There’s a reason that video game publishers – or owners of any media property – like the prospect of creating and cultivating franchises so much. As a series becomes more and more popular, new instalments have progressively better chances of finding greater and greater success. But, of course, even that isn’t a sureshot guarantee, and sometimes, even truly great games in massive franchises end up getting overlooked, either because of very particular situations surrounding their releases, or because they get overshadowed by their own successors and predecessors, or for any number of other reasons. In this feature, we’ll be talking about fifteen such games from big franchises that don’t get nearly as much recognition as they deserve.
BATMAN: ARKHAM ORIGINS
Batman: Arkham Origins could not have released under worse circumstances, in retrospect. Not only was it developed as a stopgap and sandwiched between two of the series’ biggest games in Arkham City and Arkham Knight, it also came out exclusively for 7th-gen consoles right on the cusp of the beginning of the next console generation. The fact that it was developed by WB Games Montreal while the series’ main devs Rocksteady focused on Arkham Knight did its pre-release hype no favours either, while Warner Bros. themselves have, bafflingly enough, continued to roundly ignore the game in the years that followed. That’s a real shame, too, because with a great story, some of the best boss fights in the series, and the typical strengths in combat and open world traversal that the Arkham games are know for, Arkham Origins did everything series fans wanted it to.
