10 classic PlayStation franchises that Sony should revive in the near future

The PlayStation brand has spawned some of the most beloved and influential gaming IPs ever made – like Ratchet & Clank, God of War, Uncharted, and more – and many of them still receive new entries to this day. However, Sony has also been infamous for ignoring many of them, even the most popular ones, for many years.

Fortunately for PlayStation fans around the world, it seems that this is finally going to change because the massive success of Astro Bot and its many adorable character cameos have i🧔nspౠired Sony to leverage some of its legacy IPs, meaning that some of these cla♒ssic Pl💮ayStation franchises may get brand-new games in the near future.ꦍ The only question is: Whiꦓch ones should Sony revive in the next few years?

Ape Escape

• First game: Ape Escape (1999)
• Last game: PlayStation Move Ape Escape (2010)

The PlayStation 1 was synonymous with many legendary 3D platforming mascots, like Crash Bandicoot or Spyro the Dragon. The only issue is that most of them are not actually owned by Sony, so the company doesn’t have a say on whether or not they come back. Nevertheless, there is one other iconic platforming mascot series from the PS1 era that Sony actually created and owns, and that is the amazing Ape Escape series.

These games are entertaining, whacky, unique and surprisingly important for the brand, seeing as the original Ape Escape was one of the first games that made full use of Dualshock’s analog sticks. On top of that, its titular characters, the Pipo Monkeys, have made multiple subsequent appearances in other products, as they slowly became one of many PlayStation mascots. While this franchise hasn’t gotten a new game in over 14 years, Astro Bot had a really fun and refreshing Ape Escape level that proved this formula can still work very well for modern audiences, so Sony should definite🦄ly prioritize reviving it as soon as possible.

Sly Cooper

• First game: Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (2002)
• Last game: Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (2013)

The PlayStation 2 was also home to many incredible 3D platforming series, and Sony actually owned most of them this time around. While there’s no denying that Ratchet & Clank dominated the platform, the Sly Cooper series was another major highlight of its catalog. These games perfectly blended stealth mechanics with precise 3D platforming, coupled with a colorful cast of🐻 characters and an excellent cartoony art style. Not to mention that these titles are singlehandedly responsible for putting Sucker Punch Productions on the map.

Unlike Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper couldn’t really carry this momentum into the PlayStation 3 era. After the release of its fourth entry, Thieves in Time (which was made by another studio, Sanzaru Games) the series went completely dormant. The worst part is that Thieves in Time ended with an aggravating cliffhanger, so fans have been waiting for more than 10 years to see what happened with Sly after the conclusion to that story. If Sony is looking to revive another beloved platforming mascot, they should take a look at Sly Cooper, and maybe also revive .

Jak and Daxter

• First game: Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (2001)
• Last game: Jak and Daxter Collection (2012)

After the huge success of the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy, Naughty Dog began working on a new open world collect-a-thon platformer for the PlayStation 2. The final result was Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, an incredible and colorful adventure that spawned its own franchise, which slowly went into an edgier and more mature direction with every new release. Like the orange marsupial before them, the Jak & Daxter trilogꦡy is one of the best things you can experience on the Play🌄Station console of that generation.

But what made this series stand out from its contemporaries – Ratchet & Clank and Sly Cooper – is that it was never able to make the proper jump to the PlayStation 3. After a few spin-offs on PSP and PS2 and the inevitable HD collection on PS3, Jak & Daxter disappeared from the face of the earth. Of course, Naughty Dog is now working on completely different games (like The Last of Us or the upcoming Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet), but Sony doesn’t even need to assign that studio to the development of a new Jak & Daxter game. All it should really do is hire a smaller studio so it can work on a modern remake of The Precursor Legacy, similar to Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy.

Bloodborne

• First (and only) game: Bloodborne (2015)

The way Sony treated Bloodborne has been extremely odd. This excellent action RPG by FromSoftware captivated audiences with its dark atmosphere, impeccable combat system, and challenging bosses, but despite the fact that it pretty much became the PlayStation 4’s very first system seller, Sony has never done anything else with the IP. Not even a simple HD remaster for PS5 and/or PC.

Bloodborne is infamous among “Soulsike” fans because it is considered one of the absolute best games in the entire genre, and yet, gamers can still only experience it on its original PS4 version from 2015. While most fans are just asking for a port or remaster for modern consoles, Sony should really consider reviving this IP, starting with a brand-new Bloodborne title, b꧙ut 🍰only if it can actually get FromSoftware to make it.

Infamous

• First game: Infamous (2009)
• Last game: Infamous Second Son (2014)

After Sly Cooper and before Ghosts of Tsushima, Sucker Punch Productions made another iconic franchise during the PS3 era: Infamous. This was a series of open world superhero games in which players could make decisions affecting their morality and the story. The first two games and their respective expansions were some of the best PS3 exclusives, not to mention that the fourth one, Second Son, was a key title during the PlayStation 4’s first year in the market.

