7 Spiritual Successor Games That Did Right by Their Inspirations

While not every game series can continue forever, there are plenty of spiritual successor games that carry their torches into future generations.

Of those titles, these are the seven spiritual successors that did right by their inspirations.

BioShock

BioShock is heralded as one of the greatest games of all time, but one of its greatest achievements may be the way it carried on the legacy of the System Shock franchise.

An ambitious and revolutionary horror series, System Shock blended a cyberpunk aesthetic with themes of isolation and life after death.

Its gameplay mixed the first-person, stealth and horror genres masterfully; its villain Shodan was an iconic and intimidating figure; and although it never achieved the popularity of other first-person shooters of its time, it held a fond place in many a PC gamer’s memories.

Unfortunately, it only made it to a second entry before its developer, Looking Glass Studios, closed down in 2000.

Enter BioShock in 2007. Taking many of the same ideas and concepts from System Shock and refining them into something even better, it made good on the ambition of the System Shock franchise in ways fans always hoped the series could have.

Its varied, customizable gameplay felt like the natural progression System Shock would have seen with more time, and Andrew Ryan’s fully realized Rand-ian ambitions under the sea matched the scope and dark wonder of Shodan’s ruthless extermination of biological life on a space station.

It was the pinnacle fans always wanted to see the series reach, and its success was enough to make System Shock fans feel like the series they loved had been carried on in the best way possible.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Many a franchise has fallen by the wayside in Konami‘s transition away from traditional game development and releases, not the least of which being Castlevania.

Once an integral half of an entire genre, the series has become little more than a cash cow for the publisher and developer. It’s lucky to see a re-release of the 2D style games fans hold near and dear in their hearts, and even its 3D titles haven’t seen many releases in recent years.

Luckily, the series’ creator, Koji Igarashi, wasn’t content to let the spirit of his creations die in such a way. With the help of backers on Patreon, he funded the development of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, a spiritual successor if there ever was one.

Host to the 2D exploration, item collecting and gothic style Castlevania was known for in its heyday, the game enticed and enthralled Metroidvania fans new and old alike upon release.

Players could spend hours uncovering every secret and reference the game had to offer, and although it had some notable glitches, they heralded it as a triumph of developers sticking to the styles they believed in.

It was everything they’d wanted from the Castlevania franchise for years, and gave them hope that what the series was known for would be carried on in some way, shape or form.

Shadow of the Colossus

Shadow of the Colossus is heralded as a game that epitomizes games as art, but just as worthy of applause is the way it carries on the spirit of the oft-forgotten Ico.

The first of Team Ico’s trio of titles, Ico was held in general high regard upon release.

Its simplistic approach to encouraging exploration; minimalistic interactions between characters; and haunting aesthetic and sound design cemented it as something special for gamers at the start of the PlayStation 2 era.

Unfortunately, its acclaim didn’t result in strong sales. It was left to become a cult classic, and Team Ico was forced to move onto a new series with a better chance of finding strong sales, which they did.

Upon release, Shadow of the Colossus found a slightly better commercial response. It sold 140,000 units in its first two days on the market in Japan, and quickly gained a rabid cult following in the U.S.

At the same time though, it retained what made Ico so special. The world was empty yet full of life; the characters spoke volumes without uttering a word; and the story, though simple, had the emotional weight other games could only dream of achieving.

It was everything Ico did well-honed to perfection, and as a result was the exact kind of spiritual successor needed to carry on the soul of the team’s first title.

Perfect Dark

Given the fact that GoldenEye 007 still comes up in gaming conversations more than 20 years after release, one shouldn’t be surprised its developer tried to create a spiritual successor at one point in time.

Following the ridiculous success of GoldenEye, developer Rare understandably wanted to maintain their momentum by producing a follow-up with equally refined gameplay and multiplayer. They’d proven the viability of first-person shooters on consoles, and fans of the game were clamoring for more as soon as possible.

Being that it was tied to the James Bond license though, they also wanted to use what they’d learned on a new IP of their creation, giving them more control over how it was made and what could be done with the game’s characters, story and world.

