It's a common criticism of the modern entertainment industry that the only movies and video games releasing right now are either sequels to well-established IPs, or remakes of them, and that's not entirely untrue. While the video game industry does see hundreds of brand-new indie titles release every year, its primary releases are often sequels and remakes. In 2023 alone, two of the most anticipated titles are Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and the Resident Evil 4 Remake. So, with so many sequels releasing, there's always the possibility of them falling into the "Sequel displacement" trope.

While the "Sequel displacement" gaming trope can be found throughout industry history, it's most prevalent in the late 1990s and early-mid 2000s, where sequels would often mark a vast departure from previous entries in the series, either in terms of gameplay, story, or both. The "Sequel displacement trope" isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can occasionally make a fan reluctant to experience important entries in the franchise.

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The Sequel Displacement Gaming Trope Explained

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The "Sequel displacement" trope is often used to describe when a new entry releases in a long-running franchise, and that entry vastly outperforms its predecessors. This new entry then becomes incredibly popular, and essentially wipes out the previous entries' existence. While gamers will still likely have knowledge that prior entries in the franchise exist, they might be reluctant to try those due to the sequel greatly overshadowing them.

This is often the case with a sequel that improves on its predecessor in many significant ways, sometimes even changing the game's formula completely. This can mean a new control scheme, a new camera perspective, and even a new gameplay genre altogether. Graphics also usually play a big role in the "Sequel displacement" trope, with gamers often being reluctant to visit an older entry in a series if it has outdated graphics or framerates.

The Best Examples of the Sequel Displacement Trope in Gaming

Bizarre Grand Theft Auto 3 Glitch Contorts NPCs and Makes Them Float

One of the best examples of the trope is Grand Theft Auto 3. First released in 1997, Grand Theft Auto debuted as a top-down action game. While it still had the same general gameplay loop as the rest of the franchise -- albeit a barebones one of activating a mission, stealing a car, heading to the checkpoint, and killing a person -- the first Grand Theft Auto barely resembles the franchise as it's known today, and the first entry to break out of the mold was Grand Theft Auto 3. One of the very first free-roam open-world games, GTA3 vastly overshadowed its predecessors, and modern-day fans are extremely unlikely to have ever played those original two top-down entries.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is another great example of the trope. While Call of Duty 4 shares the same DNA as its previous entries, it was the game that really put the Call of Duty name in the public eye, with an online multiplayer mode that redefined the multiplayer shooter genre. Metal Gear Solid is a similar tale; most fans have likely never played the original Metal Gear series due to its completely different gameplay style and visual presentation.

The Elder Scrolls series is a particularly interesting example of this trope, with practically every entry being its own form of sequel displacement. When Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind came out, it was so advanced that it could hardly be compared to the first two games. Then, when Oblivion released, it managed to grab more attention than the series ever had before. For Skyrim, that was even more so the case, managing to bring in more players than the series ever had before, and essentially overwriting the IP in the eyes of new fans.

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