Sucker Punch obviously spent the rest of the eight console generation working on Ghost of Tsushima, which it released at its very end. Maybe it could revive Infamous after the launch of Ghost of Yotei?  Sony could also hire another studio with prior🔯 experience with world games to work on this franchise because a brand-new Infamous game created with the modern technology of a PlayStation 5 (with a scope similar to Marvel Spider-Man 2’s) has the potential to become one of the most exciting games of this generation.

MediEvil

• First game: MediEvil (1998)
• Last game: MediEvil (2019)

MediEvil is truly one of PlayStation’s most bizarre yet whimsical franchises, mainly thanks to its unique art style (which is reminiscent of something like The Nightmare Before Christmas) funny characters and endlessly entertaining gameplay. After two great entries on PS1 and a controversial PSP remake, Sony finally and unexpectedly brought MediEvil back in 2019, when it released a more modern remake for the PS4. It finally seemed like this once-forgotten franchise had a bright future ahead…

Unfortunately, it seemed like the PS4 MediEvil remake was a one-and-done for Sony, despite its positive reviews and solid sales numbers. Fans of the franchise kept waiting for Sony to announce a remake of the sequel, but this never ended up materializing. This is a real shame because MediEvil introduced us to a fascinating gothic world, not to mention that Sir Daniel Fortesque is a delightful protagonist, so it would be great if we could all reunite with him once༒ again on our modern consoles.

WipEout

• First game: WipEout (1995)
• Last game: WipEout Omega Collection (2017)

F-Zero is not the only influential sci-fi racing game series out there since PlayStation’s WipEout games alܫso offered gamers exhilarating 𓆏races with futuristic vehicles that can go up to extremely high speeds. Because of its positive reception, this series currently has even more games in it total lineup than Nintendo’s racing franchise. Needless to say, the fate of the WipEout series was sealed the moment it🎉s original home studio, Psygnosiꦫs, shut down in 2012.

However, this franchise could (and should) still make a comeback, because it clearly is very important for the PlayStation brand, considering that Astro Bot featured 5 different bots based on its classic teams. And while Psygnosis is obviously not around anymore, the studio that worked on WipEout Omega Collection, XDev, is now part of PlayStation Studios, so it could also work on a brand-new title.

Gravity Rush

• First game: Gravity Rush (2012)
• Last game: Gravity Rush 2 (2017)

There’s no denying that the PlayStation Vita was one of Sony’s biggest failures. This happened due to multiple reasons, and one of them was a lack of solid exclusives that would justify the purchase of such a unique and expensive handheld. Gravity Rush was one of the Vita’s very few great exclusives and, despite the system’s inevitable fate, the IP managed to gain a cult following with a sizable fan base.

This can be chalked up to the fact that it was a unique game, with a brilliant antigravity mechanic and a charming protagonist named Kat. Sony must have noticed Gravity Rush‘s reputation at some point because it briefly tried to give the IP the treatment it deserved during the mid-2010s, as it ported the original game to PS4 in 2015 and released an even better sequel in 2017. However, this is sadly where Kat’s story ends, since Gravity Rush fans have spent 7 years waiting for news of a new entry. This franchise should definitely not remain dormant because Kat is a wonderful character, and her antigravity powers resulted in some distinctive gameplay that everybody should experience one more time.

LocoRoco

• First game: LocoRoco (2006)
• Last game: LocoRoco Midnight Carnival (2009)

It’s important to remember that the PlayStation brand is not all about big-budget action adventure games, extensive JRPGs, and/or colorful 3D platformers. PlayStation consoles were also the home to many weird and experimental titles, especially during the PS2 and PSP eras, and LocoRoco was one of its most memorable ones so far. This was a brief series of platforming titles that played like nothing we had tried out before, and no other new game has managed to replace ever since.

While some may think that LocoRoco’s gameplay may be too dependent on the PlayStation Portable’s unique hardware, it did also receive a special themed level in Astro Bot that proved this franchise’s formula can work very effectively on a 3D environment created within a modern gaming system. It has been 15 years since we last saw these whimsical creatures known as LocoRocos, and it’s time for them to make their long-awaited comeback.

Heavenly Sword

• First (and only) game: Heavenly Sword (2007)

When it first launched back in 2007, many people deemed Heavenly Sword as a random God of War clone and not much more. While it was very obviously inspired by Kratos’ franchise, this still was an exciting hack-and-slash title with a cool protagonist, a satisfying combat system and epic bosses. Sadly, aside from the fact that Nariko appeared in a few other games like PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale and Astro Bot, Heavenly Sword never received a♐ny seque♛ls that could actually improve on the elements of the original game.

Of course, it would be almost impossible for the studio that made it, Ninja Theory, to come back because Microsoft owns it now and its developers are busy working on the Hellblade series. Nevertheless, Sony should still try to find another studio to work on a Heavenly Sword revival – whether its a remake, a remaster or a new game. After all, the new God of War games now have an entirely different play style, so we can’t really consider them to be part of the hack-and-slash genre anymore, meaning that Heavenly Sword cꦗould very easily fill the hole that Kratos left when he moved to Midgard.