World of Warcraft ruined Warcraft.

Capitalism ruins franchises.

Fallout 76?

I played it with coop mates (via game pass IIRC), all EGS fans since Oblivion, well after 76 was released and patched up, and it was just… boring. And grindy. Yet kept trying to upsell us stuff. I kinda get how some like the game with those BGS environments, but that was still a shock to me.

Starfield did nothing either. I watched YT story videos/tried the intro out of a friend's Steam library instead of buying and felt like I was looking at a AI slop Skyrim mod, both technically and in terms of writing. Again, I’m a hardcore fan going way back, warts, glitches and all.

It’s remarkable the studio has fallen so far, without basically changing anything, yet still has such a loyal following. How is that even possible?

KSP2.

Apex Legends ruined the possibility of getting a Titanfall3

I wouldn't go as far as ruined but Halo ~~4~~/5/Infinite all suck.

Halo 4, kinda suck tbh. This is coming from someone who play the MMC so i basically marathon it and is able to compare it back to back, and it peaked at Reach. The gun play is wonky and no dual wield, Covenant somehow become the bad guy again after the event in 3, and none of the one that help human defeat Gravemind came back as an ally.

But it doesn't ruin the franchise for me though, to me canonically there's only 5 Halo game. The rest is fan fic.

I think mass effect is a clear contender, the ending to mass effect 2 was a bit meh, and then it really hit the fan with mass effect 3 and for those who didn't get message, they also made mass effect andromeda.

StarCraft and Brood War were amazing, but the writing quality took a nosedive in the sequel. StarCraft 2 felt like poorly written fanfiction that didn't understand the existing characters or their motivations at all.

Prototype 2. I loved the main character of the first one and the idea that even a monster was not as evil as human corporations. The jump to him being a main villain in 2 was too abrupt, there needed to be more story reasons to justify the change, or they shouldn’t have made him a villain at all.

Puyo Puyo Tetris. I put out a lengthy video essay about how this game is directly responsible for everything wrong with the series today, and a followup.

TL;DR: Outsold every main series game, and by an order of magnitude. Succeeded in spite of Puyo Puyo rather than because of it, did a terrible job making new players actually want to play Puyo Puyo and just led them to bounce off it and play the other game instead. But even in spite of how much I initially disliked it as a game, I thought its success could lead to bigger and better things for the series, perhaps we could finally get a main series game localized next. Never happened, instead Sega rehashed this crossover four times. Main series is dead, never coming back.

Any Splinter Cell after Chaos Theory

Also,

Assassin's Creed: Revelations

followed by Assassin's Creed: Unity

followed by Assassin's Creed: Syndicate

Diablo 4

Final Fantasy Remake Part 1

They changed the story and introduced Whispers to the game, something about Fate trying to drive the story the way its supposed to be. Then they made Sephiroth the final boss of what is now known to be a trilogy (bcz money)...

My absolute favorite game got ruined bcz they decided they needed to "shake the game up". And now part 2 "Rebirth" is some multiverse bullshit.

I hate everything about this corporate BS they turned the remake into. But, I have to live with it bcz its not my game.

Best I could do is buy rebirth used from game stop so Square Enix didnt get any of my money.

Instead, I play the original from time to time, and I have to try to block out the remake changes they have made.

The franchise was so successful, that Square Enix made idiotic spinoffs and added characters to iconic scenes who weren't there. They've just completely ruined the original game with how much they've milked the franchise. Its tragic to me, and not many people care that much.

I really wanted a remake that made the changes that were necessary to play to a modern audience, clear up the confusing story points more fleshed out so they were direct, and maybe changed up a boss or two. Basically I wanted the same thing they did with Resident Evil 4 remake, but instead we got a garbage trilogy.

Sticker Star kind of ruined Paper Mario for me. Super Paper Mario had already gone quite weird, but in a good way - the combat was completely different but it still felt like the original and TTYD in terms of the levelling, exploration, and plot.

Sticker Star, Colour Splash, and Origami King are very linear in comparison, their lack of experience makes battles largely pointless, and the obsession with giant household objects and nameless toad NPCs is getting tedious.

The latest three games were all still enjoyable, but they're really nothing on the first three.

Torchlight 3 and Infinite. I was a fan of Torchlight before there was Torchlight. I played Fate to death in college. I played Mythos during the beta. I probably put more hours into Torchlight and Torchlight 2 than I did into Diablo and Diablo 2 (and I put a lot of time into Diablo).

I actually had hope for Torchlight Frontiers. I thought it seemed like it could be what Mythos was trying to be - finally an online Torchlight game.

But then they forgot about all of that and essentially released "Torchlight 2 Mobile" but on PC.

Two of my favourite games of all time are Diablo 2 and Guild Wars.

