On the earth of films, prequels have a considerably blended status. There’s those that enrich their current worlds and tales, like X-Males: First Class. There’s those that damage the thriller, just like the heinous Hannibal Rising. After which there’s those nobody can really agree on, just like the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Over on this planet of video games, although, prequels are inclined to fare higher than their cinematic counterparts. Simply have a look at the not too long ago launched Mafia: The Previous Nation, an gratifying romp by way of the early 1900s that chronicles the childhood of the sooner video games’ legal empires.
Prequel video games typically profit from higher expertise and improvement instruments, making them visually and technically extra spectacular than their predecessors. However really nice prequels aren’t simply remembered for a way they appear or play, however by how they rework the way in which we expertise the unique video games we fell in love with and add to the tales we already maintain pricey.
With that in thoughts, the next prequels had been chosen not only for their technological and gameplay achievements, however as a result of they ceaselessly modified the way in which we have a look at a few of our favourite characters and worlds. That additional probability to develop and deepen what we already maintain pricey means some video games on this record are even thought of the very best of their whole collection. So with out additional ado, listed here are the ten finest online game prequels ever made.
10. Batman: Arkham Origins
Developer: WB Video games Montreal | Writer: Warner Bros. Interactive Leisure | Platform: PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, PC | Launch date: October 25, 2013 (NA) | Assessment: Learn IGN’s Batman: Arkham Origins overview
Launched in an effort to shorten the wait between Rocksteady’s Arkham Metropolis and Arkham Knight, Batman: Arkham Origins is described as a “12 months Two” story, going down on Christmas night time, eight years earlier than the occasions of the primary recreation. Developed by WB Montreal, it stars a 27-year-old Batman going through off in opposition to eight of Gotham’s deadliest assassins, together with Bane, Deathstroke, and Deadshot, who’ve all been employed by Black Masks to kill the Bat for $50 million. These occasions additionally function an origin story for The Joker, who makes himself identified to Gotham for the primary time and introduces the town to his distinctive model of legal lunacy.
On the time of launch, Arkham Origins was maybe unfairly in comparison with Arkham Metropolis. However this comparability was a disservice to Arkham Origins, which acts as a implausible accompanying act to Rocksteady’s second chapter fairly than one-upping it. WB Montreal took every part that made Rocksteady’s video games so nice, held them faithfully in place, and used them to create a compelling early story for the Arkham-specific variations of Batman and the Joker. Greater than that, Arkham Origins units the stage for the primary Arkham trilogy by introducing TN-1, Bane’s tremendous soldier serum that’s finally used as the premise for Titan, a extra highly effective drug that has main penalties over the occasions of Arkham Asylum and Arkham Knight.
9. God of Warfare: Chains of Olympus
Developer: Prepared at Daybreak | Writer: Sony Laptop Leisure | Platform: PSP | Launch date: March 4, 2008 (NA) | Assessment: Learn IGN’s God of Warfare: Chains of Olympus overview
Regardless of arriving on a handheld, the PSP’s God of Warfare: Chains of Olympus was no smaller in scale than the unique residence console trilogy when it got here to story.. A prequel to 2005’s God of Warfare, Chains of Olympus takes Kratos and his Blades of Chaos to The Underworld and again on a foreboding story that units his’ story in movement, laying the constructing blocks for his disdain for the Gods.
By fueling that fireplace of hatred, developer Prepared at Daybreak not solely created an entry steeped in thrilling God of Warfare lore, however carried out borderline witchcraft in getting a PlayStation Transportable recreation to each look so good-looking and play so responsively. Maybe essentially the most visually spectacular launch to hit Sony’s first handheld, the studio managed to translate God of Warfare’s breakneck motion and signature head-splitting combos for the tiny system, making certain these blades felt simply as satisfying to swing with abandon regardless of the shortage of a second analog stick. It’s a brief, trendy burst of ungodly violent motion that might simply stand alone, however as a prequel to one in all PlayStation’s landmark trilogies, it serves as a implausible enlargement of Kratos’ blood-soaked Greek saga.
8. Tremendous Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
Developer: Nintendo EAD | Writer: Nintendo | Platform: SNES | Launch date: October 4, 1995 (NA)
Following the discharge of Tremendous Mario World in 1990 and with the 3D revolution looming on the horizon, Nintendo wanted one final, nice, side-scrolling Mario platformer for the SNES. So, with Miyamoto’s blessing, Yoshi creator Shigefumi Hino acquired the inexperienced mild to develop a recreation starring his standard dinosaur creation. The end result was Tremendous Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, one of many best 2D platformers of all time.
