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Actionized Sequel

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Film #1: Vietnam vet deals with PTSD and ostracism in his home country.
Film #2: Vietnam vet goes back to 'Nam to redo the war.

"In Space No One Can Hear You Scream."
— Tagline for Alien

"This Time It's War."
— Tagline for Aliens

A new film franchise has a lot of work to do. In only a couple hours, you have to introduce the characters, the premise, and all the Phlebotinum you're going to be using for the rest of the series, and you need to have a plot to tie it all together. Because of this, the first installment in a film series tends to be slower paced.

Starting with the second film, though, the Back Story is already established, everyone has already met everyone, and the budget for the movie is often much larger, allowing it and subsequent sequels to fall increasingly into the 'Action' genre, even if the original didn't have that much action. If it did, the sequels become outright over the top in their action.

Tends to happen with horror films. Occasionally, as with Alien, it's because the director feels the first was perfect and tries to do new things — which ironically in Aliens's case made it an Even Better Sequel. Other times, it's because anyone who survives a horror movie graduates with a few levels in badass, and when you put an Action Hero into a horror movie, it becomes an action movie.

This can also happen in some video games, particularly those in the horror genre. Often, the first installment will be based on survival, not combat, and encourage you to avoid the enemies rather than fight them directly. Possibly in an effort to appeal to a wider audience (after all, survival is hard, but blasting shit is fun), subsequent games will add more ammo and weapons, or go into a full Genre Shift. Of course, it can happen to other genres as well — as technology has improved, the RPG genre as a whole has become faster paced and more action-oriented, for example.

For series that already started out action-y and continue to escalate from there, see Serial Escalation.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 

    Fan Works 
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • Its Always Sunny In Fillydelphia involves Applejack going on a date with Soarin of the Wonderbolts (her only customer in the season 1 finale "The Best Night Ever") and the two of them falling in love. Its sequel, "Semper Fidelis", plunks the two of them in an action-packed adventure inspired by one of the G1 My Little Pony: Rescue at Midnight Castle.
    • A New Home: The first three sagas in The 'Verse:
      • Original story: An abused five-year-old in the human world wishes for a loving family on the same night Fluttershy wishes she had a child or a younger sibling to take care of. With a little help from Princess Luna, they both get their wish. Most of the story is about Fluttershy as a new mommy and poor Toby slowly learning that no, here he's not going to be mauled for breathing the wrong way, and the others trying to figure out where he came from and such. There are sad moments and about as many heartwarming moments.
      • Holidays With Toby: How it goes with Fluttershy, her new adopted son, and the gang at different pony holidays.
      • A Queen's Revenge: Queen Chrysalis shows up and tries to Take Over the World, and definitely Would Hurt a Child, especially one connected to one of the Element bearers. It's not as dark as the Gorn fics that follow in the footsteps of Cupcakes (Sergeant Sprinkles), but compared to the tone of the previous arcs it's like expecting the next episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and instead getting one of the movies. However, the fourth and current arc, The Quest for the Lost Locket, doesn't continue this progression.
    • Windfall is about the main characters Putting the Band Back Together to be there for the birth of Fluttershy's first child, full of laughs and W.A.F.F.. The sequels, while still largely comedies, are rather more action-packed:
    • Falling Backwards is another MLP example. With the original being a sad, yet heartwarming Dramedy, about Rainbow Dash receiving brain damage, that mentally regresses her, after a failed stunt and having to be taken in by Twilight, and hilarity and heartwarming ensue. The Cannon and alternate sequels, Flying Forwards and Raising Rainbows on the other hand, both introduce villains, conspiracies, kidnapping, and nations on the brink of war.
    • Princess Celestia: The Changeling Queen has a fair bit of action but the main plot is centered more around the title character's political efforts around avoiding both a war between ponies and changelings and her actual identity as a changeling becoming widespread knowledge. Its sequel, Equestrias Changeling Queen And The Abyssal Empress, actually involves a large-scale war involving, effectively, an Eldritch Abomination.
  • YouTube James Bond Fan Film Property of A Lady contains somewhat greater proportion of action than its direct predecessor Diamond's Cut, mainly because it increased length and shed on Padding.
  • Code Prime: The canonical R2 of Code Geass was known for its hefty amount of drama and political intrigue. While it has no shortage of action scenes, they do mostly take a backseat to the main characters' plight. Code Prime R2 has this be the result of the events that preceded it in R1: Britannia gets utterly demolished, the Autobots and Black Knights begin arming themselves even more for the inevitable war for Earth, and the rest of the world is on its way to total war by the Decepticons themselves. What follows is a great deal of action on par with various Transformers entries, most notably the live action universe.

