Mix-and-Match: Developer-Franchise Pairings We'd Love to See

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Ever feel like video games are getting too stale? Too predictable? Ever want to shake things up?

That's the exact thought experiment we decided to undertake this week — and what better to turn games upside down than to push creators and their creations apart? Take everyone out of their comfort zones and apply their distinct obsessions to other people's creations? We tossed some of our favorite games and creators into a box, mixed them up, and these are the results we came up with.

Jeremy Parish, Todd Howard / Grand Theft Auto

When I heard that the upcoming Grand Theft Auto V remasters will support play from a first-person perspective, the first thing that came to mind was that an old analogy I made 10 years ago — comparing the scope of RPG mechanics of GTA San Andreas to The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind — had finally been realized. The lines have blurred even more between the two most popular open-world adventure franchises.

But why not blur them all the way and give the reins for the next GTA to Elder Scrolls lead designer Todd Howard? He already knows how to oversee the construction of vast and intricate worlds. But what if he stepped out of the mythic past and into the crime-ridden present. How different would GTA be if missions were less cinematic and more humbly woven into the fabric of the world? How strange would it be to read books filled with GTA world lore?

Would you have a chance to side with different criminal factions, or would this GTA take the unprecedented step of letting you team up with the law, too? And most of all, what kind of amazing glitches would you get if you combine two of the most ambitious and resultantly unstable franchises in the world? One can only imagine.

Kat Bailey, Katsura Hashino / Final Fantasy

These days, everyone has their own pet way for Square Enix to revitalize Final Fantasy, but maybe the series just needs a fresh pair of eyes. With that in mind, how about poaching Persona's Katsura Hashino from Atlus and handing him the reins to Square Enix's flagship RPG?

The fit isn't as rough as you might think. Though it always retains certain elements from game to game, Final Fantasy has always been a highly experimental series, putting it in good company with the latter day Persona game, which sit at the leading edge of RPG design. Hashino and his team have also shown a knack for developing really strong systems that balance depth with accessibility—another hallmark of Final Fantasy.

I'm actually glad that Hashino is staying with Atlus and working on Persona 5, but it would make for a really interesting one-off experiment to see Hashino work on, say, Final Fantasy XVI. At worst, you would you probably get another Final Fantasy XII, which is regarded by a certain segment of the fandom as the best of the series. At best... well, it would be interesting, wouldn't it?

Jaz Rignall, Dan Greenawalt/Gran Turismo

Can I cheat and do a double switcheroo for my two favorite racing series? I don't hear anyone complaining, so there it is. The big two racing franchises change heads.

Here's why I'd like to see this. Both series have reached a level of maturity where it feels that that both Directors are stuck inside their own heads. Both games have their own distinct take on racing, and present the action in a format that is clearly recognizable for each brand. However, after six iterations of GT, and five of Forza, both feel like they're stuck in a rut. There seems to be little room for innovation, and instead, both feel like they're all now going through a micro-evolutionary process where each new game simply moves a step down an inevitable path, rather than shaking things up with something new.

Switching around these two fellows would, I hope, create some cross-pollination that would help both bring sorely needed new features to each game. To Gran Turismo, I'd hope Greenawalt would help improve its racing formats with far more interesting competitions. Gran Turismo has by far the biggest range of cars, but sometimes it feels that most aren't needed - many races are general in nature, and it seems like you only need a minute fraction of the cars available to be able to go through the game. Having a more Forza-fied racing format where power and car type is more strictly controlled would help shake things up and bring some freshness to the Sony series.

Yamauchi's conservatism would probably have a little less impact on the Forza series, but I'd like to think he'd being a little more drama and style to the series. What Gran Turismo's director does best is driving games - a subtle difference from racing games - and I'd love to see some more point-to-point racing in that series, and perhaps a few more interesting cars from Japan (as indeed Forza could do with a few more interesting cars from America). Something else that I think Yamauchi might bring to the table is racing challenges. From its license tests to coffee breaks, Gran Turismo has always featured innovative racing challenges, and having some of those incorporated into Forza would give the game a little more variety, and some short, fun things to do.

Of course, re-reading this, it sounds like this swap would result in the two games becoming the same - but I don't really want that. I like that both games are distinctly different. However, them borrowing a few things from one another would help each become more complete - which would be great for racing fans who only have one console.