Nintendo’s headline act is just not sometimes involved with timelines and canon, however Tremendous Mario World 2 jumps backwards to inform a narrative about how a gaggle of Yoshis rescued Child Mario earlier than all of them set off to rescue Child Luigi from Kamek. It’s a cute origin story that explains how an toddler plumber turned buddies with a dinosaur, however narrative is basically inappropriate. With Yoshi’s Island, Nintendo set out with a aim to make a extra “light and enjoyable” recreation that inspired exploration over exact platforming. To do that, Nintendo eliminated closing dates for gamers to allow them to progress at their very own tempo, and Yoshi’s particular moveset, just like the flutter soar, made it simpler to regulate the character within the air.
However past simply Yoshi’s distinctive skills, Tremendous Mario World 2 is an iconic send-off to the SNES period. The gorgeous, marker-like artwork fashion was drawn by hand and scanned digitally, and Koji Kondo’s Yoshi’s Island theme is an earworm so good you possibly can’t assist however hum together with it at any time when it comes on. It could present us a few of Child Mario’s very first steps, however as a full bundle, it’s the end result of a 2D-platforming improvement crew placing all of their distinctive visible, audio, and technical design expertise on show.
7. Divinity: Authentic Sin
Developer: Larian Studios | Writer: Larian Studios | Platform: PS3, Xbox 360, PC | Launch date: June 30, 2014 (PC) | Assessment: Learn IGN’s Divinity: Authentic Sin overview
Whereas Divinity: Authentic Sin isn’t technically the earliest level on the Divinity timeline (that may be Dragon Commander, an uncommon marriage of role-playing and technique recreation methods) it’s the solely recreation within the collection we’d genuinely take into account a prequel. Happening over a millennium previous to 2002’s Divine Divinity, this RPG charts the early years of Rivellon, Larian Studios’ unique high-fantasy world. Whereas not a vital foundational chapter of the land’s lore, Authentic Sin does a implausible job of building the hazards of Supply magic and the motivations of those that use it. And because of Divinity’s immortal wizards, longtime followers get to fulfill a lot, a lot youthful variations of characters like Zandalor and Bellegar.
However Authentic Sin’s story is just not what makes it particular. As an alternative, this prequel’s triumph is in the way it spun the destiny of the Divinity collection on its head, taking it from a struggling cult curiosity and placing it on the street to turning into an all-time RPG heavyweight. Larian developed a model new turn-based fight system for Authentic Sin, fuelled by an elemental method that permits you to mix results to supply exhilarating outcomes; freeze liquid with an ice spell and power your foes to slide on the blood that they spill, or bolster forked lightning with the assistance of somewhat electricity-conducting rain. All this makes battle a deeply tactical, versatile affair, and the identical consideration to element is afforded to the RPG parts, too. With the liberty to method quests in virtually any method you possibly can consider, Authentic Sin laid down the principles for not simply its distinctive successor, Authentic Sin 2, but additionally Larian’s a number of Recreation of the 12 months-winning Baldur’s Gate 3.
6. Satan Might Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening
Developer: Capcom Manufacturing Studio 1 | Writer: Capcomo | Platform: PS2 | Launch date: March 1, 2005 (NA) | Assessment: Learn IGN’s Satan Might Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening overview
Set a number of years earlier than the primary recreation, Satan Might Cry 3 contains a a lot youthful Dante, as soon as once more sporting the cool and conceited persona that had been misplaced within the moodier, extra critical second recreation. Going again in time allowed developer Capcom to revive the character that followers fell in love with within the first place. Greater than that, Satan Might Cry 3 even retcons the early lifetime of Dante’s twin brother, Vergil, making certain a teenage model of the fan-favorite character might be alive for the occasions of Dante’s Awakening.
Satan Might Cry 3 had the unenviable job of salvaging Dante’s sullied status and did so with aplomb. What’s extra, whereas Satan Might Cry 2 remains to be technically canon, the occasions of Dante’s Awakening function the foundations for all later DMC video games, and clarify necessary character motivations whereas fixing plot holes.
Past returning Dante to his cool roots and resurrecting Vergil, Satan Might Cry 3 delighted followers by being wickedly tough. To place issues into context, Capcom famously made the Japanese model of the sport’s exhausting mode the traditional issue for the North American launch. That posed a hurdle for some, however many followers relished the additional problem, particularly given how standard the adjustments to the battle system had been.
Whereas Dante was at all times in a position to mix-and-match melee and ranged weapons to chain trendy combos, DMC 3’s largest enchancment was including totally different fight kinds that modified the way in which Dante managed. You might concentrate on both melee (Swordmaster), ranged (Gunslinger), dodging (Trickster), or parry (Royal Guard) kinds and play utilizing your most most popular playstyle, an overwhelmingly standard selection for a recreation that challenges you to chain the most important, coolest combos.