    Films — Animated 
  • Cars: The first movie was a Fish out of Water movie about Lightning growing up and learning to appreciate the people around him in time for a big race. Cars 2 involves him and Mater being mistaken for American spies by British intelligence, leading to chase sequences and plenty of Stuff Blowing Up. Averted with Cars 3, which went back to a tone similar to the first movie and is about Lightning's struggles over being replaced by newer and faster cars on the racetrack.
  • Cinderella III: A Twist in Time is very much this to its predecessors. Lady Tremaine uses the Fairy Godmother's magic to change the outcome of the original story in her favor, and Cinderella and her friends must overcome the alterations in order to reunite her with Prince Charming.
  • The Incredibles had plenty of action sequences, but Incredibles 2 kicks them up a notch, due at least in part to the better CGI technology available after 14 years.
  • In The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water, the amount of action is increased compared to The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie thanks to Bikini Bottom becoming an Apunkalypse and the superhero climax.
  • With Toy Story 3 being the third in a trilogy fifteen years in the making, character introductions are an almost moot point, with even more dramatic escape sequences taking place in comparison to its predecessors.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Though not advertised as a sequel, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010) uses the events of the original book as backstory, with Alice now a young woman who becomes an Action Girl and Jeanne d'Archétype and slays the Jabberwock.
  • The Alien franchise:
    • There is a major shift in tone between Alien, a suspense movie about a creature hidden in the labyrinthine corridors of a space ship, and Aliens, which sends in the clones for all-out war. Though fans argue over which is best, both are acknowledged to be great films in and of themselves.
    • Inverted in Alien³, as it only features one Xenomorph throughout its runtime like the first of its two predecessors (together with the fact that the humans have absolutely no weapons with which to shoot the lone Xenomorph runner from a safe distance). To cap it all off, the lone Xenomorph runner doesn't even involve himself much in the overall plot until the climax.
    • Alien: Resurrection re-escalates matters by giving the humans their weapons back, increasing the Xenomorphs' numbers again, and finally making the main action begin long before the climax.
    • While AVP: Alien vs. Predator was already somewhat action-y due to the presence of Yautjas, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem significantly amps things up by having a "cleaner" Yautja relentlessly blast apart countless Xenomorphs from its beginning all the way through to its ending.
  • The first American Ninja had action during the final parts of the film, but the majority of it was flashbacks showing how the protagonist, a white American soldier, got trained in the arts of Ninjistu. The second film, however, was filled with action as the plot was about the American Ninja and his special forces unit infiltrating a criminal ran island filled with evil Ninjas and freeing the people kidnapped and made slaves there.
  • Both Angels & Demons and Inferno have much more action than The Da Vinci Code, going from a simple mystery flick to two Race Against the Clock movies regarding big threats.
  • Tim Burton's Batman (1989) had to set up a lot of plot exposition and could get draggy at times, but it still had a fair amount of action. Its sequel, Batman Returns, had even more action, but paradoxically seemed less action-packed because the non-action sequences and story themes were so powerful. Batman Forever and Batman & Robin both had tons of action, often for no other reason than to have an action sequence.
  • Best of the Best, surprisingly enough. You're probably thinking "How can a martial arts film have an actionized sequel? They're action films by definition." Well, the first film was more dramatic, focusing on a team of American martial artists as they prepare for and compete in a tournament against their Korean counterparts. The second film had one member of that team die in an underground fighting ring with two of his former teammates taking on the gangsters who run it.
  • Blade Runner 2049 is a funny example, in that it actually has more fight scenes, gun battles, a car chase, and Stuff Blowing Up than the original, but feels like it has fewer thanks to its longer running time and long segments of atmospheric drama.
