Series Feedback: Canon or Release Date?

[Dreggit]

Good afternoon everyone, as one of the Game Information Team members, and one who primarily works on series and meta data, I have talked at length with @Beyondthegrave07 on the topic of this question. We have decided, that it would be best to ask the community, as they would be the ones who would use series the most. Specifically, we are asking about mainline titles, and not spinoffs. Going forward, what is most voted on is how I will make future series. Feel free to discuss below your opinions or arguments, but please keep it friendly.

[Berendsapje]

I'm struggling to see why not canonically. If a series is divided in stages, and the stages are not the same as the order in the games' continuity, then that would create a bit of chaos, imo. 

[Dreggit]

It's been a point on contention, technically, in almost all cases canon and release date will line up properly as you would expect them to. This question more specifically refers to niche cases

[Eagle]

I prefer release date, because canonicity is something that has to be analyzed case by case (meaning more work to the staff); lots of series have no real canonicity or it's a complete mess; and would bring lots of arguments from people who are too defensive about their favorite games, I'm sure. Release date is way simpler - sure, there might be a few weird cases here and there, but they will be much minor in number.

[KingGuy420]

I would say release personally since devs usually go the extra mile to make release order work. Canon order, not so much.

 

The larger question here to me is what's considered a spin off? Lol. There's lots of games that the devs consider main entries but the community considers spinoffs. How's that being handled?

[HuntingFever]

Release date gets my vote. If people want Canon order, make your own list and stop whinging to the Game Information Team about what goes where.

Edited September 26, 2020 by HuntingFever
Update.

[woggly4]

17 minutes ago, BRKs_Eagle said:

[...] canonicity is something that has to be analyzed case by case (meaning more work to the staff)

 

17 minutes ago, HuntingFever said:

[...] stop whinging to the List management team about what goes where.

 

Well, a lot of the series entries are suggested by the community already so why not outsource that decision about what goes where to the community as well?

 

Take this as an example: https://psnprofiles.com/series/34-mafia

 

Mafia Definitive Edition is a remake of the original Mafia from 2002, never released with trophies. The remake has been released last Friday. It wouldn't make sense to have it after Mafia 3. Furthermore the PS4 version of Mafia 2 has been released after the original release of Mafia 3.

 

In both (niche, as Dreggit pointed out) cases it absolutely makes sense to not order by release date if you ask me.

[Eagle]

8 minutes ago, woggly4 said:

 

 

Well, a lot of the series entries are suggested by the community already so why not outsource that decision about what goes where to the community as well?

 

Take this as an example: https://psnprofiles.com/series/34-mafia

 

Mafia Definitive Edition is a remake of the original Mafia from 2002, never released with trophies. The remake has been released last Friday. It wouldn't make sense to have it after Mafia 3. Furthermore the PS4 version of Mafia 2 has been released after the original release of Mafia 3.

 

In both (niche, as Dreggit pointed out) cases it absolutely makes sense to not order by release date if you ask me.

 

I mean, it could work, but it would certainly bring a lot of arguments in some cases. This probably isn't the best example, but let's take Assassin's Creed II and Odyssey. AC2, on the Animus section, is set on the Renaissance, whereas Odyssey is set on Ancient Greece, which would mean Odyssey comes first. However, on the present-day section, Odyssey is way ahead of AC2, so the former comes first. Which one would you accept?

 

Whereas, with release date, you just put Odyssey ahead of 2 and you're set.

[Kittet3]

I voted canon, but now I'm leaning toward release date. I don't want to play a pre-quel of a game with amazing controls and then go into the first game and have a noticeable lack of features disappoint me. 

[StacFace92]

I voted for canonically, but reading some of the other posts it seems like what I would ideally want would be a hybrid of this and release date. Basically, I think release date should be the starting point, but that a clear prequel or remaster of an earlier game in the series should be moved backwards. So in the Mafia example given above, Mafia remastered would come before Mafia 2 & 3. For the Assassin's Creed example it would go 2, Brotherhood, Revelations, 3 etc. If they ever remastered the original Assassin's Creed, that would go to the first stage with all the other games moved up one. For another example, Yakuza would start with 0 then Kiwami, Kiwami 2, 3 etc.

[sepheroithisgod]

Why not just make it a toggle option to please both sides?

 

I prefer canonically (when applicable), but to each there own.

[Dreggit]

4 minutes ago, sepheroithisgod said:

Why not just make it a toggle option to please both sides.

The site doesn't have that functionality, and all series are made by hand

[diskdocx]

While I understand the argument for release date, it is going to make a massive mess for remasters and re-releases. The Mafia example above was a great situation, and as we move to PS5 launch, there could be games that came out on PS3, then PS4 having a remaster, followed by a PS5 re-remaster. For larger series, it would be Illogical to have these out of chronological order.

