Xbox Exclusive (Five Games That Need A Reboot)

Everything thats old is new again and we have seen studios take chances on new IP’s lately with middling success. The thing about bringing back a dormant IP is that it already has a built in fanbase of varying sizes but nonetheless, there is less marketing and risk bringing back an older IP. In our three part series we are going to look at PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo and list the five dormant exclusives that need to make a comeback.

Here are the top five Xbox exclusives that need to make a comeback, why they need to comeback and how the can comeback.

Firstly, there should be some guidelines for what should make the list and there are five major points.

• Needs to be a minimum ten years since the last entry

• Nothing official about development of a new title

• our list, which means some popular games might be left off the list, your list will be different

• Mobile titles not included

• fits into portfolio

Dear Xbox, Bring These Games Back,

Fusion Frenzy

A reboot of Fuzion Frenzy and Xbox Game Pass seem like a match made in heaven. Party games are always hard to persuade casual buyers to take a chance on, but if you remove the barrier to entry, a lot more people would be able to try it and it would also increase the user base.

Finally, the industry has proven that there is a market for this type of game. Fall Guys, which is essentially Fuzion Frenzy on a larger scale has seen massive success to the tune of over 50 million users. The other obvious comparable, Mario Party, is still a proven success for Nintendo to this day. Super Mario Party has currently sold over 18 million copies, and Mario Party Superstars has sold over 5 million copies, with both titles being full price.

Shadow Complex

Shadow Complex is easily on the shortlist for best Xbox Live Arcade titles with games like Limbo and Braid. Shadow Complex was released on Xbox 360 in 2009 and remained exclusive to the console until 2016 when the remastered version came to PlayStation and PC. Shadow Complex was made by ChAIR who were acquired by Epic Games right before the release of the game.

After Shadow Complex, the team at ChAIR moved onto Infinity Blade on iOS, which was released in 2010. They followed it up with two sequels, with the first released in 2011 and the second sequel released in 2013. It makes sense why ChAIR stuck with Infinity Blade over Shadow Complex as the studio announced that in 2012, Infinity Blade had made 23 million in revenue. If you compare this with the sales figures we know from Shadow Complex at the $15 price point the game sold at, you have around 9 million dollars in revenue minus development costs.

Combine the success of Infinity Blade, the founder of ChAIR getting promoted to Worldwide Creative Director of Epic in 2016, and Fortnite BR releasing in 2017 and it seems pretty easy to figure out why we haven’t seen a sequel yet and might not for a while. The glass half full says that in the past decade, since the release of Shadow Complex, we have seen the popularity of Metroidvania’s go way up meaning that there is a bigger potential market for a sequel. Digital downloads are also much more common place than they were back then, thanks to the advancements in hard drive size and internet speeds. Finally, Epic could give the sequel a head start if they put the main character in Fortnite, which would give the title a lot more awareness.

Check out our Top 5 PlayStation Exclusive IP that needs to Return

Ninja Gaiden

Obvisouly, this series has a long and decorated history. What started out as a side scrolling action game on the NES in the late 80’s evolved into something very different with the reboot of Ninja Garden by Team Ninja. The 2004 title and the sequel in 2008 were exclusive to the Xbox and even though, the first game eventually came to other systems years later and subsequent games and spinoffs released on multiple systems, the series modern roots are more closely tied with Xbox.

The rise in popularity with Fromsoftware titles over the past decade is nothing shy astronomical. What was considered niche and cult, is now in the conversation for best game of the year critically and commercially. Team Ninja already has games like Nioh, and Wo-Long that have strong similarities to Fromsoftware games, but these game are available everywhere. Ninja Gaiden would have to return in an original way

If Microsoft was able to get another exclusive agreement for Ninja Gaiden, it would be smart because the IP has strong brand recognition, the last entry was in 2012 and there are ways to make it work. The less risky option would be stripping it back to the basics with a more stealth based, hardcore souls-like that would be similar to Sekiro.

The riskier version would be to go back to the roots of the series and make a hardcore 2D Ninja Garden with hard platforming, souls-like bosses and strong stealth elements. In my head i’m thinking of something like Mark of The Ninja and Sekiro combined. Although it would be riskier, it would cost a lot less to develop.

Crimson Skies

When I think of Crimson Skies coming back, I can’t help but think that it could be an aerial version of Sea of Thieves, which has been an incredible success for Rare and Microsoft. The good news is that even though it started out as a tabletop game, and the company that developed the game closed down in 2007, Microsoft still owns the rights to the IP. The other encouraging sign is that in 2013, Microsoft also renewed the trademark for Crimson Skies.

Combine this with the amazing technology that Microsoft has within Microsoft Flight Simulator and it would seem like the game is halfway out the door. Flight Simulator also received the Top Gun Maverick DLC that gives you a taste of what Crimson Skies could be like if it returned. The Top Gun Maverick DLC didn’t have any weapons or combat, which makes sense as from a PR standpoint you want to keep that out of Flight Sim.

In terms of competition, there are minimal aerial based games with the two front runners being the obvious Flight Sim and the other being Ace Combat. Ace Combat 7 proves that there is still a market for this type of game as the seventh entry in the series has managed to sell over 4 million copies.

Ryse: Son of Rome

If there is one area where Xbox is lacking compared to PlayStation, its high quality exclusives. Even more specifically, single player, story driven, cinematic exclusives. The list is almost endless with games like Uncharted, TLOU, God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Spider Man, Horizon, and Bloodborne just off the top of my head.

Ryse: Son of Rome checks every single one of those boxes and could be something special. I know what you are saying. Ryse just wasn’t that good. Overall, it was lacking in some departments for sure but it created a very strong foundation to build upon.

What I think was the major downfall for Ryse was that it began development as a Kinect exclusive title and after seeing the success of that platform, had to pivot to being a standard game. If a sequel to Ryse was created today it would be able to purely focus on the areas that needed improvement. The story, visuals and cinematic feel of game were good enough, it just needed to build a strong enough mechanics around it. Incorporate some skill trees, include some souls like combat and you have a system seller.

At one point, despite being labeled a commercial failure by Crytek, both them and Microsoft were on board for a sequel with major disputes coming down to who would retain the IP. The good news is that both companies want the series to move forward, it will just come down to sorting out the business. Crytek is a fairly large company with around 300 employees but are currently busy supporting Hunt:Showdown as well as working on a fourth entry in the Crysis series.