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Great ideas, and great successes, inevitably lead to spin-offs. Perhaps a side character in one game gained enough popularity to warrant an entire adventure of their own. Or maybe there was a smaller idea in a game that was so well liked it made sense to make it fuller and standalone. It could be a mod that became unexpectedly popular, it could be a secondary game mode. It could even be an older version of an existing game. It doesn’t matter; spin-offs can come from anywhere. The question is, which spin-offs in games are the best?
Portal
Yes, Portal was already in development before Valve came along, but while the central concept is ingenious, I think it was the context provided by the world of Half-Life that makes it all work so beautifully.
Suddenly, a potentially overwhelming concept becomes a playful game of unpleasant science tests, played out in an environment of passive-aggressive corporate speak so beautifully handled that it would be pinched by far too many other games in the next decade or so. The weird truth is that the idea of having a hole with separate entries and exits is a great idea, but by whacking it all into a world as depraved and post-human as this, as clinical and yet derelict, you get something really special.
This is because, as much as Portal is a brilliant puzzler – and really, it’s one of the best – it’s also a narrative game with a strong hook: what the heck is going on? And it’s also one of gaming’s greatest ruminations on a single place, the seemingly endless testing labs at Aperture Science. This is exactly the kind of sideways look into a game world that spin-offs allow for. To have all that and the classic momentum puzzle section in one game – and to end it with a musical number? Well, we almost don’t deserve it.
-Chris Donlan
Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales
Technically, this is a spin-off of a spin-off, because Thronebreaker is based on Gwent, which is the card game spun out of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Really, I should get double-points.
Despite the popularity of The Witcher 3, and of Gwent, not many people played Thronebreaker, which I think is a shame because it’s great. You can tell it didn’t live up to CD Projekt Red’s expectations because “The Witcher Tales” moniker the game carried never continued past Thronebreaker. The game was angled as the beginning of something, but that something ended there. Nevertheless, it meant CD Projekt Red somewhat over-delivered with it.
In essence, Thronebreaker was Gwent with a story – a card game with a story – but despite how that sounds, it was lavishly brought to life, with fully voiced characters, rich characterisation and evocative artwork. It told the story of Northern warrior queen Meve, who’s from Rivia I think – the same place Witcher hero Geralt hails from – and whose plans get upended when Nilfgaard invades and she’s betrayed. Cue her fleeing to the wilderness to make unlikely alliances in order to win back what’s hers. It’s a surprisingly rousing tale that takes you to some very interesting places other Witcher games do not.
Better yet, Gwent fits the story, as a mechanic, brilliantly. It makes total sense to be deploying cards as a commander would units or troops, and the ways in which CD Projekt Red plays around with the formula – restricting the cards you can use, mixing decks up, using hero cards – prevents any of it from stagnating. It’s a great package that deserved a bigger following, but maybe the card game wrapper put people off.
-Bertie
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
My Mario memory is very muddled, but I’m pretty sure Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker came from the Toad levels in Super Mario 3D World. It doesn’t matter, really. What matters is that they eventually got their own game and it’s a beauty.
These are puzzles in essence, as you spin the environment to lead Captain Toad from the start point to the exit, collecting various doodads along the way, riding lifts, avoiding drops, and picking a path through increasingly complex landscapes.
All great. But what’s really special is that each level is a chunky little diorama, a sort of chiselled block of Mushroom Kingdom that you can examine from various angles, sound out, get a proper sense of. It feels like the best kind of nursery toy, something made of hard plastic and with lots of sensory surprises. Like Santa Ragione’s gorgeous MirrorMoon EP, it’s another game I would classify as being a form of Activity Bear.
-Chris Donlan
The Sims
Following SimCity’s initial release back in 1989, the team set about launching a number of spin-offs, including its most famous: SimAnt! I jest, I jest, although SimAnt was actually pretty good. I am of course talking about The Sims, Maxis’ wildly popular life simulation series.
The Sims first released in 2000, and allowed us to kick off the millennium by building up neighbourhoods, filling them with residents and then removing pool ladders at will when those residents outstayed their welcome. Don’t look at me like that – we all did it.
The Sims is now on its fourth mainline release, which itself has had many different expansions, including the tropical beachfront escape Island Living. This is a personal favourite of mine, after all, who doesn’t want to spend their time watching waves lap the shore with cocktail in hand while enjoying the company of a mermaid?
24 years since its first release, The Sims isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. It’s one of the best selling video game series of all time, and along with an upcoming fifth mainline instalment – codenamed Project Rene for now – there’s also a movie adaptation in the works from Margot Robbie’s production company. Golly Goth! That’s not bad going for a series that started life off as a spin-off.
-Victoria
WarioWare, Inc: Mega Microgames
WarioWare is a wonder, not least because it feels as anarchic and implausible today as it did back when it first came out. This is a GBA wonder that takes an oddball Mario villain and turns them into the hero, and that takes the entire sweep of video game history and breaks it down into five second chunks.
The game takes the form of a series of fleeting micro-games, each of which gives you just enough time to understand the single-word instruction and carry it out before you’re off somewhere else, doing something else. What links it all together is the reliance on a single button press and maybe a bit of positioning, and an awareness of how games work – an awareness so nuanced and deep that it’s surprising to discover all the things you didn’t know that you knew.
WarioWare relies on this knowledge in order to function. It relies on you knowing when to time a jump, but also what a specific emoji is likely to mean. It relies on you knowing that cartoon teeth will change colour as they’re cleaned, and that, given an extended finger and a gaping nostril, the outcome is going to be inevitable.
By the time WarioWare is bringing in Nintendo’s own games, the point has been made. So many games have the same lineage, and yet they all feel different and distinct. Is Wario the spin-off, or is the rest of the world of video games an inverted spin-off of Wario? I can’t tell any more.
-Chris Donlan
