When a video game franchise becomes popular enough, it inevitably gets a spinoff title which is either set in the same world or features the same gameplay as its mother series. While most gaming spinoffs are closely associated with their origins, there are a fair few which have become so well-known and popular that people have forgotten they were spinoffs in the first place.
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These games have all differed so much from their source franchises that one can pick up and play them without even realizing they are connected to another game, or the game they have spun off from is such a niche that you couldn’t be blamed for not noticing. The following list is of games that you yourself may have played, with explanations of their origins. You may be surprised to learn that even your favorites were spun off from something else!
10Fate/Grand Order
Spawned from a Visual Novel
Type-Moon’s 2015 gacha game, Fate/Grand Order, has changed a lot in its decade-long existence, continuously adding new gameplay mechanics and Servants that change up this grand narrative. Although the characters from it haven’t affected Grand Order much, the Fate franchise began with a 2004 Visual Novel known as Fate/Stay Night. This influential game, as well as its sister game Tsukihime, had a major influence on the Visual Novel genre that can still be seen today. While the gamewasn’t officially localized for twenty years, it can now be legally played by fans worldwide!
Fate/Grand Order’s story presentation and themes couldn’t be more different from the original Stay Night’s if they tried, but because it’s an entirely different style of game, it doesn’t feel too jarring in that regard. It’s even become charming whenever the game adds characters from other games inType-Moon’s catalog.
While Fate/Grand Order has definitely become the first thing people think of when the Fate franchise is brought up in conversation, it at least hasn’t completely replaced the original Fate/Stay Night in the public consciousness, as most Fate fans are at least aware of the original visual novel’s existence. Future entries in this list will be spinoff titles that many people have forgotten or are not aware are a spinoff at all.
Now we can only hope that Prisma Illya takes Fate/Grand Order’s place as the most popular spinoff.
9Phantasy Star Online
Sega’s Premier MMO
Sega’s premier MMO series,Phantasy Star Online, has had a quieter existence than games like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV. Despite that, this world has been ongoing for decades now, as players eagerly await new quests and outfit collaborations with games like Sakura Wars and Melty Blood every few months. What many people have forgotten though, is that Phantasy Star Online was a spinoff of a series that was already long dead in the year 2000:Phantasy Star.
The original Phantasy Star games for the Sega Mega Drive were a series of turn-based JRPGs which simultaneously wore their Dragon Quest influence on their sleeve while taking the genre in a vastly different direction with a sci-fi twist. Unfortunately, the series was directly competing with Square Soft’s newly released RPG Final Fantasy, leading to Phantasy Star going completely dormant in 1994. In a way, the existence of Phantasy Star Online and how it keeps the name of this dormant franchise alive is a miracle and should be appreciated.
8The Legend of Heroes
Blazing a Trail
Falcom’sThe Legend of Heroesfranchise is one of the most praised long-running JRPG franchises and has birthed its own subseries known as Trails, which has in of itself had several miniature arcs, such as the Cold Steel games and the newest release Trails Through Daybreak. With this long legacy of the franchise continuously creating new subseries, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that The Legend of Heroes is in of itself a spinoff of a different Falcom series: the Dragon Slayer games.
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These ancient 1984 PC games are considered some of the earliest action RPGs in existence, predating the Legend of Zelda and Ys by years. Because they were the very first in the genre, the gameplay of these titles is very dated and unkind to casual gamers. However, if you consider yourself a gaming historian or a hardcore gamer, then trying out this important piece of gaming history and the various subseries it has since spawned might be right up your alley.
Yoko Taro’s Crazy Ride
Next up on the list is the game commonly considered to be Yoko Taro’s magnum opus:Nier Gestalt. This dark-fantasy adventure and the disturbing twist the second half of the game was hiding has become one of gaming’s most celebrated narratives. What isn’t brought up as much though is that the game is actually related to another title that Yoko Taro directed: Drakengard for the PlayStation 2.
Nier’s status as a Drakengard spinoff is very unique in that the game outright hides this fact. Upon release, there was very little indication that the franchises were related beyonda few blink-and-you-’ll-miss-it pieces of lore dialogue in the game.
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Watching Drakengard and Nier’s fans piece together exactly how the two series were related is a moment of gaming history that has yet to be recreated since (though the connections between God Eater and Code Vein come close). Once the connection between the two games became well known, Yoko Taro’s future titles Drakengard 3 and Nier Automata further hammered into how they were connected.
While many people have only played Nier Automata, it is recommended that any gamer worth their salt play through Yoko Taro’s older catalog and discover exactly why it was so exciting when people discovered the connection between these games.
6Apex Legends
Twitch’s Third Favorite Battle-Royale
The story of the Titanfall franchise is one of missed opportunities and being unappreciated in its time. Fans of this first-person mecha shooter have been awaiting a new game for nearly a decade, and the prospects of one happening any time soon are looking grim. What doesn’t look so grim though is the future of the series’ Battle Royale spinoff game:Apex Legends. Being afree-to-playgame, Apex Legends was able to quickly grow an audience outside of Titanfall’s.
