History SequelEscalation / VideoGames

* ''VideoGame/KidIcarus'' is the story of Pit the angel fighting to defeat the evil goddess Medusa. ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'' features more-or-less the same story ... for the first third of the game. [[spoiler:After Medusa's defeat, Hades promises to make Medusa look like "a cute, cuddly bunny" compared to him. From there, Pit must butt heads with a nature goddess with an arsenal of [[FantasticNuke Fantastic Nukes]] at her disposal, an alien race determined to consume the world, an ancient monster that possesses his goddess Palutena, and various members of the Greek pantheon of Gods on his way to fight Hades.]] It's almost like they crammed the stories of several games into one to make up for the 25 year SequelGap the series had.

* The ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' series:
** In the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis era we started with a super-fast hedgehog freeing his animal buddies from a mad scientist, which went to preventing Eggman from ruling the world with his Death Egg station in three sequels that expanded the scope of the world and introduced more characters. Come the [[UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast Dreamcast]] and modern eras, Sonic is facing [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure a gigantic deity made of water]], [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 an out-of-control space colony controlled by the prototype of the ultimate life form]], [[VideoGame/SonicHeroes his evil robot double's super transformation]], [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006 an insane god of time and space]], [[VideoGame/SonicUnleashed a continent-sized manifestation of the Earth's dark side]], [[VideoGame/SonicColors Eggman enslaving five planets to create a mind-control weapon]], and [[VideoGame/SonicGenerations a being that can destroy time and space]].

* In the first ''VideoGame/DoubleDragon'', the player's mission is to [[SaveThePrincess rescue]] [[DistressedDamsel Marian]]; in the second game, the objective is to [[Main/RevengeOfTheSequel avenge]] [[DisposableWoman her]] [[SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome death]].

* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' does this to a smaller extent than ''Franchise/FinalFantasy''. The first game has bosses that have about 300-1500 HP (according to the Guide) which are represented by bars. A boss with ''four'' was considered a lot, and the BonusBoss Sephiroth has about six. Meanwhile in ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep Birth By Sleep]]''? There are enemies with a ''lot'' more than just four health bars, even if the health bars deplete faster after ''II''. (this includes ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories Chain of Memories]]'')

* ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' has enemies with HP averaging from 10-20 points for most of the game while bosses hovering around the 50s more or less and the FinalBoss and BonusBoss having 99 HP. Mario's HP and FP can only max out (without the use of badges) to 50. The sequel, ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'', ramps this up greatly; Mario's HP and FP can reach higher than 50 thanks to the level cap being raised, but boss enemy HP is beefed up as well, pushing near 70 by the last quarter of the game. The FinalBoss has 150 HP and the BonusBoss has 200 HP! By ''Paper Mario'' standards, that's a crapton of HP. It's stretched even ''further'' in ''[[VideoGame/PaperMarioStickerStar Sticker Star]]''. All bosses after the first have at least 300 HP, and the final boss has 500 HP!

** In ''Spires'', no enemy ever had more than five digits of health, not even the final boss. Meanwhile, in ''Storm'', the TrueFinalBoss has 540,000 HP, and the most difficult BonusBoss has a whopping ''790,000''.

* ''{{VideoGame/Diablo}}''. Your most powerful attack is a fireball followed by a magical sword and Nova is forbidden magic relegated to scrolls only, while a mob of six enemies is trouble on the highest difficulty. In the sequel, multishot arrows, chain lightning spear attacks and screenwide frost spells are commonplace. And in ''{{VideoGame/Diablo III}}'', even warrior characters are capable of causing avalanches and earthquakes, and you get rewarded for killing 50 demons in a few seconds. Meanwhile the scope of the hostilities escalates from a cursed cathedral in the first game, the entire world in the second game, and the High Heavens in the third.
* ''Bug Too!'' to the original ''VideoGame/{{Bug}}!''. It did take out certain elements (especially the zap cap) but added many new ones in, such as curved platforms, ability to run and hover for the characters, and level selection for each world. It may not have been a good thing, [[{{Sequelitis}} though]].

* ''VideoGame/ArTonelico'' has the first game where you fight a single rogue Reyvateil that caused the end of the world, the second one has you create a floating continent, and the 3rd one has you restoring the planet to its past self. And in Ar Nosurge you create a PLANET. The trend is broken in Ar nosurge's prequel Ciel nosurge, as you do nothing but keep an amnesic girl company and restore her memories.

