Given how often the modern gaming landscape is criticized for a supposed "lack of creativity" due to constantly re-releasing old titles as remasters, remakes, collections, or simple ports, with companies heavily leaning on a few safe-bet franchises, it’s surprising just how many sequels to popular games have never been made available again after their original release.
Accordingly, we at EarlyGame have compiled this list of 20 such sequels from well-known franchises that have never been re-released. For those interested in any particular case, we've written detailed articles on their history, linked within the following blurbs. For variety's sake, we're including only one game per franchise. | © Nintendo, EarlyGame
Players of Ms. Pac-Man (1982) may recall one of the game's innovative cutscenes introducing a new family member: Pac-Baby. Due to a peculiar licensing arrangement, said baby actually got to star in its own game, released on an arcade machine so unique that only about 7,000 units could ever be made, with the title trapped there ever since. | © Midway, Namco
Thanks to Nintendo allowing their PC-porting partners at Hudson Soft to spread their creative wings a bit, they were able to create this sequel to Donkey Kong 3 (1983), featuring the same characters, different mechanics, completely new and somewhat unsettling levels as well as a decades-spanning fan effort to find it in the first place. | © Nintendo
Due to some licensing peculiarities at the time, US-American toy manufacturer Parker Brothers was allowed to create this interesting expansion on the gameplay formular of Konami's Frogger (1981), as long as it remained exclusive to cartridge-based gaming devices. Not to be confused with Frogger 2 (2000) and Frogger 2 (2008). | © Parker Brothers, Konami
Similarly to the previously mentioned Donkey Kong 3, Hudson Soft developed a sequel to the hit classic Super Mario Bros. (1985) exclusively for Japanese PCs, where players encountered some of the strangest levels and most bizarre combinations of power-ups and enemies ever seen in a Mario game... too bad its hardware made it nearly unplayable. | © Nintendo
Ever wondered what happened to secondary protagonist Ken from Street Fighter (1987) after winning the tournament? Well, this NES action-platformer shows him becoming a portal-hopping scientist in a sci-fi adventure that was so weird that Capcom quickly retconned it to taking place in an alternate dimension. | © Capcom
After two failed hardware partnerships, Philips ended up with the licenses to some of Nintendo's biggest franchises and wanted a successor to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991) to showcase the power of its CD-i system... Only for an extremely troubled development process to lead the final product to do the exact opposite. | © Nintendo, Philips
As one of the over-amibitious titles Sega ever produced, this game sought to take the story and world of rail shooter Panzer Dragoon (1995) and elaborate on them in a Sega Saturn RPG to rival the PlayStation's Final Fantasy VII (1997). In the process, they created a title with such complex programming that it's nearly impossible to revive. | © Sega
What if Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994) with its story, mechanics and characters, took place in the setting of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992) instead? That's the question probably going through the heads of the developers of SNK when Sega licensed out their flagship mascot to them for this obscure and legally challenging Neo Geo Pocket Color title. | © Sega, SNK
As if Mega Man & Bass (1998) wasn't already obscure and... let's just say "questionably designed" on its own, having the inexperienced team at Layup develop this sequel with a time-travel plot tying into the Game Boy Mega Man games and publishing it exclusively for the Bandai Wonderswan may not have been the best business decision. | © Capcom, Bandai
Earthworm Jim (1994) was one of the most beloved video games of its time, though the same can't necessarily be said of its Game Boy port. Yet, despite Earthworm Jim 2 (1995) being a thing, Interplay licensed Crave Entertainment to explicitly publish its own sequel to that port, which would end up being the final game in the franchise. | © Interplay, Crave Entertainment
Was the overarching plot of the Metal Gear series not complicated enough for you? Then how about adding a non-canon plotline replacing the story of Metal Gear Solid (1998)? And one that's surprisingly mature and well-written too? Well, based on its track record of re-releases (none), Konami doesn't seem too fond of the idea anymore. | © Konami
You've got Tempest in the Arcades, Tempest 2000 on 90's consoles and PCs, Tempest 4000 on PS4, Switch and Xbox, but Tempest 3000? That will likely be stuck on its debut technology of Nuon-enabled DVD players forever, locking one of the most mesmerizing and psychedelic video games of all time to a platform that couldn't be more niche. | © Atari
As if it wasn't strange enough to have the Pokémon video games, make a card game about them and turn that into its own video game with the Pokémon Trading Card Game (1998), some of the rightsholders decided to build on its world, characters and mechanics in a story-driven follow-up exclusive to Japanese Game Boy Colors. | © The Pokémon Company
Before the story of Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil 2 (1998) would be continued in Resident Evil 4 (2005), this interesting Game Boy Color horror game showed him teaming up with Barry to infiltrate an infested luxury cruise liner. The game's ending plottwist was so shocking that Capcom felt the need to retcon it for the series to continue afterwards. | © Capcom
The legendary original Spyro the Dragon trilogy on PS1 was always going to get a sequel that played similarly to them... Or at least had that amibition. But after a development history marred by frantic mismanagement, this terrible PS2 entry would doom the the purple protagonist to a chequered career of spin-offs and formular changes. | © Universal Interactive
This Game Boy Advance isometric platformer found itself stuck in two kinds of limbo: Story-wise, it takes place between Banjo-Kazooie (1998) and Banjo-Tooie (2000); development-wise, it was created during Rare's transition from Nintendo to Microsoft. Ultimately published by THQ, it became an awkward middle child in every sense. | © Rare, THQ
What do you get when taking the visuals and gameplay of Yoshi's Story (1997) but combine them with new settings, characters and motion controls enabled by a tilt sensor built into the Game Boy Advance cartridge? You get a platforming game which is conceptually interesting, but feels half-baked and is extremely difficult to accurately emulate. | © Nintendo
Take Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997), add level layouts closer to those of the 80s Castlevania titles and a brand-new plot about a demonic cult, put it on ancient mobile phones and you got Castlevania: Order of Shadows (2007). However, not how, but WHERE it was developed would ultimately seal its fate of obscurity. | © Konami
Most Assassin's Creed games constantly get ported or bundled for collection, but this PSP-exclusive conclusion to the story of Altaïr, before the protagonist was replaced with Ezio in Assassin's Creed II (2009), continues to fall by the wayside, despite feeling crucial to understanding the character and playing like any other game in the series. | © Ubisoft
Following the breakout success of Dragon Quest VIII (2004), the development team felt like they could only top it by making the next mainline entry a kind of proto-life-service Nintendo DS game, featuring a web of local co-op and online functionalities which made it very difficult to develop and even more difficult to ever re-release. | © Square Enix
We at EarlyGame compiled this list of 20 sequels from well-known franchises that have never been re-released. For those interested in any particular case, we've written detailed articles on their history, linked within the following blurbs. For variety's sake, we're including only one game per franchise.