Bob Mackey, Fumito Ueda / The Legend of Zelda

Seeing as 2005's Shadow of the Colossus stands as Fumito Ueda's last (but probably not final) role as director, we've almost seen a decade pass without a single game emerge from his brilliant mind. And frankly, that's an outrage. We should be rioting in the streets! I'm not exactly sure what Udea's been up to since the ill-fated The Last Guardian entered development limbo, but before it becomes a free-to-play digital card game (as all things will in our terrible future), his talents can definitely be put to better use outside whatever dungeon Sony is keeping him chained up in.

So, here's my idea: The Legend of Zelda series on consoles has been pretty stagnant since The Wind Waker, and while Nintendo's made some big promises to shake things up with their newest installment, I think Udea could do some amazing things with the series. More specifically, he could apply his famous brand of minimalism to a property that's been a slave to its formula for far too long. Cut out all of the dialogue, forget about timelines, and just give me a big, beautiful Hyrule to explore at my leisure—sort of like Shadow of the Colossus, but a lot more open. Last year's A Link Between Worlds showed how well the series could work when freed from a linear path, and Ueda's touch could expand on this idea even more.

You'd still have your typical dungeons, of course, but this time around, they'd be more natural geographical formations, or the decayed remnants of a lost civilization, which served as the setting for his last two games. And Link's regular utility belt would be scaled back to something far more essential: Maybe a projectile, a sword, and something to assist with climbing and clambering. Whatever happens, a version of The Legend of Zelda more in line with his vision would be a magical experience. But first, we need Sony to send us a picture with Udea holding up today's newspaper, just so we know he's okay. Frankly, I have my doubts.

Mike Williams, Platinum Games/Assassin's Creed

My entry was almost Wayforward + Castlevania, a combination that felt so close when Contra 4 came out on Nintendo DS in 2007. I also thought of Silicon Studio + Final Fantasy, imagining that studio with all of Square Enix's resources behind it. Instead, I'm going with Platinum Games + Assassin's Creed.

Yeah, that's right. I want to see what happens when one of the best action game studios in the world takes on Ubisoft's open-world franchise. Part of the issue with Assassin's Creed is that combat really isn't exciting. It's just a thing that happens and it stands as a diversion to the rest of the game's sneaky-stabby action. What if that wasn't the case? What if Assassin's Creed combat was every bit as satifying as Bayonetta or Metal Gear Rising?

There's also the added bonus of Platinum having to learn the open-world genre. It's Assassin's Creed, so you still need to be able to get around a historic city. I think they'd probably have some different idea about traversal, trading the slower movement of the AC series for something quicker and anime-inspired. Perhaps a replacement of gradual movement for something more point-to-point?

Fans are always looking for an Assassin's Creed in Japan, so why not let one of Japan's most unsung developers make it happen? Either during the Sengoku era or perhaps the Meiji Restoration would make a good place. Or let Platinum go wild and pick a different period of history. Either way, all I'm expecting is flawed magic or perfection.

And finally, the idea that kicked off this whole affair...

Jeremy Parish, Akitoshi Kawazu / Call of Duty

Kat's biggest complaint about the new Call of Duty is that developer Sledgehammer played it too safe, even with the series' setting moving into the somewhat distant future. Well, how about we remedy that by giving the series to a man who never plays it safe: Square Enix's Akitoshi Kawazu.

It's not an entirely impossible pairing! Square Enix publishes the series in Japan, and Activision has a rotating studio approach to allow a different developer to create each game. Why not add a fourth studio for a chance to go way outside the bounds of the expected every four years? The rest of the time you'd have Treyarch and Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer doing their thing. And then on year four, bam! KAWAZU'D.

The possibilities seem endless. What if you could take up the roles of the different point-of-view characters who shoot their way through the campaign in any order? What if there were a weapon modding system where you could tweak your weapons only to have them transform unpredictably into other weapons? What if your character stats in multiplayer only developed according to how you play, so that if you got too many headshot all your other gun skills would drop?

The biggest change Kawazu would bring to the series, though, would be an utter lack of Call of Duty's constant "go here do this" sensibility. Players never have to wonder where they're supposed to go, because on-screen prompts and companion characters nag you every few seconds you're not perfectly on task. That's not how Kawazu rolls, though. He'd drop players into a battlefield and let them figure things out themselves. Big cinematic events would still happen, but they'd happen without the player. React too slowly and you'd lose the war as an outsider, failing to make a difference in history.

Or maybe Call of Duty would just become a turn-based RPG. Whatever the case, it wouldn't be like any other game in the series. And it would be incredibly interesting... even if it wasn't particularly good.