  • The Cannonball Run was about a group of eccentrics (mostly broad stereotypes) who take part in a cross-country road race. The sequel is about a group of eccentrics who take part in a cross-country road race while a group of inept gangsters attempt to kidnap the race's backer. Although this does have the side effect of making the fight scene near the end seem less tacked on and actually plot-relevant (for what little plot there is).
  • Carrie is an example of this happening with remakes rather than sequels. The first adaptation in 1976 was shot on a budget of just $1.8 millionnote , meaning that they couldn't film Carrie's rampage as it was described in the book (with her burning down the whole town). As a result, the special effects were limited to just the prom and a handful of other scenes. When the film was remade as a TV movie in 2002, it cranked up the rampage to near-Disaster Movie levels. And the 2013 version followed the same path... only this time, the destruction has an actual budget behind it as opposed to the '02 version's cheap CG. Ditto for the '76 film's sequel, The Rage: Carrie 2, which greatly amped up the bloodshed over the original film and featured a number of kills that wouldn't look out of place in a Slasher Movie.
  • This happens with the first two movies of The Chronicles of Riddick, Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick (2004). The former is a horror movie in which a group of space crash survivors have to escape a planet filled with alien monsters, the latter is a big-budgeted sequel in which the Conan-esque Riddick has to defeat an evil empire of death-worshipping warriors.
  • "Crocodile" Dundee was a weird example — the first was a Fish out of Water comedy about an Australian from the Outback trying to adapt to life in New York. The second pitched him against a gang of drug dealers coming for him and his American girlfriend in the Outback.
  • DC Extended Universe:
  • Death Wish and Death Wish II were vigilante revenge dramas. Death Wish 3 and Death Wish 4: The Crackdown turned up the action to eleven for the day, with 3 featuring Charles Bronson's biggest bodycount ever.
  • Descendants: The first film shared the tone of a heist/caper-style movie with only one action moment at the climax of the film: the Villain Kids battle Maleficent's One-Winged Angel dragon form and it lasts a few minutes. Meanwhile, Descendants 2 has not only a brawl between the Villain Kids (plus Ben and Lonnie) and Uma's crew, but a duel between Mal and Uma in their respective Dragon and Sea Witch forms.
  • The Evil Dead series ups the action and comedy in each installment. The Evil Dead (1981) is a low-budget horror movie with a rather helpless male Final Girl, Ash. Evil Dead 2, taking place on the same day, has Ash pick up a shotgun and chainsaw to fight the Deadites head-on. Army of Darkness follows the trend by turning Ash into a wisecracking action hero.
  • First Blood was a moody piece about a troubled Vietnam War vet trying to adapt to a regular life again and failing disastrously. Rambo: First Blood Part II and later sequels take that vet and put him back where he is killing people and taking names - which is what people think about when the name "Rambo" is said.
  • Godzilla's debut, the original Godzilla (1954), was a somber allegorical horror film about the dangers of the atomic bomb. The first sequel, Godzilla Raids Again set up the action-based formula of "Monster VS Monster" (in this case, Godzilla VS Anguirus).
    • Also happened in the American version, with Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) compared to Godzilla (2014). The previous movie had three kaiju who only truly fought onscreen towards the end (with one scuffle only briefly shown earlier). This movie ups the ante considerably, not only offering multiple Titan battles between the four main kaiju ( three rounds of Godzilla vs. Ghidorah including the climactic battle, Ghidorah vs. Rodan and Mothra vs. Rodan at various stages) but having them start considerably earlier in the film's running time.
    • Godzilla vs. Kong ups the ante even more, with Godzilla appearing and destroying Pensacola, Florida not even 10 minutes in, then of course the titular conflict gets 3 rounds of battle, and spliced between them is Kong vs a Warbat. Then there’s Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla, and then Godzilla and Kong vs Mechagodzilla. And unlike the other 2 films, there is no cutting away from these fights, so you get longer and more intricate scenes of giant monsters beating the tar out of each other.
  • Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is this to Jack Reacher. While Jack Reacher was still an action movie, it was basically like a thriller with action sequences such as the car chase and the final battle at the quarry, and even those were subjected to Deconstruction of common action movie trappings. Never Go Back features even more shootouts, fights, car chases, and explosions, the last of which didn't occur in the first movie.
  • James Bond:
  • Parodied in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, where Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are seen to be filming Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season. Will Hunting uses a shotgun to end arguments.
  • Jeepers Creepers is a fairly self-contained creature feature in which everyone is powerless to stop the Creeper. Jeepers Creepers 2 has a bit more give and take during the climax, as a result of a Knight Templar Parent out for revenge over the Creeper taking his son.
  • Jumanji was not without action, but Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle elevates it, down by being explicitly set in a video game world. Jumanji: The Next Level fits even more, with frantic setpieces such as ostriches chasing jeeps and a rope bridge run while attacked by mandrills.
  • Koi...Mil Gaya starring Hrithik Roshan is a Filmfare Award-winning movie about a developmentally disabled young man (Roshan) who tries to continue the work his father did in communicating with extra-terrestrials from outer space, which leads to something miraculous and wonderful. Its sequel Krrish? That young man's son (also Roshan) was given his dad's superpowers and becomes a superhero, 20 Minutes into the Future.
  • The Mad Max movies progressively added more action with more budget. Mad Max: Fury Road in particular is a nearly non-stop car chase, with almost the entire narrative communicated through its action.
  • Maniac Cop 2 goes from the original slasher formula with a twist to a non-stop thrill ride of shootouts, car chases and a fiery finale.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • The shared continuity allowed The Avengers to play this trope for all it's worth; since each of the characters got their own movie detailing their origin story and character backgroundnote , the writers could afford to make the majority of the exposition be about the team as a whole, rather than focusing on each character's history.
    • Thanks to ten years worth of movie doing the exposition work for it, Avengers: Infinity War is the most action-packed film in the MCU by far. Even the subsequent Grand Finale Avengers: Endgame is not as loaded in this front, though it compensates in sheer volume, with the whole final third being a massive battle with nearly everyone introduced in the previous movies.
  • The Mummy Trilogy started more in the realm of an adventure series like Indiana Jones: exploring tombs, outrunning rival grave robbers, death traps, deciphering ancient mysteries and dealing with angry natives. There was certainly its own brand of action, but when Rick takes a sword and starts slicing apart mummies like a regular action hero there is a certain dissonance there. The sequels included a lot more extended action sequences, Evie and Jonathan became capable badasses in their own right, Rick became a destined hero and there are entire supernatural armies to face.
  • Inverted chronologically speaking with Orphan which has less kills in it's entirety than the prequel has in the first twenty minutes.
  • Pitch Perfect: The first two films mostly centered on a music competition plot line. While the third film keeps this plot line, it also introduces an element of crime and espionage involving Amy's father, who is revealed to be a crime boss.
  • Pacific Rim: Uprising features a massive inversion. More specifically, it has fewer action sequences than its predecessor, and on top of that, the three Kaiju seen in the film don't even show up at all until during the last quarter of its runtime.
  • Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows spends considerably less time on investigation sequences and focuses the bulk of its plot on chasing Moriarty across Europe in the hopes of unraveling his scheme. This results in a lot more explosive and high-octane moments of action compared to the original movie. Justified, too, since it's an adaptation of the classic Sherlock Holmes story, "The Final Problem," which lacked a mystery and was essentially Holmes vs. Moriarty the entire way. In fact, Game of Shadows goes the opposite direction in adding a mystery for Holmes and co. to solve on top of the Moriarty chase.
  • While Sonic the Hedgehog already features plenty of action—it starts In Medias Res with Sonic fighting off Robotnik and his drones in the middle of San Francisco—it devotes most of its runtime to an origin story for Sonic and Dr. Robotnik and features many quiet, dialogue-focused scenes. Sonic the Hedgehog2 features significantly faster pacing and more frequent, larger, more dynamic setpieces. Case in point: while the first movie's final battle is simply Dr. Robotnik in his hovercraft, the second's is a much larger-scale and more impressive affair, a Humongous Mecha controlled by Robotnik and the chaos powers he absorbed from the Master Emerald.
  • Star Trek films.
