Fan Sequel

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, the license holders of a video game franchise decide not to continue it. And sometimes, for whatever reason, the fan community decides to make a Sequel of their own. This is a Fan Sequel.

The reasons why a developer or a publisher decide not to make a sequel are many. Sometimes, they feel that there are not enough loose ends with which to string up a whole new plot. Sometimes, they don't think there is an audience. Sometimes, they are just sick of the franchise. Whatever the reason, all that matters is that there is no official sequel, and that there is a dedicated fanbase.

Sadly, most Fan Sequels end with an announcement on the website assuring fans that the developers are still working, even after 6 months of zero updates. Normally, despite this assurance, this will be the last update.

Those that make it past this stage will be well on track to be hit by a cease and desist order, courtesy of the publisher's legal department. In most cases, the reason cited include is avoiding confusion with possible future official releases. Normally, this is the definite death of a fan sequel.

But sometimes, a publisher can be persuaded to allow the fan sequel to continue to completion. When this happens, a fan sequel is eventually released. The ones that make it to this point tend to be either very good, as the weak have been culled from the herd by the above barriers, or absolutely terrible, as it's been slapped together quickly and shoved out the door. See also POV Sequel for a common kind of literary 'answer' to literary works (though POV Sequel also covers official works by the original author), Spiritual Successor for an un-official sequel of another kind, Continuation for the Fan Fiction variety, and Fan Remake for when the fans actually decide to recreate the game itself.

Examples of Fan Sequel include:


Anime and Manga

Film

Literature

  • There are many fan-published sequels and continuations, POV Sequels and what have you for the works of Jane Austen, and especially Pride and Prejudice. The above-mentioned legal issues rarely come into play, however, as Austen's works and characters are now in the Public Domain.
  • Likewise, Sherlock Holmes has had many, many fan-written continuations in multiple media.
  • Older Than They Think example: The original Don Quixote novel was so popular, than an unofficial sequel was written and passed off as the real thing, prompting the original author to write an official sequel which ended the story quite conclusively.
  • The Aeneid to The Iliad. Older Than Feudalism.
  • In fact, anything fallen into the public domain runs a risk of this. Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland - there's even an authorized prequel to Anne of Green Gables.
  • A woman tried to do an alternate retelling of Gone with the Wind, but legal issues forced her to label it as a parody, even though The Wind Done Gone takes itself pretty darn seriously.
  • There is a Russian Sequel to Aliens (up to the third movie), where the entire premise is that the whole Aliens being aggressive part is one big misunderstanding. Turns out one Alien female had sex before marriage, and had to hide the consequences. She slipped into an alien ship, whose crew vaguely resembled the somewhat humanoid (and moderately sentient) creatures living in symbiosis with the Aliens and carrying out their young without risk for themselves. She thought the crew will raise her children - turned out the she didn't take into account the differences in anatomy.