To say Apex Legends has completely replaced Titanfall in the public consciousness would be an understatement. Despite taking place in the same world as Titanfall, most Apex Legend players are completely unaware that the two games are related. Apex’s place as one of the most streamable games in the Battle Royale genre has earned it a place in gaming history, which has unfortunately come at the cost of Titanfall’s. While Apex Legends is a fantastic game, one cannot help but feel bad for this turn of events.
The Original Cozy Game
The Simsfranchise was the poster child forcozy gamingduring the 2000s and 2010s, while that title has since been taken by other games as no new Sims games have been released in years, its legacy on gaming cannot be overstated. What many people may have forgotten though, is that The Sims itself was a spinoff of the SimCity franchise! The major difference between the two is how The Sims would focus on the player creating a family of characters, while SimCity was much more focused on developing a city that the player would care for.
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Unlike most games on this list, the SimCity franchise didn’t vanish completely once The Sims had completely eclipsed it in popularity. Up until 2014, EA kept publishing and releasing games in the SimCity franchise. While it may seem telling that there hasn’t been a new game in over a decade, one must remember that The Sims itself also hasn’t received a new game in the same amount of time! So, whether you love the original city building series or the spinoff about making a family that you can trap in a swimming pool, you’re likely going to be waiting a while for a new entry.
4World of Warcraft
Made Blizzard a Household Name
It’s a pretty well-known fact thatWorld of Warcraft, once the world’s most popular MMO, was actually a spinoff title of Blizzard’s Warcraft franchise. These titles were real-time strategy games that featured a darker fantasy world of orcs and humans which stood out from contemporary fantasy games of the 90s. Once World of Warcraft exploded in popularity, though, the mainline Warcraft games were all but forgotten, save for a select few Easter eggs referencing them in the MMO.
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As World of Warcraft’s decades-long existence has overshadowed the original Warcraft series, that has also slowly affected the tone and presentation of World of Warcraft itself, with the game becoming much sillier in recent years than when it had originally debuted. While Warcraft’s legacy can be scantly seen in modern WoW, Blizzard Entertainment hasn’t completely forgotten the original games, as in 2024 they releasedremastered versionsof the games via the Warcraft Battle Chest.
3Puyo Puyo
From RPG to Puzzle
Sega’sPuyo Puyofranchise has always been a beloved puzzle game in Japan, but it’s only been in recent years that the series has begun to become popular in the West (helped by two crossover games with the Tetris franchise). Because it’s popularity in the West has begun so long after the franchise’s debut, very few casual fans know the franchise is actually a spinoff of an RPG franchise known as Madou Monogatari.
The Madou Monogatari games are first-person dungeon crawlers where the player takes control of Arale, who was also the main character of the first few installments of the Puyo Puyo franchise. Despite the vastly different gameplay, there are many characters and elements of Madou Monogatari that Puyo Puyo players will recognize.
Perhaps the biggest example of this is how the Puyos themselves originated in Madou Monogatari as a random enemy type which one wouldn’t expect to become a franchise mascot later on. While it’s hard to tell if casual Puyo fans will enjoy the Madou Monogatari games as they are vastly different gameplay-wise, they should at least be given a attempt to appreciate the series’ origin.
Which in Turn Got Its Own Spinoffs…Spinoff-ception!
Atlus’ award-winning, turn-based JRPG franchise,Personahas become a household name since the release of Persona 5. Going from a niche title only hardcore gamers knew about to one everyone has played featuring some of the most recognizable characters in RPG history. What’s less well-known is the series Persona is a spinoff of: Shin Megami Tensei.
This wasn’t always the case though, as there was a brief period of time when Shin Megami Tensei was the more popular series in the West, to the point where the localized versions of Persona 3 and 4 added Shin Megami Tensei to the game’s names in hopes of luring in more gamers. Nowadays, Persona itself has become popular enough to earn somespinoffs of its own.
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The modern Persona games share a very similar combat system to their mother series, with the major differences being how the press-turn system and enemy debuffs work. Persona’s difficulty is also much more suited to casual gamers than Shin Megami Tensei’s.
Because of its status as a spinoff and the lower difficulty, Shin Megami Tensei fans have a tendency to look down on Persona fans for only playing their series. However, one must remember that Shin Megami Tensei is in and of itself a spinoff of the novel Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei. So it’s hard to claim mainline SMT fans have a leg to stand on when it comes to fans not experiencing the source material of a series.
1Super Mario
The Biggest Spinoff of Them All
Topping off this list is gaming’s most popular and well-known franchise: Super Mario Bros. It’s no secret thatMariofirst debuted as the protagonist of the 1981 classic Donkey Kong. After fighting gaming’s biggest ape, Mario would star in his own little 1983 title, Mario Bros. This title didn’t have all the factors players associate with the plumber nowadays, but the basics of Mario, Luigi, Koopas, and pipes were all in this classic title. It was only a matter of time before Mario’s stardom grew even greater.
Of course, Mario starring in his own video game wasn’t the end of his appearances in the Donkey Kong franchise. After the release of Mario Bros, Mario still had prominent appearances in Donkey Kong 3 and Donkey Kong Jr. Unfortunately for the big ape though, Mario would soon completely steal the spotlight with the release of Super Mario Bros in 1985 and change gaming history forever. Nowadays, it’s rare to see even a reference to the portly plumber in the Donkey Kong games, but that doesn’t change the history of how gaming’s biggest franchise is technically a spinoff.
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