I'm Tired Of Bad Spiritual Successors

In the past three months alone, we’ve had The Callisto Protocol, Atomic Heart, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, all of which failed to capture the magic of games that inspired them. Spiritual successors are back in vogue, but playing them is like walking through a funhouse at a carnival and seeing your own reflection distorted in the mirror. It’s familiar, but everything feels off.

[bunt-custardly]

I am lost, Atomic Heart is a spiritual successor to which game? And please don't say Bioshock (Infinite).

[Noskypeno]

Haven't played it yet but maybe it uses the abilities or environmental storytelling in a similar way to Bioshock. If we dig deep enough we can say every game is a spiritual successor to every game that came before it.

[myfathersbastard]

It clearly takes inspiration from bioshock, but in no way was it a spiritual successor.
In my mind, true spiritual successors are games done by a person/team that worked on the original game, but for one reason or another, can’t make another entry in that franchise.
Whether they are good or bad, is another story.

[SurgicalMenace]

Not only Atomic, but Wo Long, Collisto, etc? They were all new IPs so what are they succeeding?

[IamTylerDurden1]

Callisto was a direct successor to Deadspace and it lets u know. Wo Long was rumored to have started as Nioh 3 conceptually. Atomic Heart is very Bioshock but imo it distinguishes itself from the IP more than the others.

[IamTylerDurden1]

AH takes inspiration from Bioshock but it has enough elements imo to make it unique. Callisto/Wo Long look as if they could actually be games in the Deadspace/Nioh franchises. Certainly AH's opening has Columbia vibes plus shock, frost, telekinesis, and the flying bots harken back to Bioshock. However, it also offers bits of Farcry in terms of open world sections, RE/Evil Within via save rooms, and touches by everything from Prey (also Bioshock inspired) to Wolfenstein to even Fallout in terms of alt history 50's/robots/tech. It's primary inspiration is Bioshock but has many other elements and imo it carves out a fun and at times unique experience. Certainly a flawed game but i fell for the enjoyable combat, deep upgrades/mods, and fantastic setting. Mid way through the game there was an almost Kojima like cutscene involving the ballerina twins creating a weird polymer reaction with a body and i loved. AH is bruting in its convictions, it stumbles at times, but ultimately a game i can get behind and game i enjoy seeing in the market. A nearly self funded AAA (ish) title from a new eastern European dev. And it isn't EA or Ubi it's Focus Home. I support it and encourage anyone who enjoyed Bioshock and Prey to give it a try.

[DrDoomer]

None of the games in that pic are bad.

[Sgt_Slaughter]

But they're not as good as the games they're trying to emulate, which is the problem. Riding off the coattails of the success of another game yet not putting in the effort to earn it.

[Lightning Mr Bubbles]

Callisto Protocol < Dead Space
Back 4 Blood < Left 4 Dead
Wo Long < Nioh
Atomic Heart < ??????

It's true none of those games are bad, but I agree they aren't as good as the games that inspired them. And metacritic scores also show that to be true. Although Wo Long is still pretty good with a metacritic score of 81 compared to 88 for Nioh and 85 for Nioh 2.

I don't even know what game inspired Atomic Heart.

[jambola]

The metacritic scores show subjective opinions
Nothing else
Not even necessarily from people who played both

[kingnick]

Not every game has to be as good as the game or franchise that inspired it.

The bigger problem I find is that I get burned out on the game that inspired the later game then I have no desire to play the later game, for example I couldn't stand Back 4 Blood as it just seemed inferior to Left 4 Dead and I can't bring myself to play Left 4 Dead 1 or 2 as I played way too much of both and not even mods make me want to play either again.

[SurgicalMenace]

No matter what Metacritic says it is only a consensus of what others "think" about a game. I purchased all of them, all but Elden Ring/B4B did i thoroughly enjoy. After hundreds of hours in Nioh, Wo Long stands out enough from it to earn its own merit in the industry. There is nothing that would lead me to say any of these are bad I don't care what critics say.

[CrimsonWing69]

Um, those games are better than 70% of the games released.

Also, Wo Long isn’t good now?

[BrainSyphoned]

Agree, the spiritual successors to gaming journalism are pretty rough to look at.

[phoenixwing]

Lol right on the mark with this one. I don't even think wo long is a bad game. I'd rather have spiritual successors that aren't as good as the original as opposed to just outright bad games. Spiritual successors at least give focus to the dev teams that otherwise might have made even worse games without a focus at all.

[Inverno]

What are Atomic Heart and Wo Long successors to? A lot of the disappointment comes from the amount of hype generated by prerelease previews. I can understand Callisto and Back4Blood but people forget devs aren't making games to cater to their expectations.