Live-Action TV

Video Games

  • Project M is designed to be the true sequel to Super Smash Bros. Melee (and, to some extent, Smash 64), since Brawl didn't live up to many fans' expectations. Also, official series creator Masahiro Sakurai is persistent in making each additional game very different from the previous games, so Brawl as a game is more of a general installment to the series, rather than a direct sequel to the previous games.
  • The Silver Lining is a fan sequel to the King's Quest franchise, a franchise that was considered to have died with the Adventure Game genre and a lackluster eighth installment. It is one of the few (perhaps only) fan sequels to gain the publisher's approval.
  • Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Case 5: Turnabout Substitution (also known as Turnabout Substitution), spiritual sequel to Apollo Justice, the fourth game in the Ace Attorney series, is both finished and (until proof of the contrary) allowed to exist, proof that not all fan sequels are cursed. Capcom is famously supportive of derivative fan works of their products, so it's at least unlikely that this will be shot down any time soon.
  • Space Quest Zero, Space Quest 2.5, Space Quest 4.5, Vohaul Strikes Back, Incinerations and countless other projects announced and discarded.
  • The 13th Doll, a fan sequel to the puzzle horror games The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour. The project was started partly in response to the third game in the series, The Collector, being canceled.
  • After it became known that Total Annihilation II would never see the light, and before the announcement of Spiritual Successor Supreme Commander, fans took it upon themselves to write a new game engine from scratch. This resulted in TA: Spring, later renamed to just Spring. Technically it's more of a remake than a sequel, but it satisfied many, many original TA players.
    • Still continues to satisfy, too, since SupCom is a veritable resource hog. Players without the monetary requirements for a new computer will find Spring runs fine on machines that would hopelessly choke with the later game.
    • Furthermore, since Spring has a veritable diaspora of well-polished games (it's an engine, remember), a lot of players prefer playing it even if they can run SupCom.
  • After the third part of Broken Sword switched to a more action-adventure oriented type of gameplay, some aficionados took it upon themselves to make a sequel to Part 2 in the original comic-book style. The result was Broken Sword 2.5, even including (at least in the German version) the original voice for the main character.
  • Following a long wait for a sequel to Evil Genius, fans took it upon themselves to create Evil Masterminds.
  • Count the number of threads entitled MOTHER 4 on this page.
  • Bungie's Marathon trilogy ended without resolving much, or indeed even revealing many of the characters' motivations. But the last game in the series also shipped with the toolkit used to create the games, so the fans went to work and produced a fourth game, Marathon Rubicon.
  • Hero 6 is a strange case, as it's a fan-Spiritual Successor to the Quest for Glory series. Noteworthy in that the developers were trying hard to make it equal in quality to the originals. It started in 1999; in 2011, the sole remaining member of the team officially declared the project dead.
    • Also, several related projects like The Unknown Hero, Katrina's Quest, Quest For Infamy, and a handful others of QFG spinoffs announced prominently, none of which ever seems to have gotten anywhere.
      • Of course, now that adventure games have gained something of a reputation on Kickstarter, Quest for Infamy actually has one- and a demo to boot!
  • Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders: Between Time and Space.
  • Maniac Mansion Mania, a series of fan sequels set in the world of Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle, consisting of over a hundred games (although they vary strongly in terms of quality and length). Every person is allowed to contribute a game (called 'episode'), as long as it adheres a few rules. Most of the episodes are only avaliable in German, although a few where also released in English, French and Spanish.
  • Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes
  • This fan-made sequel to Alisia Dragoon. As a Warcraft 3 campaign.
  • Broken Thunder, a fanmade sequel to Thunder Force V. The good news? Hyakutaro Tsukumo worked on the soundtrack. The bad news? That's why he didn't get to compose the soundtrack to Thunder Force VI. At least according to fan theories involving Broken Thunder getting very negative reception.
  • Commander Keen was supposed to continue with a trilogy where Mortimer McMire attempted to destroy the universe, to be released in Christmas 1992. Nearly twenty years later, fans created and released the unofficial "The Universe is Toast!" trilogy: The Keys of Krodacia, Dead in the Desert and Battle of the Brains, three mods of Keen 4-6 with new maps, enemies, and items.
  • Mega Man Unlimited, by Philippe Poulin (MegaPhilX), is a PC-made fan game for the Classic Mega Man series, set after Mega Man 9 or the latest entry. Was originally made under the name of 10, but Phil wanted to change the name in case Capcom wanted to make a real Mega Man 10. Unfortunately, he didn't change it soon enough, and confused Capcom USA employees ended up using art and graphic work from Unlimited to promote the real 10.
