What game franchise has left you disappointed?

Civ 7.

I remember Beyond Good and Evil, I really liked that game as well. Can't remember the cliffhanger though.

I played it on Xbox and possibly my favorite game on that system was Mercenaries. An open world in a war zone with a destructible environment where you could call in lots of different airstrikes. That was awesome and also new at that time. The game was super fun.

And then came Mercenaries 2, where they needlessly implemented a lot of really stupid game mechanics. Silly quick-time events to take over tanks and helicopters (flying helicopters!) casually. Buildings that would spawn an infinite amount of enemies. A health system where you wouldn't die if your health went to 0, instead the game would slomo and you'd get ~5 seconds to get into cover or simply take over a vehicle with a qte, so you were basically invincible. I just couldn't believe it. They completely butchered the sequel for absolutely no reason.

That was such a shame. And of course it killed the series. Still wish they would make Mercenaries 3 nowadays.

Payday.

First one was great, with gritty atmosphere and filled a heisting niche that was pretty dang empty up until that point.

Payday 2 started out neat, devolved into one of the most horrendous DLC spams there ever was. I'm not even going to mention all the dramas.

Payday 3 is...just a flop from every single standpoint. Buggy, online only, dlc spam still there, no variety in builds, and the dev abandoned it shortly after launch in favor of moving most of its crew on some crappy dnd moba game.

I wouldn't call BG&E a franchise, because there is technically" only the one game ever made.
For me, a franchise should at least* have two games in it.

Fallout... Since 4rd "instalment"

Alot of.....

1. Ubisoft( splinter cell, watch dogs, ghost recon, rainbow six)
2. valve( counter strike)
3. Deep silver(Saints row)
4. Gear box ( Brothers in arms)
5. Activision(Call of duty franchise)

The Settlers.

The Settlers 1 got me envious of friend's Amiga, while I had C64.
The Settlers 2 perfected the game.
The Settlers 3 changed the gameplay, but had perfect balance of mechanics. It's my favorite game of all time.
The Settlers 4 was ok, some people prefer it to 3.
The Settlers 5, 6 departed from original gameplay towards bland experience with prettyish, but generic looking graphics. I don't have the heart to check 7, but supposedly it's better. New Allies seems to have neutral reviews again.

Disciples 3

I'm sure one can guess by my avatar.In fact,pretty much all franchises I grew up with (a couple got mentioned here already) got FUBAR'd.
Sad.

Darksiders with Darksiders 3(maybe they patched it by now, but it felt so unnatural compared to the other two) and Darksiders Genesis, because I don't understand why they thought it was okay to continue the story in that fashion, like yeah lets turn this 3rd person platformer game into an arpg they'll love that. Like why not just make the first four games, and then focus on making a game on the events before the story or whatever if that's what you wanna do. We still have an incomplete story.

Harry Potter, after playing the first 3 and getting Goblet of Fire, I realized it was a pile of sh--. Thankfully they did okay with the others so not completely the worst. Goblet of Fire barely resembled Harry Potter anymore, it was like some arcade game and the areas often made no sense, with some scenes from it. I dropped it it was crap.

Oni because I didn't get Oni 2(like why not?).

Jazz Jackrabbit because JJ3 was canceled(again, why?).

ARK for not focusing on ARK 2 and spending money on influencers for a trailer, when they're already struggling with money, and now leeching of ARK 1 forever it seems.

Dying Light for the ending, and Dying Light 2 at launch for trying to be played completely different(although they fixed it now, I should play it).

SIMS for making 1000 dlcs and not making SIMS 5(like for fks sake you got the engine and the license, make a house building game with 100k assets already).

Heroes of Might and Magic for whatever happened from HOMM4 and after.

Vampire the Masquerade for not continuing to make good games after Bloodlines(how did you do so good on this, then decide to make completely different games for 20 years? Hopefully VTMB2 is a hit).

Beyond Good and Evil for delaying the second game.

The Longest Journey Series for not making more games already.

Hitman for doing whatever the heck this new base thing contract thing is, like I think instead of creating a story that leads to something all they're doing now is adding contracts or something?

