A game creator mitigates the risk of adding a new feature into an installment of one of their series (Series A) by taking an existing successful feature from another of their other series (Series B) and adding it to the new work.
The addition new features have an inherent series of risks: badly received features can tank your entire game, but too few new features can stagnate your series. Developers can, however, Take a Third Option, and implant features from Series B into Series A without much hassle. Most of the time, this works without significant issue. If the feature was already popular in Series B, it typically remains popular in Series A. Be careful to not to overdo it, though, as the two series may risk becoming mechanically identical.
This can also be done within the same series, if that series contains different types/genres of games and the feature crosses between them. For example, a single-player series has an MMO installment, then features introduced in the MMO appear in the next single-player installment.
Note that, in order to qualify for this, Series A should already exist without the feature present in any previous installment. If Series A is a brand new series applying a feature from Series B, then it is an application of Creator Thumbprint. If the two series share narrative and stylistic similarities, it's Signature Style.
Compare Follow the Leader, which differs in that the creator is adopting/borrowing/outright stealing the feature from another creator, and New Work, Recycled Graphics, for when game developers reuse the same graphic assets from their previous game to save up on development time and cost for the newer game. See also Wolverine Publicity, for when the popular feature being used to advertise the new work to the point of overshadowing it, and Franchise Original Sin, for when the borrowed feature is not as successful. A creator with Attention Deficit Creator Disorder may be especially prone to this due to the number of projects they have in-progress.
Examples:
Video Games
- Adastra (2018) borrowed some of its worldbuilding horror elements from Echo, The Other being extremely similar to the "Echo Entity" (which in turn likely derives from Black Gate 's The Eternal; Echo did begin as a supplementary for Blackgate before the team split up altogether). Inversely, The Smoke Room burrowed Adastra 's fanservice and "horniness" (to quote the devs) wheres Echo ultimately chose a (mostly, never titilating) non-pornographic style.
- Bethesda:
- After four main series games featuring a Class and Level System, The Elder Scrolls series brought in a Skill Scores and Perks system for Skyrim, similar to what Bethesda's acquired Fallout series has featured since its inception.
- In the opposite direction, beginning with Fallout 3 (Bethesda's first developed game in the series), Bethesda adopted the Wide-Open Sandbox approach of The Elder Scrolls to the formerly a top-down, Turn-Based RPG Fallout series.
- With subsidiary id Software:
- Quake II implemented a BFG (the BFG10K) which works more or less like the one in Doom. It also had the HyperBlaster, which more or less works as Doom's Plasma Gun (a resemblance made more clear with the Quake IV version of the weapon). It also added Wolfenstein 3-D's Machinegun and Chaingun, replacing the previous game's Nailgun and Super Nailgun.
- Quake IV made some tweaks, having the Dark Matter Gun as a spiritual-successor of sorts to the BFG10K, but also implementing a form of the Super Nailgun and Lightning Gun from Quake. The Ion Ripper and Phalanx Particle Cannon from Quake II: The Reckoning even have a spiritual successor of sorts as an upgrade for the Hyperblaster and Rocket Launcher respectively; the Hyperblaster's shots can gain a ricochet ability while the Rocket Launcher can be fired in quick bursts (in addition to gaining a LASER-guide feature).
- The very reason Enemy Territory: Quake Wars exists in the first place is to see if the mechanics and gameplay from Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory could be applied to the Quakeverse. To sum: ETQW is a class-based FPS with tons of commands, the ability to create fireteams, campaigns. For context, up to Quake IV, the multiplayer side of the Quake games was a straightforward, classic "every man for themselves" Deathmatch.
- Doom (2016) uses the Quad Damage from the Quake series as a regularly appearing powerup.
- BioWare:
- After finding general success with more open worlds in Dragon Age: Inquisition, Bioware brought them into its Mass Effect series with Mass Effect: Andromeda. However, this addition went poorly. Namely vast but empty and mostly uninteresting open worlds, an excess of Fetch Quests, and dialogue options that end up proving largely irrelevant most of the time.