[IamTylerDurden1]

Wo Long looks like and is from the dev of Nioh. It adds Sekiro combat and technically a Chinese setting as opposed to JP but the assets and mechanics are similar. Tbh the Soulslike genre is oversatured. Even Team Ninja is pumping them out at a staggering rate. Nioh, Nioh 2, FF Origins, and Wo Long in about 5 or 6 yrs? Ronin is at least open world and hopefully more unique but it could be another. Lies of P, Steelrising, Thymesia, The Surge, Lotf, Atlas, Elden Ring, and numerous others including indies. It's just a bit over done.

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

Recently Bleak Faith, too. And Mortal Shell. Plus many other upcoming games made on UE5.

[jambola]

And I'm tired of low quality half assed articles
Yet here thegamer keeps on churning

[Profchaos]

In my view. Spiritual successor needs to have something that ties it back to the original eg the Castillo protocol was by glen Schofield who was lead on the original dead space game.

But atomic heart is not a spiritual successor it's heavily influenced by bioshock sure but bit a spiritual successor.

Not every game that take influence from other games is a spiritual successor otherwise half of the games we got in the 7th gen would have been spiritual successors to gears of war

[NecrumOddBoy]

Exactly.

Ken Levite’s Judas is a spiritual successor to Bioshock, for example.

[sadraiden]

Geez. James Troughton is prolific.

[Vengeance1138]

Callisto Protocol is in no way bad, I completed my first playthrough in 14hrs and loved every minute of it. There are many areas that need improving and expanding but overall the framework is there for something really special.

[SurgicalMenace]

Wholeheartedly agree with you. I loved Collisto Proticol not only was it gorgeous but the protagonist was believable. The combat was what you'd expect of a cargo shipper turned space marine. I never understood what the fuss was about. It seems people only downed it because it wasn't Dead Space.

[Knushwood Butt]

I beat Callisto 5 or 6 times. Got all the trophies at the time. including the one for beating hardcore mode.
Never played any of the Dead Space games so don't care whether it is a spiritual successor or not.

[IamTylerDurden1]

It's not very original though, is it? Plus charging for animations? That season pass. All of that and a reportedly short run time. I can't support it.

[Vengeance1138]

This is coming from the guy that created Dead Space and EA chose to let the series die off until recently, so good on him for trying to keep it alive with a spiritual successor. Callisto clearly had a much much longer dev time than DS Remake, so at the time, the remake didn't exist or did anyone even know it was going to exist.

Are you seriously still under the impression that the paid DLC only includes new deaths and nothing else? I'm not sure how a studio could include "new" ways to die, without also making new animations?? Please explain to me how one could accomplish new deaths without new animations. Also don't get me started on being "original" when games like Elden Ring are praised to high heaven, not very original is it?

[SurgicalMenace]

That's cool man, let's just ignore all the paid gestures the populate the deepest recess of the online stores. I guess Collisto is the only game worth knocking for something that's clearly a staple now. You never intended to buy it anyway so why even bother stating arbitrary reason of why you chose not too? People buy and support for their own reasons as well. Though the reason doesn't matter because their support speaks for itself. It's always somebody who didn't buy something that has the most grievances. To each their own.

[anast]

If game journos were actually qualified and would review games honestly, the bar would be set much higher. People should not get trophies for "trying" or better yet for being "ambitious".

[GoodGuy09]

Most are a shadow of the former...

[DarkZane]

Would Wo Long even be considered a spiritual successor to Nioh if they're both made by the same developer? It's more like the same genre of game with slightly different mechanic at this point.

[Soulsborne]

Wo long is fantastic. Your bad pc port ≠ a bad game....

[SurgicalMenace]

Man, farming level 5s as we speak. The most satisfying souls game that I've played since Nioh, Sekiro, and Bloodbourne.

[jznrpg]

Don’t buy them . They’re not bad games

[gangsta_red]

I believe i commented on this before, but a lot of these spiritual successors are relying on nostalgia value to succeed. And we gamers get excited and comment on how great this is because we all remember how fun the originals were, but the problem with that is...we remember how fun they were back then and we have all basically moved on.

Either that or some of these new games don't capture the magic of the original because the production value isn't as good (usually a kickstarter) because the original games were under a huge publisher with a lot of money to spend on quality.

There are some stand outs like Phoenix Point, but off the top of my head there hasn't been many. Mighty 9 and Yooka Laylee instantly comes to mind as well as the Actraiser successor.

I haven't played The Callisto Protocol or Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and I just started Atomic Heart, so far i'm digging AH.