Quake for Quake IV and whatever came after.

American McGee's Alice for EA being a pile of sh-- and not giving the team money to make the game.

Cyberpunk for wanting to stay at a single game with no more updates despite there being like multiple books stories out there and such a huge universe to expand on. (I think they've slightly changed their mind since they're working on something if I'm right).

CS for the premier mode, it's lack of anti-cheat support, the prioritization of skins over an operation and more content. I wish I could go back in the past playing 1.5 in an internet cafe.

NFS with whatever happened after Carbon, although the games were still fun and Hot Pursuit was beautiful, it lost much of what I loved from Underground, MW, Carbon. Sure these newer ones related to the original titles more about driving less about customizing, but Unbound was just focused on doing that unnecessary anime thing that couldn't be turned off for instance, and the games after carbon started to feel like they lacked life in them. High Pursuit is an exception there for me, despite lacking customization I think it was an enjoyable game.

Me not getting any more No One Lives Forever games, or the Captain Claw sequel because they sold it to someone who just made a random platformer with a cat unrelated to Claw(like really bro? why did you even buy it, give it back).

Many others I agree with have already been mentioned and there's many I don't remember right now but this is quite enough. Regardless of some of my disappointments I still love many of the games in these series, I guess I just had a different idea of how they'd turn up. I guess with technology the need to "innovate" shows up and many times it hurts my favorite series.

Borderlands
1st two games are amazing, the 1st Tiny Tina pin off was also on par
and they get worse with each one
putting 100000+ guns into a game doesnt make it fun if they are all the exact same things shuffled around. where are my fun and joke guns at??? cursed gun that screams insanely loud when fired, fire randomly all over well it shook the screen and makes your move speed pudding. would mute the game and fire the gun at the ground with Gaige, most of the bullets would bounce and land kills
tales of the borderlands is still my favorite or all of them and all telltale games
now at any point they could update any of the games into Spyware
so ive deleted every single 2K game off my PC and rereviewed them

I don't think anything disappointed me more in the last recent years like Double Exposure. It's not even a game, it's like a semi serviceable project you make for school for the first 2 episodes (with a lot of questionable choices in dialogues and setting but like I said, serviceable) and then the last 3 episodes are just completely different and make no sense because you had to rush to deliver it on time. You don't even know the culprit of the main thing advertised in the game btw, and the post credits scene is literally a b-tier marvel movie bs they pulled . I refuse to believe they even tried to do anything proper with the IP and going with the deceptive marketing since day 1 was honestly just another horrible move to pile up in so many other things.

Deck Nine and Square Enix can honestly sell the IP and never touch it again, it's way better than anything they could come up with, ever. Sincerely, I hope the IP gets canned if they refuse to sell it.

King's Bounty after Armored Princess
P.S. BG&E too of course

Not in a terrible way but Doom 3 was way way better than Doom 2016 or Eternal. I wish they remade Doom 3 or made a new Doom game that was closer to 3.

You either shut down as Looking Glass or continue operating to become a BioWare. How they massacred Dragon Age and Mass Effect.

Diablo: with Diablo IV they couldn't deicide if they wanted to make a classic ARPG or a MMORPG so they decided to make mix that dissappint the fans of both genres
the settlers: anything after 4 wasn't that good and the latest game of the series was serious kick in the balls of any settler fan.
Sacred: Sacred 3 wtf?!

The Witcher. I love the universe, the books, and the original game, but every new game in the series was worse than the one before. Witcher 3 is the most disappointing game I've ever played. The way they completely wasted the potential of the Wild Hunt myth they've been building up since the first game, the wasted sense of impending doom they set up in the opening cinematics, and the rushed ending completely ruined the game for me. The only memorable and enjoyable parts of the entire game were the opening cinematic with the prologue, the heartfelt goodbye with Ciri in the end, and the Blood and Wine expansion. The main game left a sour taste that I am afraid will never be washed away.

Killing Floor franchise. The first one was amazing for me, It was my first game on Steam. From there the franchise went bad imo.