 

I also really appreciate it for some of the more niche series so I have a better idea where to start.

[mako-heart]

Release date, because then we never have to have this discussion again.

 

I prefer the mix of both. but I'm tired of having to discuss why something should go x and not y.

 

However, you are then faced with another problem, remakes. Which do you use, the original or the remake?

I would suggest if the remake is not a game with trophies, put it as the original. If the original has trophies, use the remakes date.

 

As mentioned FF7 has both, the original PSX version and the Remake version. The original would go to the original PSX release, while Remake would go to the end as a more recent release.

Resident Evil, the other popular problem, would have Resident Evil 2 remake in the original PSX spot in timeline, as it as no PSX release on PSN.

 

This further compounds the problem when you look at Series like Atelier or Neptunia. Both have three versions of the same game.

https://psnprofiles.com/series/66-atelier Plus and DX are combined

https://psnprofiles.com/series/92-hyperdimension-neptunia Re;birth is separated, even though aside from 1 I don't recall major changes being made?

[Shadiochao]

EIther way, two unique games should never share a single stage. It is not helpful for the purposes of trophy tracking. If you must have a staging system, it should be possible to have multiple "No Stage" sections so we don't end up with nonsense like this: https://psnprofiles.com/series/25-final-fantasy

[mako-heart]

57 minutes ago, Shadiochao said:

EIther way, two unique games should never share a single stage. It is not helpful for the purposes of trophy tracking. If you must have a staging system, it should be possible to have multiple "No Stage" sections so we don't end up with nonsense like this: https://psnprofiles.com/series/25-final-fantasy

 

Maybe No Stage should also be moved to the bottom?

[Dreggit]

8 minutes ago, mako-heart said:

 

Maybe No Stage should also be moved to the bottom?

Not possible to do with the current system

[MidnightDragon]

Doesn't matter much to me, but release date probably makes the most sense.

[B1rvine]

@Dreggit @Beyondthegrave07

 

BlindMango pretty much decided the groundwork for how it's done. It's done by release date, but remakes / remasters are based on the original game's release date.

[Beyondthegrave07]

24 minutes ago, B1rvine said:

@Dreggit @Beyondthegrave07

 

BlindMango pretty much decided the groundwork for how it's done. It's done by release date, but remakes / remasters are based on the original game's release date.

That's what I thought, but there are some major inconsistencies across the board. Probably due to a lack of knowledge.

 

We thought it would be better to get the opinion of what others think though because we get a lot of back and forth on how it should be handled.

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Voted Release Date, even though I previously posted about series being in canon order; too many "series" play around with time for canon order to be feasible. For example, Yakuza 0 is absolutely the first "part" of the Yakuza series despite coming out first. So it's still going to need to be handled on a series-by-series basis.

 

Solving which games are "spin-offs" is going to be way more important, now that we're seeing more and more DLC spun off into their own releases. Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry, Far Cry: New Dawn, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, and the upcoming Spider-Man: Miles Morales all have this problem.

 

Does the system support half-stages? Like if Far Cry 5 is Stage 5, could New Dawn be Stage 5.5?

[BeautifulTorment]

On 26/09/2020 at 7:40 PM, StacFace92 said:

I voted for canonically, but reading some of the other posts it seems like what I would ideally want would be a hybrid of this and release date. Basically, I think release date should be the starting point, but that a clear prequel or remaster of an earlier game in the series should be moved backwards. So in the Mafia example given above, Mafia remastered would come before Mafia 2 & 3. For the Assassin's Creed example it would go 2, Brotherhood, Revelations, 3 etc. If they ever remastered the original Assassin's Creed, that would go to the first stage with all the other games moved up one. For another example, Yakuza would start with 0 then Kiwami, Kiwami 2, 3 etc.

Here is your correct answer @Dreggit

 

It should be by release date by default, with the really simple cases done canonically as this guy said.

Edited September 28, 2020 by BeautifulTorment

[Helyx]

Always by release date. If you wanna play them in the correct timeline, that's fine, but listing them in any way other than by release is nonsense.

[Dreggit]

Thank you for your feedback

 

Presently, I have, as ever, made series based off of release dates as a primary order, the only reason this is up, at all, is to give the community a way to settle the debate so they stop arguing about it. The only exception to release date that I typically make is if it is a rerelease of a game. For example, Star Wars Racer Revenge by way of series order would fall after Star Wars Racer Episode One because technically, the original games were released in this order, and has been the basis for most series that have ports to Sony consoles