Gaming Franchises I am Unlikely to Ever Play

A theme of 2023 for me is to expand my comfort zone and try new things. That said, I need to make sure that I sort out the things that I actually want to do in my life, versus the things that I feel like I should do because it is what’s expected of me. I’m sure I could write an entirely different piece around this topic and likely will in the future, but for now, I want to discuss how this relates to gaming franchises.

Even though I have been a lifelong gamer, there are tons of franchises that I have never touched. For a long time, I felt a lot of pressure to try and play every single franchise out there in order to prove myself as a “real gamer”. As I get older, however, I realized a major fact about myself: I just don’t necessarily like every genre of video game. There are just certain franchises that, for a variety of reasons, are never really going to appeal to me!

I am very much a “never say never” kind of person, so if I am ever bored and can’t find anything better to do, I see someone that I trust telling me that I should give this franchise a try, or a new entry comes out that looks legitimately appealing, I may change my mind. For now, however, here are a list of franchises that, after thinking about them, I realize I only have in my future plans because I feel like I need to due to their critical acclaim or popularity, not because I actually want to play them.

The Legend of Zelda

I’m starting off with one of my most controversial opinions, but I have tried many different Zelda titles over just about my entire life, and if I’m being honest, I just don’t find them that fun. I don’t love the puzzle dungeon approach that the franchise tends to stick to and I also prefer RPG titles that have more of a stat progression system than Zelda provides me. If I ever were to try one, Wind Waker is the one that I’ve always been most interested in because of the art style, but even then, I just don’t think I’d love it enough to warrant the time spent on it.

Metroid

I do enjoy platformers and metroidvania titles in select instances, but I’m incredibly picky. For example, I love Ori and the Blind Forest because of the sweeping music and breathtaking art style. Unfortunately, however, there is nothing about the Metroid series that I find interesting. The soundtrack isn’t to my tastes, none of them have ever had a particularly eye-catching art style, and I don’t generally like science fiction or alien-based plots, so that isn’t an appeal, either. I genuinely considered picking up Metroid Dread at launch just so I could be involved in the discussions, but ultimately decided that there wasn’t any real chance of me actually enjoying it and it wasn’t worth my time.

Resident Evil

I picked Resident Evil in particular here because of the sheer number of entries of the franchise and how frequently I’ve been tempted to pick it up due to people telling me the story is really fun, but I could insert just about any horror franchise into this list and it would still be true. I don’t like horror. I don’t like purposefully scaring myself in my downtime, and the particular level of immersion that gaming adds to the media-viewing experience makes feeling fear through video games way too much for me. I can handle moderately creepy titles, but I think the Dead Money expansion in Fallout: New Vegas is about my limit. Every once in a rare, rare while, I might play a single horror game with my husband on the condition that he takes the controller anytime I get too scared, but even that isn’t a frequent occurrence. Overall, I feel pretty safe in saying that any Resident Evil game I try and pick up is unlikely to make my list of favorites.

The Last of Us

The Last of Us is almost in the same boat as the prior entry as it is a horror game, but it has the added fun of also being a Naughty Dog game. I don’t necessarily have anything against Naughty Dog, and even intend to catch up on the Uncharted franchise this year, but I just think their games are a bit overrated and I don’t necessarily enjoy the characters or plotlines they create all that much. Uncharted works for me in spite of my hesitance towards the developer’s storytelling style because it’s still an adventure series with a moderate amount of entertainment value, but the additional creepy atmosphere just makes The Last of Us way too hard of a sell.

Grand Theft Auto

Rounding out this list is another deeply controversial opinion, which is that I don’t have any interest in Rockstar games, outside of maybe playing Red Dead Redemption II one day. I just find the gameplay dated and the stories to be too slow and uninteresting for my tastes. Grand Theft Auto Online can be fun to run around with friends, but I highly doubt I will ever actually roll credits on a campaign in this franchise anytime soon because I just think they’re kind of dull.

I’m sure that most of these opinions did nothing to win me new fans, but it’s something that I have wanted to talk about for a while. I will definitely be making a sibling post of franchises that I do genuinely want to get to in the future, and I would also like to further discuss the reasons behind why people are made to feel like they have to check off franchise boxes in order to be “real gamers”. 2023 is going to be a fun year for blogging and I can’t wait to share more soon!

What franchises are you willing to admit you likely won’t ever get to in your lifetime? Let me know in the comments below!