peaked with “Saints Row: The Third”, which took the series to a new location, Steelport, and was somehow bigger, better, and wackier than even “Saints Row 2”. But “Saints Row IV” quickly followed, and it was hard to be impressed. It was really nothing more than a glorified DLC for “The Third” giving you superpowers which, while initially fun, made you so overpowered that the game was far too easy. And don’t get us started on “Agents of Mayhem”.

The year was 2013: “Resident Evil 6” had recently removed the franchise from its horror roots, “Dead Space 3” had gone action-oriented too, and “Silent Hill” had all but disappeared. But there was a game that expanded to fill the horror void: “Outlast”. Upon release, the game – which sees you investigate a sinister asylum with only a night-vision camera standing between you and certain death – was critically acclaimed. But unfortunately, that lightning in a bottle couldn’t be recreated for the sequel. Set in an isolated part of Arizona, “Outlast II” was a disappointment. And with the third game, “Outlast Trials”, set to release for VR, very few people will be able to play it no matter how good it is.

Few games, if any, have done what 2008’s “Mirror’s Edge” did. A linear platformer with an extremely distinct art style and some of the most precise, well-crafted controls of any video game, it was a hit – particularly in the speedrunning community. So, people had big expectations when its sequel, “Mirror’s Edge Catalyst”, finally released. But “Catalyst” went completely off the rails. It still had the visuals and the controls but gone was the linearity: now it was yet another open-world game featuring free-roaming and side-content. It wasn’t widely disliked, but everything good in “Catalyst” was just stuff ported over from the first game; it didn’t innovate whatsoever.

It’s been called, by some, the greatest PS2 game of all time; it definitely has stiff competition for that title, but few can deny that “Sly 2” isn’t the best “Sly Cooper” game by some margin. To this day it remains the gold standard for sequels, adding plenty of great gameplay features like pickpocketing and brand-new characters that were just as fun as Sly in their own ways. But though the “Sly Cooper” series avoided the sophomore slump, none of the other games ever reached the lofty heights of “Sly 2”. It excelled at everything it tried to do and ultimately, could never be topped.

The “Rainbow Six” series has always been relatively popular, with plenty of players dedicated to mastering them. But “Rainbow Six Siege”, the follow-up to “Vegas 2”, is one of the most iconic shooters ever made. People started playing “Siege” when it was released in 2015 and they just haven’t stopped; and thanks to frequent updates and continuing support, it’s only gotten better with every passing year. Ubisoft actually canceled the game that was initially going to succeed “Vegas 2”, putting all hands on deck to make “Siege” as outstanding as it is. Only time will tell if the next game will be just as good, or whether people are just going to keep playing “Siege” forever.

An indie darling, “Amnesia” was another frightening horror game where you wander around a spooky building – this time a castle rather than an asylum – with a limited light source and no way to fight back against the castle’s inhabitants. It was Gothic horror at its finest. Unfortunately, neither of the follow-ups was all that good. 2020’s “Amnesia: Rebirth” was definitely a return to form, but it still wasn’t as good as “The Dark Descent”. “A Machine for Pigs”, on the other hand, was absolutely terrible, featuring a plot where one man decides to perform human sacrifices to prevent the atrocities of the World Wars.

Telltale Games had existed for years beforehand, but “The Walking Dead: Season One” really put them on the map. Few people didn’t shed a tear at the end when Clementine had to say goodbye to Lee, the main protagonist who’d been looking after her throughout the apocalypse. Clementine is an iconic video game character, but she definitely got a raw deal in the subsequent releases. The other three seasons ended up marred by Telltale Games’ alleged toxic work environment. But while seasons “2” and “4” were solid enough, “3” is one of Telltale’s worst games. Lee’s demise was poignant and meaningful, but the whole series really lost something without him.

Naughty Dog is known for its prestige, and even when its games are controversial, they’re still pretty good and have consistently been the best PlayStation has to offer. In the PS2 era, that offering was “Jak & Daxter”. The first game was a relatively safe 3D platformer which, while not bad, definitely wasn’t too innovative in 2001; the sequel, however, was a definite heavy hitter in the early days of the PS2. It combined the action-platforming we already knew with gunplay and driving, making it a bizarre hybrid that shouldn’t have worked on paper. But it did, giving us the best “Jak & Daxter” game in the whole saga.

Die-hard “Witcher” fans won’t like to admit it, but the truth is that “The Witcher” and “The Witcher 2” haven’t aged well at all. They’re incredibly dated, janky games and there’s a reason most people still haven’t gone back to play them. But “The Witcher 3” was a sleeper hit in 2015, coming seemingly out of nowhere and taking the world by storm. Undoubtedly, “The Witcher 3” is one of the best open-world games and RPGs ever made – it’s even a contender for the best RPG ever made. It’s the game that catapulted CD Projekt Red into the stratosphere, and its two predecessors don’t measure up to it at all.

Even beyond the original “Watch Dogs’” graphical issues, it wasn’t a great game deep down; sure, it had a lot of cool concepts and some interesting missions, but its main character, Aiden Pearce, was as bland as you could get. With “Watch Dogs 2”, it looked like Ubisoft actually listened to the criticism, and we went to sunny San Francisco for zany, “Saints Row” style missions with a colorful cast of characters. “Watch Dogs 2” was, put simply enough, a whole lot of fun. And then “Watch Dogs: Legion” came out, a game that abandoned the thing that made the second game so beloved – its characters – in favor of a roster of procedurally generated NPCs.