6 Square Enix Sold IPs We Want To See From Embracer Group

It’s official: Square Enix just sold off a huge chunk of the tertiary properties that it has spent the past two decades accumulating. To be more accurate, they’ve sold off the western studios that created those properties. While it’s certainly shocking to see such a huge company sell off pieces of itself, there is one silver lining to the situation: We have a good chance of seeing new games from long-dormant franchises and maybe even see some of the current franchises taken in new directions.

With so much potential waiting in the bundle of Square Enix sold IPs now in the hands of Embracer Group, we’ve put together this list of some of the game’s we’d like to see come out of this situation. 

Crystal Dynamics - Legacy of Kain Series - New Nosgoth-like Game

If you weren’t a fan of the Legacy of Kain series when it was in its prime, then you probably don’t understand the pain many fans felt as we waited for over a decade since the last entry in the series. Even if you were a fan, you probably missed out on the 2015 beta release of Nosgoth, a class-based shooter set in the titular city from the Legacy of Kain series. Now, don’t get me wrong, this game was a huge departure from the typically story-based series, but there is still something worth exploring here. 

As well as being a groundbreaking narrative adventure, the Legacy of Kain series has always had some of the most interesting and unique world and character design of any fantasy game series -- as long as we don’t count Blood Omen 2, visually that one was a misstep. These games blend elements of dark fantasy, cosmic horror, and gothic horror that not many games have managed to pull off well, all while retaining their own uniqueness that gave the world a consistent feel through numerous timelines and other temporal shenanigans. 

Of course, I’m not saying that Embracer should go ahead and revive Nosgoth itself directly. The game was rough, though it did have some charm for being a beta release. Rather, I think that this visual style would make an excellent bit of set-dressing for a more action-oriented experience. A class-based shooter would be pretty good, but how about a game set during one of the major wars from the storyline in a Star Wars: Battlefield kind of genre? Getting to control famous characters from the series would be just as awesome when it’s characters like Mortanius and Ariel instead of Jedi and smugglers. 

Crystal Dynamics - Legacy of Kain: All-in-One Bundle

While we’re on the subject of the Legacy of Kain series, we really could do with a re-release at some point soon. Right now, it’s sort of hard to enjoy parts of the series unless you’re an avid retro collector, a PC gamer, or someone who knows how to emulate and is comfortable doing so. What we really need is a Kingdom Hearts-style all-in-one package that re-releases all five games in the series so far and makes them available and playable on all the major consoles at the same time. Not only would this give newcomers a chance to fall in love with the series, but it would also give the devs the chance to introduce some quality-of-life updates to some of the games. 

Obviously, for the sake of ease and in the name of preservation, this would probably be better as a re-release bundle rather than an actual remake. A remake would take a lot of time, would almost certainly cost more money, and there’s always the risk of a catastrophe a la the recent GTA trilogy debacle.

One other great thing if we did get this collection would be the chance to throw in some of the behind-the-scenes stuff that has been lurking around the internet since the late '90s. Getting some of those voice sessions and outtakes remastered in HD and bundled in with the games would be a real treat for a fanbase that’s been waiting since 2003. 

Crystal Dynamics - Tomb Raider Classic Game Re-Release

We already know that there is another modern-style Tomb Raider title on the horizon, and chances are that this won’t change just because the developer has been sold off. With that in mind, instead of a new direction for Tomb Raider, it would be nice to see the older games in the series get the same treatment we described above for Legacy of Kain. While the older games might not have aged well in some regards, they’re still classic games and a fair bit more contemplative than the more action-focused titles of today. 

Getting the classic PS1- and PS2-era titles re-released in a bundle with quality-of-life updates and a bunch of behind-the-scenes facts and trivia would be awesome. It’s not like the devs don’t know we want this either. When Rise of the Tomb Raider hit the PS4, it featured skins for Lara that made her look just like her PS1-era counterpart. Besides, there is room for two different interpretations of the franchise at once, and there is some life in those lower-poly adventures yet. 

Eidos Montreal - Deus Ex

The newer Deus Ex games have been mostly competently made and pretty enjoyable. However, none of the games since the first have managed to reach the same cult appeal and variety of gameplay approaches. In original Deus Ex, you had to invest points into skills to have any hope of being any good at them, and on top of that, almost any challenge in the game could be completed regardless of your gameplay approach. Want to find a way to sneak by enemies instead of fighting? Want to just hack stuff to do your work for you? Want to run in with a gun and just go full psychopath? All of these options are viable and enjoyable in the original Deus Ex. 

The prequel games that have been coming out since 2011 have still been pretty fun, but it’s certainly been much harder to "play it your way." The first entry was infamous for forcing you into combat-heavy boss fights, making the game unplayable for anyone who didn’t want to have to shoot stuff a lot. Of course, combat is always going to be integral and necessary, but it would be great to see another game in the original style that truly committed to the ideal of every approach being viable. While we’re on that note, it would also be great to zip back to the end of the timeline again and start building off the Deus Ex and Invisible War again. 

Crystal Dynamics - Gex/Whiplash

This is a bit of a more niche one. Sure, some people love Gex for his 120% meme energy, but even that aside, the '90s pop-culture-laden platformer trilogy from the PS1 days was pretty great. Sure, the jokes were cheesy, but the constant references to genre tropes and the cool gameplay feature of climbing on walls in every direction and using your tongue to attack things make it worth revisiting. A remake in the style of Spyro: Reignited would be great, including the first game, which was 2D. It would also be great to get both Dana Gould and Danny John-Jules back to do the voice-over and let us choose between the two in all three games. 

The other part of this two-part entry is a game called Whiplash that not enough people know or care about. This was a game where a wise-cracking rabbit called Redmond and a tweaker weasel called Spanx (get it) would run around an animal testing facility, destroying the company from within and beating up all the scientists giving afros to monkeys. At the time, the game managed to gather some controversy for showing animals violently attacking the people who were experimenting on them. However, the gameplay was a classic 3D platformer, and the banter between the characters was pretty damn funny. We need to see this remade like other 3D platformers of the era, either that or give us a sequel showing what happened to Spanx and Redmond once they’d taken down their captors.

Eidos Montreal - Thief

The modern reboot of the Thief series didn’t do the original games any justice. Rather than copying the original tone and gameplay style, we got a rip-off of Dishonored that features a grizzled take on the previously sardonic and sarcastic Garrett. With the power of modern gaming hardware, it would be great to see another game in the style of Thief II: The Metal Age, but on a grander scale. Those games had style, great open-ended gameplay, and by modern standards look like they were made using papier-mâché and string. 

With modern-day lighting engines, it would be great to see a game really mess around with visibility based on light in some exciting ways, and a return to the open-ended gameplay without any of the unnecessary busy-work of modern sandbox games could really revive interest in the series. Plus it would be a great opportunity to make everyone forget the crap "Fantasy Batman" version of Garrett.

And those are all of Square Enix's sold IPs that we want to see come to life under Embracer. Do you have others you'd like to see? Let us know in the comments below.