5. Halo: Attain
Developer: Bungie | Writer: Microsoft Recreation Studios | Platform: Xbox 360 | Launch date: September 14, 2010 (NA) | Assessment: Learn IGN’s Halo: Attain overview
For 10 years, followers journeyed alongside the silent Grasp Chief as he fought and finally defeated the alien invaders generally known as the Covenant. However for its closing Halo recreation, Bungie rewound the clock to the early days of the intergalactic battle, when humanity was very a lot on the shedding facet.
Set throughout the weeks earlier than the occasions of Halo: Fight Developed, Halo: Attain casts you as a member of Noble Crew, a special-ops Spartan unit, on a fateful mission to guard the planet Attain from falling to the Covenant. The totally self-contained prequel feels virtually liberated by the absence of Grasp Chief, with the numerous personalities of Noble Crew highlighting how totally different different Spartan troopers will be from the collection’ most well-known character, regardless of their shared heritage.
This crew’s doomed however nonetheless very important closing mission sees them escort Cortana from a lab on Attain to the UNSC Pillar of Autumn ship, thereby kickstarting the occasions of the primary Halo. It’s each an ideal send-off for Bungie and a very good closing-the-circle second for the Halo story. However these triumphs are tinged by tragedy; Noble Crew’s actions could set off Grasp Chief’s quest to avoid wasting the universe, however their closing mission calls for heavy sacrifices. Noble Six remaining on the dying planet in a last-stand battle in opposition to the Covenant is now a legendary second within the Halo franchise – its personal Rogue One second that arrived years earlier than Star Wars did it – and one of many best closing ranges ever made.
4. Yakuza 0
Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio | Writer: Sega | Platform: PS3, PS4 | Launch date: January 24, 2017 (NA) | Assessment: Learn IGN’s Yakuza 0 overview
Yakuza has lengthy been one in all Sega’s largest Japanese collection, however solely comparatively not too long ago has it gained traction within the West. This surge in recognition will be traced to Yakuza 0, a prequel that reintroduces heroes Kazuma Kiryu and Majima Goro to a brand new era of followers who could have missed out on the primary Yakuza recreation again in 2005.
Yakuza 0 is ready almost twenty years earlier than the occasions of the primary Yakuza recreation, and tells the curious story of a small vacant property lot that by some means drags all of Kamurocho’s largest crime households into an unlikely turf battle. To say anymore would spoil a wild story filled with Yakuza bosses jockeying for energy, Chinese language assassins, and head-spinning betrayals. Fortunately, attributable to its prequel nature, gamers want no prior information of the collection to leap proper in.
Whereas Yakuza 0’s engrossing story will please any fan of Japanese crime dramas, it’s the prospect to see a youthful Kazuma and Majima, who act fairly in a different way of their youth in comparison with their later years, that delivers the sport’s largest surprises. Kazuma is extra hot-headed, not but the stoic elder gangster he finally turns into, whereas Majima’s wild canine persona has but to totally type, so the Joker-like gangster is as an alternative extra of a silent and funky protagonist. Their evolution into the characters they finally turn into varieties the spine of Yakuza 0’s sprawling narrative, and makes this prequel the right place to begin for anybody trying to get into Sega’s now massively standard collection.
3. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Developer: Eidos Montreal | Writer: Sq. Enix Europe | Platform: PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U | Launch date: August 23, 2011 (NA) | Assessment: Learn IGN’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution overview
There’s an argument to be made that Deus Ex: Human Revolution watered down a number of what made the unique Deus Ex a landmark success. It’s much less versatile and extra streamlined than its extremely freeform forerunner. Regardless of this, Human Revolution earns its place among the many greats, partly attributable to how its prequel story takes a deeper, extra private have a look at the collection’ transhuman parts.
Protagonist Adam Jensen is robbed of his arms in an early-game catastrophe, his limbs forcibly changed with mechanical prosthetics. However whereas they save his profession, they unwittingly power him right into a cultural battle between the world’s rich, augmented elite and the disadvantaged working lessons. As each Jensen himself and his damaged rest room mirror inform you, he “by no means requested for this.” Whereas the sport’s central story efficiently takes on the conspiracy-fuelled sci-fi of the unique, it’s the cultural and moral questions posed by Human Revolution’s augmented society that basically carry it excessive. Each character has their very own tackle the world’s dividing challenge and, regardless of some barely hamfisted racism metaphors, the story makes salient factors on the hazards of unrestrained, capitalism-fuelled science.