  • Star Wars:
    • A New Hope has a number of big scale special effects but it stays pretty tight on to just a handful of characters, a few dogfights and a tame sword duel, before ending with a fairly big trench run / dogfight climax. The subsequent films ramped up the set pieces, with The Empire Strikes Back showing a massive ground battle before the halfway point and Return of the Jedi having a three-pronged climax with a space battle, ground battle and lightsaber duel all intercutting with each other.
    • The prequel trilogy is more action-packed than the original trilogy, with significantly larger scale battles (not that the originals skimped out on those), and more elaborate lightsaber duels. The Phantom Menace less than five minutes in gets into a fast-paced action sequence where the Jedi avert an assassination attempt and rush to circumvent a planetary invasion. The production value on the effects and stunts are also enhanced. Compare the battle between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope to their battle in Revenge of the Sith and you'll see a HUGE difference.
    • Zigzagged in The Force Awakens. Though the film has a Slow-Paced Beginning like A New Hope and is completely devoid of space battles, at the same time, it also features a handful of frantic land battles, "Starkiller Base", a planet-sized superweapon capable of destroying entire star systems at once, and a harrowing lightsaber duel taking place during a violent planet-wide tremor.
    • Inverted in The Last Jedi. The film is almost entirely devoid of action between its opening sequence and its climactic battle on Crait. Plus, the two aforementioned sequences have smaller visual scales and slower pacing compared to countless other battles seen throughout the franchise.
    • Exaggerated in The Rise of Skywalker, as it features breakneck pacing like Revenge of the Sith, more action sequences than both of its two direct predecessors combined, several elaborate lightsaber battles, and countless Xyston-Class Star Destroyers capable of blowing up entire planets with their main weapons.
  • Superman II is a textbook example as it begins with Superman saving Lois from a terrorist attack, features a few scenes of the evil Kryptonians causing havoc and has a climax involving a huge battle between Superman and the three villains. Contrast with the first film, which had no fight scenes and overall, relatively light action more akin to a disaster movie than the kind of superhero blockbusters it inspired.
  • 1984's The Terminator was a science-horror film about a nigh-invulnerable killer robot chasing down an everyday woman, with the film's suspense factor resting on the robot's unrelenting dedication to its assassination mission. 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, meanwhile, was a science-action film that pitted a good version of the first movie's killer robot against an even more nigh-invulnerable killer robot chasing down the same woman's son. The difference? The film's suspense factor now hinges primarily on the hot-blooded battle between the two killer robots, and Sarah Connor is now an Action Girl packing military-grade weapons. Just to give an idea of how different the two films are in tone, the first one ends with the original Terminator surviving multiple attacks that should've destroyed it before chasing Sarah through an empty factory, eventually being lured into and crushed by a hydraulic press, just barely missing the chance to strangle her. The second film, meanwhile, ends with the T-800 freezing and obliterating the T-1000 in a metalworks building, before bombastically sacrificing himself for the sake of the future by being dramatically lowered into a vat of molten metal, flashing a thumbs-up with a glorious fanfare playing in the background. Yeah. Terminator 2 would actually end up setting a precedent for the tone of later films in the Terminator franchise; unfortunately, those ones would suffer quite heavily from sequelitis.
  • Thanks to advances in camera and VFX technologies, plus cooperation from the US Navy, Top Gun: Maverick depicts more intense and detailed dogfights than its predecessor.
  • UHF parodies this with a preview for the fake movie Gandhi II. All of his arguments are now solved by killing his opponents. He likes his steak bloody rare, and the movie title is spelled out as he fires a submachine gun across a restaurant because someone said "Hey baldy!" The tagline is "No more Mr Passive Resistance!"
  • X-Men had a few fight scenes, but much of the screentime was devoted to explaining mutants and setting up the character relationships. X2: X-Men United, however, had extended fight scenes that let Wolverine slice up mercenaries invading the school. X-Men: The Last Stand turned it up further, with a big battle sequence featuring dozens of mutants going up against the X-Men.