Both of these games I was insanely hyped for the following games in the series and got them both on their respective releases days. Both were utterly disappointing crap when compared to their previous games and both probably contributed heavily to how I will now no longer get hyped for any game let alone buy one in their first year or two of release.

I could not get into Dawn of War 2 and 3 despite pouring thousands of hours into DoW1 and it's expansions. Why do makers of classic RTS games (looking at you EA) have to f*** with the formula?

I loved Battlefield.

For me it started to go downhill with BF1, although it was still a good game, it already started trying to be a movie and not the „put C4 onto jeep, plop into jeep, drive jeep to enemy, plop out if jeep, boom“ kinda jamboree that I loved. Now it was all about getting spammed with immersive animations that just broke the flow for me. At least hardcore servers were still very enjoyable for me.

Then BFV came around and with it more animation spam on top of absolute terrible visual clarity where you had to stand still for a couple seconds and scan a room to really be sure no one‘s lying on their back in a corner (obviously you‘re long dead by then). Oftentimes I got shot by a camper and even in the killcam I couldn‘t even see the guy. As if that‘s not enough, they introduced clown skins that made you wonder if that person‘s on your side or not. Now it’s not x uniform soldiers against x uniform soldiers anymore, there‘s superheroes and supervillains running around. I hardly even played this one.

Then BF2042 came and it‘s just Apex Legends hamfisted into a BF frame as far as I‘m concerned. I didn‘t even get this until they trashed it for 2 bucks and played for like 2 hours since.

BF3 was peak, BF4 was good, BF1 was alright, then a whole lotta disappointment. I‘ll never forget the 24/7 Back to Karkand Rush server in BF3, community servers rock. Good times, sad greed made it go to shit.

I'm going to say The Last of Us 2. I loved the first one so much, and then 2 was not what I wanted or was expecting, which completely killed any love I had for it and any desire for a larger franchise.

I was hoping for an anthology series where each game focused on a different group of people in the same universe. I loved Joel and Ellie, but I wanted their story to be over and to get a look at how other people had dealt with things.

Mass Effect Andromeda. I feel like I'm the only person on the internet who liked the ending of ME3 but holy shit Andromeda was fucking awful.

Viconia and Sarevok had no reason to be in BG3 and by choosing to use WOTCs deplorably terrible supplemental product lore as canon Larian has now cemented those character portrayals forever, which was just pure character assassination.

For me Just Cause 4 is the worst one for too many reasons to list. Also, I'm still not sure about Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, but that could have a lot to do with not being ready to play a middle aged, yolked Henry lol

(Edit: Oh and Sniper Elite 6 seems like a contender too. Although SE5 was very poorly received at the beginning until they fixed the issues and then it turned into one of the most awesome games ever so who knows...)

Dragon Age 2 ruined Dragon Age for me.

Mass Effect 3's ending soured me to anything EA until Titanfall 2 was less than $20.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few more ones but those two stand out the most.

Oblivion.

Daggerfall was awesome and Morrowind blew me away. Going into Oblivion I had the highest hopes. Bought the Collectors Edition, took the day off....and biggest disappointment from a game ever. Granted I like Skyrim. Not as much as Daggerfall or Morrowind, but far more than Oblivion. So I guess it didn't kill the franchise for me.

Bonus popular game that actually killed the franchise for me: GTA4. I loved the Trilogy, but I could not stand IV. All the main characters annoyed the piss out of me, the driving and gun play weren't nearly as fun...I tried to play it but got burned out around 1/3rd of the way in. Tried to play GTA5 a few years ago and I felt burned out after 40 minutes.

Prince of Persia. First two were good, though a glitch toward the end of the second one kept me from finishing it.

The third one was an abomination. Completely different tone and vibe, completely different Prince. DNF.

I don't think it would be possible for a bad sequel to ruin a game I liked.

Metroid Other M has not ruined previous Metroids for me (its terrible Adam Malkovich depiction doesn't even register when I'm playing Fusion, since the character has barely any continuity between the two).

Okamiden did not ruin Okami, it just sucked on its own and what little story it tried to change I disregard. I'd replay Okami today in a heartbeat.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 took a direction I hated, both in style and gameplay, and it made me want to replay XC1. I did. It's still awesome, though XC3 became my favourite.

And complete opposite of the topic : Baten Kaitos was not bad, but kind of a silly popcorn game to me. Baten Kaitos Origins did not ruin this game : it was so great and flipped the interpretation of the first game so well it made BK better.

Not necessarily beloved, but I hated the tone and genre shift between Jak and Daxter and Jak 2. I hated the driving sections so much, that that's where I put the game down. Looking back, I guess they wanted to make a different game, but had to make a sequel?

Sacred 3. It was a soulless cash grab that had nothing to do with the previous game, which is one of my absolute favourite ARPG's.