Team Talk | Which confusingly titled sequels need renaming?

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Zombie Army 4 released on Tuesday, making it the second game in the series following Zombie Army Trilogy. Whilst this is certainly odd, Rebellion aren't the only offenders who could use a little help when it comes to naming sequels. We've come up with a few of the worst offenders.

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by Chris Brand

@SuperCrisco

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by Team PTC

@pass_controller

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Chris

Fans of Call of Duty may argue over which entry is the best but, in my mind, one stands tall above the others; Modern Warfare. No, not that Modern Warfare, the original Modern Warfare. The first Modern Warfare to be called Modern Warfare. A title so influential that Infinity Ward continues to append that tag line to each Call of Duty game they produce, leaving us with this mess. 

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was successful enough to spawn a direct sequel (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2), another sequel (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3), a remaster (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered) and a reboot (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare).

In the interest of fairness, I should note that Infinity Ward have released two games without the Modern Warfare moniker since 2007, 2013's Call of Duty: Ghosts and 2016's Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, the latter earning them half a point for creativity.

The games have changed and evolved over the years, but Infinity Ward's insistence on reusing the Modern Warfare name is, ironically, keeping them firmly rooted in the past. I'm not suggesting a huge shake up or the fixing of things which clearly ain't broke, but other words exist, guys.

This is currently the most modern of the warfares.

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Liam

When you think about it, Halo Infinite is an odd name to give to the sixth mainline entry in an ongoing series of games. I mean, where do you go from there? Infinite 2? Infinity and beyond? But, looking back on the series, it’s not entirely out of place.

The very first game, Halo: Combat Evolved, had a seemingly unnecessary subtitle that was ditched for the numbered sequels that followed, but the practice was brought back, somewhat confusingly, for the fifth entry, Halo 5: Guardians.

Then there’s spin-off titles such a Halo 3: ODST, which isn’t Halo 3 DLC, as you might expect, but an entirely self-contained game set before the events of Halo 3 and during/just after the culmination of Halo 2.

Halo Reach, my personal pick of the decade, I’ll allow, because the prequel is indeed a Halo game set on a planet called Reach, and it makes more sense than calling it Halo -1.

Halo veterans (that’s people who have played a lot of Halo games, not another numberless sequel) might be fine with all this, but if you’re approaching the series for the first time, you’d be forgiven for not knowing where to start. But then again, it is the flagship franchise of Microsoft, who know a thing or two about confusingly titled products.

Halo Veterans does have a nice ring to it.

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Sam

I’m flipping the topic on its head by singling out a bizarre title with a more sensibly-named sequel on the way.

When I saw that a plucky little game called Remothered: Tormented Fathers was getting rave reviews, as a lifelong fan of survival horror, I had to give it a try. Stepping into the protagonistic stilettos of a blatant Jodie Foster bootleg, I anticipated uncovering the origin of such a mysterious title. Instead, I spent a frustrating few hours being left almost none the wiser.

Made up mystery verb “remothered” is altogether too perplexing to stick at the beginning of your title and then not address. I thought about its potential meaning a lot. Is a child without parents remothered upon adoption, having initially been orphaned? Are you remothered when you marry and gain a mother-in-law? I thought about how these kinds of things could apply to the game and came up with some solid headcanon, which would, unfortunately, spoil the game’s main twist twist if shared here.

Later I learned from the developers’ own “What does ‘Remothered’ mean?” article that it’s a combination of thematically relevant words. It’s disappointing that there’s no more concrete definition, but still, I can appreciate the ballsy (if also slightly baffling) inclusion. 

There’s a sequel on the way called Remothered: Broken Porcelain, which allegedly just pipped Remothered: Titillated Grandfathers to the post.

That is an uncanny likeness.

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James

The Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy series fought long and hard for my entry and ultimately I've decided they are both as egregious as each other.

On the one hand Final Fantasy has a legacy of 15 main titles, with only XIII spawning direct sequels, while Kingdom Hearts reached the rather paltry third installment last year – of course that neglects to mention the multiple games that released between two and three.

In fact, there are 13 Kingdom Hearts games before you even think about remakes or remasters, as well as collections on top of that, leading to titles like the daunting Kingdom Hearts HD II.8 Final Chapter Prologue.

For Final Fantasy, you first have to get over that the first game isn't going to live up to its name and be "final" at all, as this series has been going strong since 1987.

Then you've got XIV, which was released, then shut down and re-released as a different game, with a different subtitle (A Realm Reborn) a year later. Even ignoring VR fun times for XV, there's X-2, VII: Snowboarding and Final Fantasy Tactics, which gave way to a series of its own.

In all, both franchises make their games less accessible to some players as a result of this sea of names, which is one reason why I've never been able to bring myself to jump in.

Will there ever be a "final" fantasy?

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Which confusingly titled sequels would you like to see renamed?