    Literature 
  • Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, starts with Willy Wonka and the Bucket family's journey back to the factory via the titular flying elevator going awry. Accidentally sent into orbit, they spend the first half of the book exploring a space hotel and thwarting an invasion by carnivorous aliens. The Halfway Plot Switch (in which, once they're back on Earth, the grandparents being offered reverse-aging pills goes awry) is more in line with the events and tone of the first book, albeit with slightly higher stakes and rescuing Grandma Georgina from Minus-Land.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Doctor Who: "The Time of Angels"/"Flesh and Stone" and its contrast to predecessor "Blink" was compared by Word of God (namely writer Steven Moffat) to the difference between Alien and Aliens. "Blink" has ordinary civilians facing a quartet of fairly weak Weeping Angels, "The Time of Angels" has armed soldiers facing an Angel army.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: While Star Trek: The Next Generation modeled itself on its predecessor Star Trek: The Original Series in following the crew of the Enterprise as they explore the galaxy, DS9 places a heavier focus on the Federation's exploits during times of political tension and, as the series progressed, all-out war.
  • Star Trek: Picard: TNG was never particularly big on action sequences, and the ones it did have were very much the product of a 1990's television budget. Picard features much flashier, more modern action scenes that look more in line with the J.J. Abrams Star Trek films.
    • Contrast Data, who almost never got involved in physical altercations despite his massive Super-Strength, with his "daughter" Dahj, a Lightning Bruiser who mops the floor with squads of commandos in a way that would make Khan proud.
    • There's also Elnor, a Romulan martial arts expert who appears in seven episodes in Season 1, and he fights hand-to-hand against at least sixteen adversaries across five episodes note . Because he has both Super-Reflexes and Super-Strength (plus there's an overt East Asian influence on the character), his Wuxia-inspired Fantastic Fighting Style is more superhero-like than Worf's note .
    • Although Narek's Fight Scene from the Season 1 finale ended up on the cutting room floor, this featurette of the Deleted Scene nonetheless proves that the showrunners were aiming for more varied and elaborate forms of combat (in this case, the Romulan version of Capoeira) than on TNG.
  • Stranger Things: In keeping with the Alien vibe of the first season, the second season climaxes with scores of Demodogs overrunning the HAL building, à la Aliens. Season three ramps it up even further as characters get into gun battles with the Russian spies infiltrating Hawkins, culminating in the Mind Flayer creating a Flesh Golem the size of a house that goes on a rampage through the Starcourt Mall.