** ''Hobo 6: Hell'' re-introduces the vehicle enemies with vehicle-equivalents, and adds {{Cephalothorax}}s as a type of {{Elite Mook}}. It also replaces the other weapons with whips, and includes the first combos with the W key.

* Creator/HideoKojima did this semi-purposely in the ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series to keep it from getting stale. The villains in the games up to the original ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' were basically just extraordinary soldiers. In order to keep fans interested he gave the villains in ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty Sons of Liberty]]'' superpowers. In the next installment, ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater Snake Eater]]'', the player fought World War legends, one of which [[BeeBeeGun attacked the player with bees]]. This maybe an accidental subversion as well since in ''Snake Eater'' the player takes control of the future Big Boss, the antagonist of ''Metal Gear'' and ''Metal Gear 2'', meaning that Solid Snake has already beaten the toughest character in the series all along.
** There were super-soldiers in the first game too, in fact if anything FOXHOUND were more impressive than Dead Cell, as only Vamp had genuine super-abilities (and Fortune isn't technically a "boss fight" in any meaningful sense). In FOXHOUND, Vulcan Raven is a giant Shaman, Psycho Mantis is a powerful psychic, and Liquid is a literal super-soldier genetically engineered for the purpose (Solidus, from the second game, is also a such a person but Liquid was designed to be the superior). You also have to take on a cyborg ninja version of another legendary soldier, whereas in the sequel a lesser version of this character actually helps you out. As far as the villains go, the first lot were superior to the second, in terms of supernatural abilities.
** The latest model of Metal Gear itself was always the penultimate boss in each game up until ''Metal Gear Solid''. In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'', Raiden fights not just one, but a whole bunch of them that were built to overpower the last model from the previous game. In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'', Old Snake fights a pseudo-Metal Gear model called Gekko as a common enemy in the very first level.
** In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', Solid Snake fights a [=HIND=] helicopter piloted by Liquid Snake. In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'', Raiden fights a ''Harrier Jet'' piloted by Solidus Snake.
** ''VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance'' throws logic to the wayside and has Raiden fight armies of cyborg mooks, plus a Metal Gear RAY, and near the end of the game, Metal Gear EXCELSUS, a [[HumongousMecha Metal Gear]] big enough to eat other Metal Gears for breakfast. [[spoiler:EXCELSUS's pilot, The final boss, is in short, the most absurd and over-the-top thing in the Metal Gear series: a fusion of man and nanomachines]]. However, this could be excused due to this game being partially developed by ''Creator/PlatinumGames'', who is used to developing over-the-top games.

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'' mostly takes place in the city's police station, but ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3'' allows you to visit more places such as the Downtown and Uptown portions of the city, a Hospital, and a Park.

** ''Hobo 6: Hell'' re-introduces the vehicle enemies with vehicle-equivalents, and adds {{Cephalothorax}}s as a type of {{Elite Mook}}. It also replaces the other weapons with [[WhipItGood whips]], and includes the first combos with the W key.

* Each ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' game is BloodierAndGorier than the last. [[VideoGame/MortalKombat1 The first game]] already managed to drum up some controversy with its Fatalities, of which each character had one. ''VideoGame/MortalKombatII'' not only added more characters, but gave each of them two different fatalities (''three'' to Shang Tsung), as well as the more humorous Babality and Friendship finishers. By the time the series went 3D, fatalities had turned into longer cinematic sequences that mutilate the loser in increasingly creative and gruesome ways.

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' featured a massive world, but planet Mira from ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'' is five times as big. It's so massive, there were doubts as to whether it would all fit on a Wii U disk.
** The first game had a party member limit of three, and each member had their own unique arts that couldn't be changed. ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' also had a three member limit, but also allowed party members to change their attacks by switching Blades, which were their own characters in and of themselves. ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'' ups the party member limit to a whooping ''seven'', six main party members, who can all change classes at will, and one interchangable [[GuestStarPartyMember "Hero"]] character.

* ''VideoGame/AceCombat'': The first superfighter, the XFA-27 in ''2'', didn't have anything particularly OTT apart from being able to launch four missiles in one salvo. If we skip over the planes from ''3'', the X-02 Wyvern from ''4'' is next, still not OTT in weapons although it has switchblade wings now. The ADF-01F Falken from ''5'' was the first (ignoring ''3'', as aforementioned) to mount a laser weapon. The ADFX-01 Morgan from ''Zero'' added the nuke-like MPBM. Then the CFA-44 Nosferatu from ''6'' swaps the MPBM out from the cluster missile ADMM. ''X'' may fit in there somewhere...
** It does, the Fenrir has the ungodly LSWM, which if you hit the missile at a specific target, the blast radius will be enough to destroy all the targets and win you the match, in theory...

