PC Gaming

This is going to be a very unpopular opinion, but Elder Scrolls peaked at Morrowind. Oblivion was a pretty big step down in quality, and Skyrim was a completely washed out shell of former Elder Scrolls games. I absolutely hated Skyrim and I don't understand why it gets such universal praise from gamers.

We don't talk about that Fallout, because it never existed.

Saying Andromeda for Mass Effect seems too easy of an answer but it's the first one that comes to mind. I didn't even mind the technical and graphical issues (most of them were fixed by the time I played it), but the whole story is just so... bland and soulless. Quests designed by a committee, one-note companions, the most predictable cliche alien species ever, boring and predictable villains (they literally recycled the story from the original franchise)...

Dark Souls 2: SotFS. I actually kinda like Dark Souls 2, but I think I'm upset the most at how it could've been potentially much better without making radical changes. When they announced the remaster (scholar of the first sin), I was excited that they'd go back and fix it. Hot take? They just made it worse.

They made enemy placements a lot worse and more spammy than ever. They hid the DLC keys in annoying areas. They changed a lot of item placements for no reason other than make the game feel fresh, and some of the new placements made little sense. They also didn't remove adaptability or go for any low-hanging fruit fixes.

It was just a bummer. DS2 could've been a lot better.

Thief: Deadly Shadows. A soulless console adaptation of an OG immersive sim.

Dragon Age 2. For some reason it gives me anime vibes and I hate anime. It didn't look, sound or feel anything like the previous game at all.

I just never could get into BOTW/TOTK, they never felt or played like a Zelda game

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth. There are other less then stellar games in the Civ franchise that I haven't played like Starships. Beyond Earth, though, was a day 1 purchase for me, and it wasn't -terrible-, but it left a lot to be desired.

Halo: Infinite. Why oh why did they have to give Spartans cat ears?

Lots of console titles in the comments here. Easy answer there is Zelda 2.

To answer the question as posed, though, Star Control 3 was a massive disappointment after its amazing predecessor.

~~Borderlands 3. The writing just murders it, and the combat doesn't carry it for me. 1, 2, TPS, Wonderlands all have better stories, so I enjoy them more.~~

~~EDIT: aw, shit, you said favorite franchise... hm... Dragon Age: Origins then? I enjoyed DA2/DAI way more, because of the story/quests.~~

EDIT 2: you know what, Half-Life: Alyx. I actively hated that game despite playing it in best possible conditions. It's cumbersome, slow, and too much "survival-horror" instead of an FPS.

First Uncharted, because of the jet ski and nazi zombies.

Dragon Age: Inquisition just didn't hit the spot for me. The combat somehow managed to get worse than DA2. At least the DA2 combat was visceral.

Half-Life Alyx, because they made me wait a lifetime for another HL game and it's a VR game. I'm sure it's the best VR game money can buy, but playing it as intended would cost me a fortune and all I'd get out of it is motion-sickness-induced projectile vomiting.

Half-Life Alyx. It doesn't play anything like the older titles, and I mean that even in terms of VR games. Boneworks is more of a Half-Life game than Half-Life Alyx, while Alyx feels more like a Resident Evil game. It's slow, movement is limited, there are a grand total of 4 weapons (all one-handed, no melee), and enemy variety is incredibly downgraded from prior titles. It's not necessarily a bad title or anything, but after twelve years it's not what I wanted and I had a lot more fun playing games like HL1 or even Resident Evil 4 on my Quest 2 because the ports of these games were trying to introduce more freedom to great games instead of taking freedom away for fear of making a lesser game.

Deus Ex: Invisible War. It might have been a symptom rather than a cause, but it was a clear example of how the PC was sidelined as a game platform throughout the 00s, and the simplification of genres traditionally found on PC for console hardware.

Also, on an individual level, the game sucked! The original didn't have the best voice acting, but it was hammy and endearing. Invisible War's was somehow just wooden and boring. The levels were cut up into tiny chunks separated by loading screens, but even as a whole were smaller and more claustrophobic than almost anything in the original. The weapons were less fun (universal ammunition??), the inventory system was gimped, menus were all big and slow to navigate, stealth mechanics were oversimplified, there were fewer notes and logs and books and news articles in the game world... You get the idea. It's honestly a miracle that the franchise ever recovered.

Do the DOS Mega Man games count?

Diablo 3. I don’t think it’s a bad game or anything. The art style of the game looked completely different than the first two Diablos in my opinion. It also felt a lot more arcadey than an ARPG if that makes any sense.

The new super Mario bros games. I guess that’s technically 2 but I did not enjoy that style and in general did not really care for the level design. It was pretty underwhelming.