- Conversely, the Dragon Age series has adopted Mass Effect's Dialogue Wheel subsystem for Player Character's dialogue selection UI. It has replaced the fully written-out dialogue lines from Dragon Age: Origins with up to six dialogue options arranged around a central circle (the eponymous "wheel"), which now consist of a few keywords and are color-coded if they affect the Karma Meter. The rationale behind this was that dialogue wheels are much easier to navigate with a controller (DAO was primarily designed as a PC title, while later installments were console-favoring Multi-Platform), make it easier to rerecord the PC's voiced dialogue (after DAO, all player characters have been voiced — another thing the series has adopted from ME), and render karma effects of dialogue choices more transparent (DAO had no Karma Meter). Lastly, the Dragon Age games also adopted icons indicating the tone of the dialogue: kind, humorous, aggressive, or flirty; thus preventing players from accidentally ending up in a relationship when they thought they were just being friendly (which happened quite a bit in DAO).
- Blizzard Entertainment has tried this a few times:
- Although Hero Units existed in the company's earliest games (Warcraft and StarCraft), they were merely more powerful versions of a common unit and very rarely had unique sprites. Come Warcraft III, heroes really came into their own, with each having distinctive abilities and appearances that came to dominate gameplay. Their success led to the inclusion of Warcraft-style hero units in Starcraft II (while still including the classic "enhanced basic unit" style heroes in the campaign as well).
- The Heart of the Swarm campaign replicates Warcraft III hero gameplay closely with Sarah Kerrigan having use of "regular" abilities and eventually an ultimate ability. These abilities can be swapped for different ones between missions and Kerrigan eventually upgrades from a mana bar to a fast-recharging energy bar, similar to Rogues in World of Warcraft.
- The Infested Terran Zerg units from StarCraft are functionally carbon copies of Warcraft II Dwarven Demolition Squads and Goblin Sappers, all of whom function as suicide units that inflict colossal damage. StarCraft II migrated this concept to Banelings, who don't deal nearly as much damage but compensate with greater numbers encouraged by leaner resource costs. Banelings also deal bonus damage to structures and lightly armored units.
- Warcraft III also borrowed several elements from StarCraft, such as each faction having different characteristics, advantages, disadvantages and strategies (the factions in Warcraft and Warcraft II were very similar in terms of gameplay), having the presence of more than two factions, and each faction's campaign are presented in turn, as parts of an ongoing, continuous story (instead of having mutually exclusive campaigns like in Warcraft and Warcraft II, with only one of them being considered canon). The main feature that didn't get ported over was the radically different technology trees, so all four factions use the Warcraft II system where you upgrade a Town Hall structure to reach the next tech tier, such as Town Hall -> Keep -> Castle; this simplifies balancing the four otherwise diverse factions.
- In Warcraft III, the Undead bear many similarities to the Starcraft Protoss faction. The Undead Acolyte is functionally similar to the Protoss Probe, able to create a warp gate to summon a structure to a location, moving on to perform other tasks while the structure arrives. You can also send an Acolyte to a Sacrificial Pit to transform them into a Shade, an invisible stealth-detecting scout unit similar to the Protoss Observer. Additionally, the Undead have the Banshee, a unit who can sacrifice herself to possess a unit, similar to the Dark Archon's Mind Control spell. Lastly, the blight mechanic works like the psionic matrix mechanic, enabling the warp in of structures but not prohibiting allies or opponents from placing their own structures, but having the additional benefit of providing Healing Factor to biological Undead. While the Undead have some Zerg Rush elements to their army, their higher tier units allow them to perform Elite Army strategies.
- Some World of Warcraft classes were largely based on abilities first devised and experimented with in Diablo II. The WoW Shaman's totem-based powers were prototyped by the D2 Barbarian; the D2 Assassin inspired both the WoW Rogue and the Hunter's traps, etc.
- After its success in FIFA Soccer, EA brought the divisive, micro-transaction loaded "Ultimate Team" mode to its other Cash-Cow Franchise, Madden NFL, then to Madden's sister series NCAA Football.
- The bow weapon class in Honkai Impact 3rd is essentially a direct copy of how they're used in MiHoYo's more popular Genshin Impact, it was even introduced alongside a guest character from the latter. Also, while the game did already include open worlds in a separate mode, ever since Genshin's success Honkai has begun to feature open worlds more prominently as part of its main story and certain events with a much higher focus on exploration and platforming.
