You Should Relax About BioShock 2, No Freak Outs!

What about Ninja Gaiden? It was originally developed by Tecmo in 1988 and there were solid sequels, but the franchise really hit its stride under Tomonobu Itagaki and Tecmo’s Team Ninja when he took the reigns with the Xbox reboot Ninja Gaiden. Or how about Castlevania? The game was released in 1986 and like Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania had solid sequels. But it wasn’t until Castlevania: Symphony of the Night that Koji Igarashi, who has since become inseparable with 2D Castlevania games, began work on the series.

And moving beyond games, bringing in different teams to work on sequels is common — and sometimes the fresh blood energizes the sequel. The script for Empire Strikes Back was written by Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett, and both writers arguably are better than George Lucas at the nuts and bolts of clever script writing. Star Wars was helmed by Lucas, but Empire was directed by Irvin Kershner. Or how about Aliens? James Cameron offered his take on the universe created by the first film, Alien, which was directed by Ridley Scott.

So don’t fret about BioShock 2 just yet — there is hope! The Legend of Zelda has turned out splendidly under the guidance of Eiji Aonuma. But not everyone is Eiji Aonuma or James Cameron. And for every Empire Strikes Back or French Connection 2, there’s also a RoboCop 2. The Fly II. Or Teen Wolf Too. Yikes.