Deus Ex’s Matrix-coded, nanotech-fuelled world was a far-fetched fictional future on the flip of the millenium, but it surely has solely grown more and more practical with every passing yr. Human Revolution efficiently bridges the hole between the unique’s virtually satirical method and one thing extra knowingly critical, leading to a deeply compelling cyberpunk dystopia.
2. Steel Gear Strong 3: Snake Eater
Developer: Konami Laptop Leisure Japan | Writer: Konami | Platform: PS2 | Launch date: November 17, 2004 (NA) | Assessment: Learn IGN’s Steel Gear Strong 3: Snake Eater overview
Hideo Kojima performed the last word prank in Steel Gear Strong 2: Sons of Liberty, making newcomer Raiden the shock protagonist as an alternative of everybody’s favourite spy hero, Strong Snake. Three years later, Kojima carried out one other variation of this prank by having Steel Gear Strong 3: Snake Eater be a prequel starring Bare Snake, the person who would finally turn into the collection’ primary antagonist, Massive Boss.
We didn’t know when it was first introduced, however Steel Gear Strong 3 would turn into arguably crucial recreation within the collection, each from gameplay and story views. It revolutionized the stealth style by placing Bare Snake out within the open jungle and fulfilling Kojima’s dream of getting a Steel Gear recreation happen in an expansive setting. A technical triumph, the PS2 hardware-pushing Soviet jungles had been a serious departure from the walled corridors of Shadow Moses or Massive Shell, with a wise adaptive camouflage system changing static hiding locations like lockers. Because of this new design, every part from stealth to boss fights is dramatically totally different in Steel Gear Strong 3 in comparison with earlier video games, with loads of room to experiment with how one can defeat a boss or infiltrate a compound.
Nevertheless it’s not simply in the way you battle every boss that magic will be discovered, however within the story that every of them tells. The occasions of Steel Gear Strong 3 set the foundations for every part that got here earlier than and after it. Not solely does Snake Eater reveal the origins of the Patriots, the shadow group and supreme antagonist of the collection, but additionally the tragic origins of Massive Boss. The aftermath of his face-off with The Boss ceaselessly modified the way in which we view Kojima’s iconic villain. As his mission progresses, Bare Snake transforms from CIA spy right into a tragic determine, whose betrayal by the hands of his nation units him on a path that leads by way of each Steel Gear recreation, all the way in which to the saga’s chronological ending in Steel Gear Strong 4: Weapons of the Patriots.
1. Purple Lifeless Redemption 2
Developer: Rockstar Video games | Writer: Rockstar Video games | Platform: PS4, Xbox One, PC | Launch date: October 26, 2018 (NA) | Assessment: Learn IGN’s Purple Lifeless Redemption 2 overview
How do you observe up a masterpiece? Properly, in the event you’re Rockstar Video games, you merely make one other masterpiece.
Taking full benefit of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Rockstar created probably the most breathtaking, expansive open-world video games ever placed on a disc with Purple Lifeless Redemption 2. The extent of element the studio put into it’s merely head-spinning, from the way in which new protagonist Arthur Morgan’s weight fluctuates relying on how a lot he eats, to how animal carcasses will decompose virtually in real-time. And sure, Rockstar could have gone a bit overboard once they made it so your horse’s testicles shrink and develop relying on the temperature, but it surely all goes in direction of totally recreating a fantastic(?) imaginative and prescient of the Previous West.
However the technical achievements virtually pale compared to Purple Lifeless Redemption 2’s epic story of a dying Wild West on the cusp of a brand new, industrial century. Arthur Morgan is a person whose time is coming to an finish, not due to his legal way of life, however as a result of he’s slowly being made redundant by the quickly altering United States because it evolves into a contemporary nation. Roger Clark’s efficiency as Morgan is frankly staggering, portrayed with equal elements confidence and vulnerability as his accomplices, way of life, and personal physique proceed to betray him. Throughout the twilight years of his legal profession, Arthur sees firsthand how his beloved gang disintegrates because of the negligence of its chief, Dutch, and that downfall gives a powerful platform for the passing of the baton from Arthur to John Marston, the unique recreation’s protagonist.
Purple Lifeless Redemption 2 does every part you may ever want for from a prequel — from bettering on each side of a collection’ gameplay, to telling a narrative that builds out its world’s mythos to unbelievable impact — and is why it tops our record of the best online game prequels.
And there you might have it, our picks for the very best prequels in video video games. Was your favourite included? Tell us what you consider our selections, or share your favorites within the feedback under.
Matt Kim is IGN’s Senior Options Editor. Extra contributions from Matt Purslow and Simon Cardy.