- Exaggerated to an almost ridiculous degree with Honkai: Star Rail, in which virtually every aspect of the game's mechanics and functions save for the actual gameplay is copied directly from Genshin Impact.
- This has become a pattern within NetherRealm Studios' games:
- Mortal Kombat X borrowed the Interactables mechanic from Injustice: Gods Among Us, as well as the quick-time event feature for its story mode. In addition, the game had a series of prequel comics, a first for the series, expanding the lore and properly introducing some of the new characters, and a three-character fighting mobile game, also another first, after Injustice's own game.
- Injustice 2 borrowed from X the Dialogue Tree feature, the character selection screen (with the addition of the characters hitting each other after being selected), and the Tower Konquest battles, rechristened here as the Multiverse/Brother Eye. In addition, its Character Customization feature expands upon X's "three playstyles per character" system, with even more possibilities.
- Finally, Mortal Kombat 11 took the Character Customization system from Injustice 2, its multi-character chapters for the Story Mode, the use of a numeric value to represent the character health, an Overcrank effect for both Fatalities and Victory Poses (save certain outros), and arcade-mode endings narrated by the character in question.
- Mortal Kombat 1 took the auras from the Injustice 2 super moves and incorporated them for the fatal blows.
- Nintendo brought in developers from subsidary Monolith Soft, creator of the Xenoblade Chronicles series, to bring elements from that series to the first Wide-Open Sandbox installment of the The Legend of Zelda series, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Many Xenoblade staples were included in BotW, including Scenery Porn environments, an After the End setting with dangerous Lost Technology, Humongous Mecha boss enemies, and Crow's Nest Cartography towers/landmarks to reveal the map.
- Within the Pokémon franchise, the encounter and capture mechanics in Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! were changed from the series standard traditional Random Encounter battles to more closely match those of Pokémon GO (throwing Pokéballs with catch success being higher with better accuracy) following to the latter's popularity. This continued into Pokémon Legends: Arceus, expanding on the mechanic while applying it to a fully 3D, Wide-Open Sandbox game world.
- Rare, who worked alongside Nintendo in The '90s as a 2nd party developer, frequently borrowed and expanded upon ideas from Nintendo series in their games. For instance, Donkey Kong Country derives a lot of its gameplay from Super Mario World. Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64 would similarly use the Collect-a-Thon Platformer genre codified by Super Mario 64. Diddy Kong Racing was Rare's take on Mario Kart. Star Fox Adventures derived its action-adventure gameplay from The Legend of Zelda. Rare cut back on this practice after Xbox Game Studios acquired them in 2002, but they still dipped into it a few times, such as when they were put in charge of developing the Xbox 360's avatar system, which was clearly developed in response to Nintendo's Miis.
- Rockstar:
- Grand Theft Auto didn't start out as the 3D, Wide-Open Sandbox that we know today; early games in the series were 2D and level-based. Rockstar (then called DMA design) first experimented with open-world gameplay in their Nintendo 64 game Body Harvest, which they then brought over to their flagship series beginning with Grand Theft Auto III.
- Similarly, the first Read Dead game, Red Dead Revolver, was a level-based 3rd person shooter. The second game, Red Dead Redemption, would introduce the Wide-Open Sandbox gameplay popularized by Grand Theft Auto, including numerous similar game mechanics.
- Grand Theft Auto V added an Anti-Frustration Feature that allows the player to skip to the end of a mission once they've failed it several times. This same feature appears, used in the exact same way, in Red Dead Redemption II.
- Masahiro Sakurai has brought gameplay features wholesale from the games he's worked on to the Super Smash Bros. series:
- Brawl: The Challenges section is derived from Kirby Air Ride's Checklist system, where each unlockable is hidden behind a square and unlocked squares show the unlock conditions of adjacent squares.
- 3DS/Wii U changed the difficulty setting in Classic Mode to use Intensity point, where raising (or lowering) the difficulty also increases the amount of Gold used to play the game, while also making rewards scale with Intensity, and using continues lowers the Intensity. This system is identical to the Fiend's Cauldron in Kid Icarus: Uprising.
- In the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, Dawn of War was the first to depict Space Marines wielding Thunder Hammers outside of Terminator armor (or the Salamanders chapter), let alone two-handed ones. This inspired Games Workshop to create a line of tabletop models with that kind of equipment in subsequent editions.