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' started off having relatively little story content at launch (but one of the ''many'' criticisms leveled against the original release). Near the end of the 1.0 version's run, TheEmpire came knocking while summoned Primals formed another threat against the world. The relaunch, ''A Realm Reborn'', continued the story from a near-apocalypse inflicted upon the realm of Eorzea, with each expansion thereafter adding more areas to explore and new threats to contend with: a CorruptChurch and an army of dragons in ''Heavensward'', the aforementioned Empire's conquered territories in ''Stormblood'', and ''TheMultiverse'' in ''Shadowbringers''.

*** ''DDRMAX'' (aka 6th Mix) was a massive DifficultySpike. It introduced MAX 300, the first level 15 (10) chart, and going up two (new-scale) levels from ''5th Mix'' would already be very difficult. But MAX 300 is also locked to the newly introduced [[BrutalBonusLevel Extra Stage system]], which puts on additional constraints and limits you to one try per credit. You have to earn the Extra Stage by scoring a 93% or better on Final Stage (usually your 3rd and last song of the credit), giving you one chance at MAX 300. But Extra Stage also turns on three modifiers (1.5x Reverse Pressure), forcing you to read backwards, at a much faster scroll speed than you're probably used to, and with a life bar that never replenishes, guaranteeing that you'll fail with just 4 misses or so. ''This isn't the hardest song to pass in the game.'' If you not just pass, but ace MAX 300 with a 93% score or better after fighting through all the special conditions, you'll earn the One More Extra Stage, another exclusive song (Candy☆) that's much easier but on a Sudden Death lifebar (anything less than a Great step fails the whole song instantly). Hope you don't get too many nerves at this point...

* The ''Souls'' franchise as a whole has been gradually ramping up in terms of both [[SequelDifficultySpike difficulty]] and spectacle. In ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'', Flamelurker was considered a [[WakeUpCallBoss "wall"]] for being the first boss most people fight that comes close to matching the player's movement speed or reaction time, compared to ones that are either {{Mighty Glacier}}s or even {{Stationary Boss}}es. By ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'', the bosses ''start'' that fast and ramp up from there, with the exceptions being more significant. Fortunately, the player character also starts with more stamina than the ''Demon's Souls'' protagonist typically has by mid-game.

** Nero only had the Red Queen, Blue Rose, Devil Bringer, and Yamato at his disposal in ''Devil May Cry 4''. While he still retains the first two, the loss of his original Devil Bringer in this game allowed him to equip a variety of Devil Breaker arms in its place, and several more can be purchased as DLC. In NewGamePlus, Nero [[spoilers:recovers the abilities of his original Devil Bringer, and can also manifest a spectral copy of the Yamato for some of his moves]].

* The first game in the ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration'' sub-series deals with civil war between TheFederation and a WellIntentionedExtremist, while throwing in an extraterrestrial invasion in the second half of the game. The sequel throws in the first again, but adds in an AlternateUniverse faction deciding to perform WarForFunAndProfit and an EldritchAbomination bent on committing a KillEmAll scenario on a planetary scale.

* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening'' is a [[InvertedTrope Prequel, technically]], but the moves are greatly expanded and flashier, the controls are better, and the stakes are sky-high than in the [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry1 first]] and [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry2 second]] games.

*** Dante's [[SwordSpam Million Stab]] is now faster and has more hits than its predecessor versions. His stabs also move so fast they create several pseudo-after-images.

* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'':
** In ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry1'', the [=Kick13=] move was a single roundhouse and its [[SuperMode Devil Triggered]] version was a punch-kick combo. In ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry4'', the combo is now standard and the Devil Trigger version has even more hits.
** In ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening'', the Drive move was a single, somewhat slow shockwave, while in ''Devil May Cry 4'', it comes out faster and Dante can use three in a row.
** In ''Devil May Cry 3'', an [[YouWillNotEvadeMe enemy-pulling]] GrapplingHookPistol skill was only available as a situational part of the [[StanceSystem Gunslinger Style]] and Kalina Ann, while in ''Devil May Cry 4'', it becomes integral to the combat and exploration via Nero's "Snatch" and "Hell Bound" abilities.