  • Mega Girl/Rock Girl, by Baragon-Kun, is a PC-made fan game with a twist where the main character is Rockman's little sister Roll; she ends up as the hero and fending off female Robot Masters. The creator took cues from both Mega Man Battle Network and Mega Man Legends for his incarnation of Roll and also took a few ideas from the fan doujin Rockmen R.
  • Rockmen R is a doujin fan game based on the 16-bit version of Mega Man 7 where Roll is taken as the main character. This version of the fan game takes several cues from Mega Man Legends' and Mega Man ZX for the way Roll plays and reacts.
  • Dracula's Shadow, by MICHmede, originally intended to be a Fan Remake of Simon's Quest, ended up becoming a whole new game in its own right. Featuring a whole new map, new items, multiple characters (though two are virtually the same, outside of the girl's ability to crouch-walk) and a solidly-done MIDI soundtrack consisting of the original tunes, songs from other Castlevania games, and some completely new compositions. Add to that more of the same kind of Guide Dang It puzzles, new bosses that must be fought to level up, and Item Crashes, and you have a Quest fan's wet dream. Can be found here.
  • I Wanna Be the Guy spawned a lot of fangames. Check out the site's forums under "Other Games" (or just click here). Notable ones include I Wanna Be The Fangame (made by one of the few people who have beaten IWBTG on impossible), I Wanna Be The Ultimatum, I Wanna Be The Tribute, and I Wanna be The GB. While some of the others truly suck, the good ones range from between the difficulties of a very toned down version of the original (like I Wanna Be the Tribute), to the insane difficulty of the original on very hard (like I Wanna Be the GB).
  • BioWare actually encouraged these in relation to Neverwinter Nights, including, at one point, holding a contest to see who could design the best fan mod to bridge the gap between Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark.
  • There were several single player campaigns made by fans of StarCraft that presented their creators' idea of how the plot would continue. Huncraft, an Hungarian mod to the game took this a step further, being an actual expansion pack to the Hungarian Fan Translation of the game, with three single player campaigns, 40 multiplayer maps, an additional unit per race and several custom hero portraits and quotes.
  • Might and Magic: Swords of Xeen, made by a group of fans, was not just approved, but aided and published by New World Computing.
  • Ghost Trick has inspired the Fanfic Twisted Fates, which involves Sissel going after a Serial Killer
  • Mega Man X Corrupted, a 16-bit fan sequel that takes Mega Man X 6-X8 into Fanon Discontinuity, starting after X5.
  • Less of a sequel and more of a fan developed remake but MoonPy is an attempt by fans to recreate Humongous Entertainment's Moon Base Commander.
  • The Atari 5200 had a few of these in the form of homebrews: Adventure II, which is the sequel to the Atari 2600 game Adventure, along with Combat 2 Advanced (Combat) and Haunted House 3D (Haunted House).
  • Open Outcast, a total conversion mod in development for Crysis Warhead.
  • Wolfenstein 3D has an official sequel in Spear of Destiny. Modders AReyeP and MCS made two more sequels on their own: Spear Resurrection and Spear: End of Destiny. Both are very long games, with features not seen in the originals like more weapons, wall switches, mines and explosive barrels, and have relatively complex storylines with B. J. Blazkowicz tracking down some surviving Nazi officiers after WWII.
  • Mega Man Battle Network Chrono X, a fan sequel set sometime between Mega Man Battle Network 6's plot resolution and its Distant Finale. Which is all the more impressive, considering how the series' presentation is in an isometric viewpoint.
  • The are two mods for Neverwinter Nights continuing Planescape: Torment.
  • It was not unheard of a fan to want to create a sequel to Half-Life in the form of Game Mod, until the official Half-Life 2 rolled out. During the course of the six years between the releases of Half-Life and Half-Life 2, many mods had been created, with varying degree of quality, all of them with their own ideas of what would happen to Gordon. The most famous ones being Absolute Redemption (If Gordon accepted G-Mans offer) and Half-life: Invasion (If he didn´t).
  • Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden is evidently the sequel to Space Jam.
  • Elibian Nights is a Fan Interquel to Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword and Sword of Seals
  • Sega shot down a fan remake of Streets of Rage weeks after its final version was released. Because of this (argued by some to be deliberate by part of Sega) late delivery of the C&D, the Remake has been circulating through the web ever since.
  • The sheer amount of fan games and sequels for the Super Mario Bros. series makes it hard to list specific examples (the website Mario Fan Games Galaxy is pretty much nothing but fan sequels, spinoffs and remakes of Mario games). Still, there are quite a few 'Super Mario Bros 4' games around, Super Mario 63 and Super Mario Sunshine 64 are basically Super Mario 64 sequels/remakes, except in 2D and numerous Super Mario World 2 games exist on SMW Central. There's pretty much enough Mario FanSequels and remakes to form a cottage industry.

Web Original

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