This resulted in Perfect Dark. A first-person shooter set in a dystopian society controlled by corporations, players were tasked with overthrowing it via Joanna Dark, a stealthy operative skilled in the use of stealth, firearms and espionage.

The game featured all of the tight shooting and multiplayer hijinks fans had loved from GoldenEye. Plus, thanks to it coming out three years after GoldenEye, Perfect Dark was more refined and better-optimized thanks to Rare’s increased experience in game development.

The jury’s still out on whether the series maintained GoldenEye’s legacy, but at the very least the first entry still stands as a laudable spiritual successor to the legendary shooter.

Dark Souls

Given its meteoric rise into super-stardom, most wouldn’t be blamed for forgetting that many of Dark Souls’ most popular aspects were carried over and refined from another title.

Released in 2009, Demon’s Souls had almost all of the core elements of the Souls formula so near and dear to the current generation of gamers.

Analyzing enemy patterns was key to one’s survival; the environments and its hidden items weaved the wider narrative of what had happened to the world; and players could help or hinder one another through phantom-based multiplayer.

It showed tons of promise for a new IP. Being that it was a PlayStation 3 exclusive and still a tad imbalanced in terms of difficulty though, its commercial reach was limited and it could never achieve the widespread success a multi-platform title could.

Which is where Dark Souls comes in. Taking the skeleton of Demon’s Souls and refining its rougher elements, it carried on the spirit of the series to a wider range of platforms while also making improvements to its core mechanics.

There was no mistaking that it was still a challenging experience, but the sense of being able to overcome said challenge with practice and hard work was better utilized and put into practice.

It was the epitome of what a spiritual successor game should do, and still serves as a standard for what such games should aim to achieve.

Two Point Hospital

When it comes to addictive and enthralling simulation games, few have as strong of a legacy as Theme Hospital.

Released in 1997, the game saw players curing a never-ending stream of characters of wacky and insane conditions. All the while, they’d need to expand their hospital to take on more patients, bring in more revenue and continue along the gameplay loop for as long as players wished.

It was highly regarded among players young and old, and many would have liked to see it lead to a flourishing series. It wasn’t meant to be, however, as its developer Bullfrog Studios went under in 2001 along with the series’ license.

And yet, the series managed to live on in the form of a spiritual successor, albeit 20 years on from Theme Hospital’s initial launch.

In 2018, Two Point Hospital was released on the Nintendo Switch. Like Theme Hospital, it saw players cure patients of wacky ailments while trying to expand their hospital as much as possible. However, it also ramped everything up, allowing players to build bigger hospitals, cure a wider range of illnesses and build an even larger medical empire.

This, of course, leads to all sorts of crazy happenings for players, who would frequently be left juggling the upkeep of their hospital with curing patients of everything from becoming “8-bitten” to being irresistible to any and all animals.

It was just as addictive, funny and entertaining as Theme Hospital had been back in the day, and brought the series forward in ways fans knew the series could have had it continued on through the years.

The Outer Worlds

If one were to ask Fallout fans which entry they thought was the best, many would point to Fallout: New Vegas, and for good reason.

Developed by Obsidian, the original creators of the Fallout franchise, New Vegas held many elements Bethesda-made Fallout games lacked. Gameplay was more open-ended in terms of how players could approach quests and random situations in the post-apocalyptic world, and players had more freedom in shaping characters into what they wanted them to be.

Unfortunately, New Vegas proved to be a one-off occurrence and fans of the game were left wondering what another Fallout game helmed by the series’ original developers would look like.

Or at least, they were until Obsidian put out a spiritual successor in the form of The Outer Worlds.

Set in a dystopian future where corporations have taken control of an entire part of the universe, the game saw players able to approach a variety of situations in whatever way they saw fit.

They could tear through enemies with a hail of gunfire; talk their way out of combat with a silver tongue and chide remarks; or hack, barter and sneak their way around problems, based entirely on how they wanted to play the game.

The choice was theirs, and gamers were quick to flock to the game upon release. It was exactly what they’d been waiting for, and proved the start of a promising new series for Obsidian.

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