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' started out as a simple proof of concept with some witty writing and some brand new game play. In other words, a test. Now look at ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'': the full length single-player campaign is 3-4 times longer than the original, has a lot more areas to explore, a lot of new gameplay mechanics[[note]]laser redirectors, propelling platforms, roads made of light, bouncing gels, accelerating gels, gels that create surfaces where you can shoot portals[[/note]], a very well written story without saying outright what happened, some very memorable characters, and some scenery that will make any other laboratory feel insecure (admit it, Lower Aperture Laboratories took quite a few elements from fictitious 1960s nuclear bunkers, the Modern Laboratories have bottomless pits [still above the older labs] and testing rooms that might remind some people of the floating mountains from ''Film/{{Avatar}}''.) Now this is just single player, the co-op missions have two players with two portals of their own to shoot, and as a result, the puzzles are a lot more complicated.

** Lore-wise, ''What Makes the Sky Blue: Paradise Lost'', the 2018 sequel to the 3rd Birthday event turns things UpToEleven by starting with [[spoiler:Lucifer's defeat at the hands of Beelzebub, and his head severed]]. Gameplay-wise, the 2018 event is also evident of the changes made since the game's state on March 2017 - The free event character is an SSR, compared to the 3rd Birthday's SR. ''Paradise Lost'' also introduced free and gacha [=SSRs=] that have Sub-Auras (something that only the Arcarum Summons introduced in Late 2017 have), the Honor / Badge rewards now give Arcarum-related items, as well as the inclusion of Impossible-difficulty raid battles.

* The first ''VideoGame/GranTurismo'' had at least 150 cars. Then ''Gran Turismo 2'' came out and they added a whooping 500 cars to the list. ''Gran Turismo 3'' however inverts this due to the Generation Jump, but ''4'' does it again. Then ''5'' came up and managed to have a total of ''[[UpToEleven 1000 cars]]''. AND THEN ''6'' got released and had 1200 cars. There are some drawbacks of this, such as in ''5'' they imported a lot of the cars from the previous games with no change at all and [[CreatorProvincialism most of the cars being Japanese and from Nissan.]]
* Creator/HideoKojima did this semi-purposely in the ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series to keep it from getting stale. The villains in the games up to the original ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' were basically just extraordinary soldiers. In order to keep fans interested he gave the villains in ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty Sons of Liberty]]'' super-powers. In the next installment, ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater Snake Eater]]'', the player fought World War legends, one of which [[BeeBeeGun attacked the player with bees]]. This maybe an accidental subversion as well since in ''Snake Eater'' the player takes control of the future Big Boss, the antagonist of ''Metal Gear'' and ''Metal Gear 2'', meaning that Solid Snake has already beaten the toughest character in the series all along.

** ''VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance'' throws logic to the wayside and has Raiden fight armies of cyborg mooks, plus a Metal Gear RAY, and near the end of the game, Metal Gear EXCELSUS, a [[HumongousMecha Metal Gear]] [[UpToEleven big enough to eat other Metal Gears for breakfast]]. [[spoiler:EXCELSUS's pilot, The final boss, is in short, the most absurd and over-the-top thing in the Metal Gear series: a fusion of man and nanomachines]]. However, this could be excused due to this game being partially developed by ''Creator/PlatinumGames'', who is used to developing over-the-top games.

* ''VideoGame/GigaWing'': [[PinballScoring 14-digit scores]]. ''Giga Wing 2'': 17 digits. ''Giga Wing Generations'': [[UpToEleven 20 FREAKING DIGITS.]]

** This goes UpToEleven in ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies'' thanks to a transfer from Nintendo DS to Nintendo 3DS. It ''starts'' with a courtroom bombing and gets bigger from there.

** In terms of Pokémon abilities, the game added new features like latent abilities, weather effects, and so forth over the course of the series. Come ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'', however, a major addition was made in the form of Mega Evolutions, a SuperMode usable by some species of Pokémon that ramps up their capabilities considerably, in addition to changing their appearance. ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' retained Mega Evolutions while also adding Z-Moves, special attacks that, like Mega Evolutions, are only accessible to a certain selection of Pokémon and are far more powerful than other moves, but at the cost of only being usable once per battle. ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' would consolidate Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves into Dynamax, a new SuperMode that [[MakeMyMonsterGrow allows Pokémon to grow to the size of a building]], their stats also skyrocketing with their size while their moveset is temporarily replaced with powerful Max Moves. Unlike Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves, ''every'' Pokémon can Dynamax and use Max Moves, although a few species are capable of ''[[UpToEleven Gigantamaxing]]''.

