It seems like video game publishers are constantly trying to remaster, reboot, remake, or reheat old franchises, something that’s only gotten more prevalent as the lust for profits has gotten even more extreme. Despite that mission to cling to the perceived safety of known franchises, some series haven’t been translated into the modern day and have been left to rot on old systems.
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Here’s an unranked list of just a few franchises from the 2000s (or ones that were big during that era) that have more or less completely disappeared.
5) Red Faction
Red Faction was a relatively big shooter series that was notable not just because it centered on a collective uprising of rebels, but also because of its inventive destructive tech. This technology was most notable in Red Faction: Guerrilla, which is still quite the technical marvel 17 years later. Many modern games that have access to much more computing power — outside of smaller titles like Teardown — still don’t even have this level of destruction.
Red Faction: Armageddon followed up on Guerrilla only two years later and made it so the series left off on a sour note. Its limited destruction and small environments were antithetical to what made Red Faction what it was, and the game was panned for it.
After lying dormant for many years, the rights eventually ended up at Embracer Group. However, a new entry in the series was reportedly snuffed out in 2023 before it could even be greenlit. While it was merely a concept at this stage, it was supposed to be more in line with Guerrilla, a smart move given how beloved that entry is. Layoffs ensued, and Embracer has not shown much interest in getting back to this Mars-heavy series.
4) SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs
PlayStation has unsuccessfully been chasing live service games over the past few years, but it has had one in its back catalogue that has been waiting for some sort of resurgence. Granted, it would be tricky for any multiplayer game to thrive now regardless of its name, but that series is SOCOM. It was birthed during the PS2 era and was a big part of the PS2’s online push in the system’s early years. While Xbox Live was superior, SOCOM pulled more than its weight for the Sony console’s online offerings.
SOCOM died an unfortunate death in 2011. SOCOM 4 came out just one day before the infamous 2011 PlayStation Network hack that took the service offline for almost a month. Being unable to play a multiplayer-centric game online during launch for that long did untold damage to the this final entry. It also didn’t help that it was the second-lowest rated installment in the entire franchise.
PlayStation shut down developer Zipper Interactive the following year after its PlayStation Vita title Unit 13 also wasn’t received well. Slant Six Games, the other SOCOM studio, also shut down a few years later in 2013. As such, if SOCOM were to come back, other teams not involved with the originals would have take the reins. But PlayStation doesn’t seem like it is at all concerned with this franchise, as it hasn’t been mentioned by the console maker in many years. It hardly seems likely any of these games will even hit the PlayStation Store in an effort to boost the appeal of PlayStation Plus Premium.
3) NFL 2K
There is only one big football game in town now, but that wasn’t always the case, since there used to be multiple sports games of all the major sports. NFL 2K is perhaps one of the biggest competitors in that space because it put real pressure on its more popular competitor.
NFL 2K5, in particular, is a lauded entry and made the all-popular Madden franchise sweat in more than a few ways. Not only was it thought of as a great sports game, but Sega went the extra mile and cut the price. It launched at $19.99 — less than half the price of Madden’s typical $49.99 — and more or less forced Electronic Arts to put Madden 2005 at $29.95. With such a stunning move that “scared the hell” out of the Madden team, EA then went on to buy the exclusive NFL shortly rights after that, making Madden the only NFL-licensed football game franchise. Completely shutting out the competition is a nasty yet shrewd move and gave EA the monopoly it still has to this day (and this deal was just extended to 2030).
2) Burnout
Burnout used to be quite the racing series before it, well, burned out. There were seven non-mobile Burnout titles from 2001 to 2008, many of which are remembered fondly. Its focus on crashing and taking down opponents was always one of its best features and gave it an edge over its competition.
However, the series more or less crashed into a wall with Burnout Paradise, one of its most cherished installments. This open-world racer allowed players to speed around its large map and find events scattered around, which is a more liberating approach many modern titles have aped in the last decade or so. Developer Criterion Games was gutted somewhat after Paradise‘s launch and shifted around. It was then put in the driver’s seat on the Need for Speed franchise and then moved around to other series like Star Wars: Battlefront and Battlefield. While some of its games have been received well, the studio got assigned to almost exclusively develop big franchises, as is the Electronic Arts way.
Given how EA is about to see a major leadership change and the fact that there hasn’t been a new Burnout since 2008, it’s unlikely more Burnout games are coming on the horizon. That will likely continue to be the case unless EA sells off the Burnout license.
1) Def Jam
The Def Jam games, when viewed through a modern lens, seem like fever dreams: What if a wrestling-fighting game hybrid starred a bunch of hip hop artists? It’s a silly premise that led to three games that all came out from 2003 to 2007.
Def Jam Vendetta was a fresh idea at the time and was further enhanced in Def Jam: Fight for NY, which is still being played in tournaments to this day. Def Jam: Icon, the first of the HD era, was a divisive final entry, but it had interesting mechanics where players could change the songs in the middle of the match for added buffs (and the Xbox 360 version even allowed for custom soundtracks).
There have been multiple calls to bring the series back, and Def Jam itself has stoked those flames a few times, but this seems rather unlikely. Footage of an Icon sequel leaked out, but the game was canceled. Remasters or remakes would require a ton of licensing agreements, and, given the tumultuous state of the industry and limited appeal of a game filled with rappers from almost decades ago, a new entry doesn’t appear to be feasible.
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