* Each ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' game is BloodierAndGorier than the last. [[VideoGame/MortalKombat1 The first game]] already managed to drum up some controversy with its Fatalities, of which each character had one. ''VideoGame/MortalKombat2'' not only added more characters, but gave each of them two different fatalities (as well as the more humorous Babality and Friendship finishers). By the time the series went 3D, fatalities had turned into longer cinematic sequences that mutilate the loser in increasingly creative and gruesome ways.

* The second ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'' game is this. While the first one started its gameplay with the protagonists suddenly being attacked by demons spawning out of their [=COMPs=], the second one kicks off the main storyline by having a ''subway de-rail and nearly kill off the main characters'' (after showing them their horrific deaths before it happens). The second game also has FAR more on-screen deaths (one instance being the EldritchAbomination-[[MonsterOfTheWeek of-the-day]] ''incinerating'' four bystanders), a more epic scope (complete with a shadowy underground organization dealing with Japan's paranormal issues over the years and {{Eldritch Abomination}}s wreaking havoc), [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters more characters]], more locations (taking place in multiple cities as opposed to the first one's single place), more cursing, [[NintendoHard more difficulty]], and [[WorldOfBuxom bigger cup sizes]].

** While keeping the same enemies as before, ''Hobo 2: Prison Brawl'' introduced chairs, which work the same as trash cans and bottles but can be thrown as many times as you want, and pistols with limited ammo. It also introduced 3 new combos, which are longer and more powerful but still use the same A and S keys.

** While keeping the same enemies as before, ''Prison Brawl'' introduced chairs, which work the same as trash cans and bottles but can be thrown as many times as you want, and pistols with limited ammo. It also introduced 3 new combos, which are longer and more powerful but still use the same A and S keys.
** ''Wanted'' converts ground vehicles from bosses to regular enemies, introduces shotguns and [=SMGs=] as a step-up from pistols, and adds combos with the D key to the combo roster.
** ''Total War'' converts the previous helicopter boss to a regular enemy type and introduces grenades and bazookas as explosive weapons.
** Averted by ''Space Brawls'', which doesn't include any new combos, and removes the vehicle enemies and throwable and explosive weapons. That said, it replaces the bullet-based guns with more powerful laser ones.
** ''Hell'' re-introduces the vehicle enemies with vehicle-equivalents, and adds {{Cephalothorax}}s as a type of {{Elite Mook}}. It also replaces the other weapons with [[WhipItGood whips]], and includes the first combos with the W key.
** ''Heaven'' includes angels as a new dose of elite mooks among the types, and re-introduces the throwable weapons. The most powerful combo that the game introduces is also the only one involving use of all four keys used for combos (S-A-D-W).

* ''VideoGame/BloonsTowerDefense'' series, in terms of both towers and enemies:

* ''Franchise/DeadRising'' is a series that strives for a bigger arsenal of weapons each game. In [[VideoGame/DeadRising the first game]], you could use nearly everything found in the mall (including [[JokeItem useless objects that are only good for a laugh]]) as an ImprovisedWeapon. ''VideoGame/DeadRising2'' allows you to combine objects (even the more useless ones) and turn them into lethal combo weapons. ''2'' also has a slightly bigger map than the first game. ''[[VideoGame/DeadRising3 3]]'' adds more combo weapons (some being upgraded versions of pre-existing ones) and introduces destructive combo ''vehicles'', which are a neccesity for traversing the ''huge'' map. ''VideoGame/DeadRising4'' dials back on the amount of combo weapons and map size, but makes up for it by introducing PoweredArmor that can be equipped with different loadouts.

* In ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry 1'', the [=Kick13=] move was a single roundhouse and its [[SuperMode Devil Triggered]] version was a punch-kick combo. In ''4'', the combo is now standard and the DT version has even more hits. In ''3'' the Drive move was a single, somewhat slow shockwave, while in ''4'' it comes out faster and Dante can use three in a row. In ''3'', the YouWillNotEvadeMe move was only available as a situational part of the StanceSystem, while in ''4'' it becomes integral to the combat