    Pinball 

    Video Games 
  • ActRaiser II: The simulation portion from its predecessor is completely nixed and the player character has more special moves and is a lot more nimble overall.
  • Senjin Aleste is considerably beefed up from past games, making use of modern hardware to put on a frantic showcase of Bullet Hell.
  • Alone in the Dark: The original game is a slow-paced Survival Horror story. The sequel has Carnby repeatedly gunning down and being gunned down by gangsters and pirates.
  • Army Men was a real time tactics shooter in an isometric view, that often saw you having to plan your next move carefully, as some areas were so frought with enemy soliders venturing into them would be sucide. The next game lessened the need for this, as little things, like having to account for soliders hearing incoming mortars was removed, and rarely was it not benifical to clear a map of enemies. Before long, the series shifted into a 3rd person shooter.
  • The Atelier Series goes back and forth with this, but the Atelier Iris and Ryza subseries are very much more combat- and action-oriented than the rest. Iris in particular is known for being more of a conventional JRPG series with alchemy (complete with protagonists fighting The Empire in the second), and Ryza has an actionized combat system, with the second game being a dungeon-crawling treasure hunt.
  • Azure Striker Gunvolt 3:
    • The trailers demonstrate Gunvolt's new range of actions. In addition to having more flexible mobility in the air, his Flashfield has been replaced by the ability to fire salvos of electric bolts at Tagged foes. Kirin can do the same, with every successful Arc Chain, she can repeat the process and remain in the air as long as the enemy is marked.
    • The gameplay is much faster paced, being akin to a 2D platforming Stylish Action, Kirin's talismans and Gunvolt's Dart Leader shots can now be aimed and auto-locks on enemies. Upon marking and tagging foes, GV and Kirin can then quickly warp into them and finish them with an Arc Chain and Voltaic Arts respectively.
  • BioShock:
    • BioShock 2 made the combat system much faster than the first game by letting the protagonist fire weapons and special powers at the same time, turning the cameras and security bots hack into a reflex based minigame, and gave the player much more powerful abilities to use against much more dangerous enemies. The game still has a few stealth elements inherited from its predecessor but mostly relies on overpowering your enemies instead of getting past them. Despite the game's Contested Sequel status, this aspect was generally considered an improvement over the original. This can also arguably be considered Gameplay and Story Integration. Subject Delta, being a Big Daddy, is much stronger than Jack, but his bulk and heavy footsteps makes stealth more difficult.
    • BioShock Infinite is even more bombastic and streamlined than 2, accompanied by its major aesthetic shift as the game is no longer set in the dark, claustrophobic Underwater City of Rapture, but instead the bright, spacious floating city of Columbia. Combat drops stealth for a more swashbuckling "run and cover" approach, with an abundance of ammo, Booker's Regenerating Shield, Static Health (something that wasn't present in the other two games), as well as the presence of Sky-Lines, allowing for fast-paced, three-dimensional combat. Hacking is also completely absent, and Infinite's own version of the Hypnosis plasmid skips the process entirely by now being able to affect machines along with human enemies.
  • Bomberman Hero is this to previous Bomberman games. Here, Bomberman can jump, his bombs explode immediately upon touching enemies instead of just being timed explosions, there is only one puzzle in the entire game (and it's easy), and emphasis is placed on ranged combat.
  • Unlike previous 3D Castlevania games, 'Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is linear and akin to God of War''. Backtracking is also optional.
  • Condemned: Criminal Origins had firearms mostly as an afterthought— guns were pretty rare, you couldn't reload, and it was entirely possible to go through the game without firing a single bullet. In the second game, Bloodshot, guns are a bit more plentiful, and there are a few parts where having a gun is necessary for survival. The melee elements are also enhanced with the addition of combos and chain attacks.
  • Dark Souls III, compared to the last two games. The combat was changed to be more Bloodborne-like, and compared to the previous gameplay style of "dodge and counter, wait for stamina to recharge, trade hits with poise if you got some", you use less stamina and it regenerates much faster for basically everything, Armor Is Useless is in full effect and poise is only useful on the slowest of attacks, and enemies in general are much more aggressive and have more feints and follow-ups than ever. Even the level design is a lot more linear and there are far less obstacles and puzzle solving to navigate through.
  • Dead Space
    • Dead Space 2 makes certain Necromorphs easier to kill (the Pregnant monsters die after getting their sack ruptured, whereas in the first game they continue to crawl alongside their brethren), rebalances weapons and allows the player to dispatch Necromorphs by blowing out windows to space. Zero-G movement is also streamlined: instead of jumping from surface to surface with the aid of his RIG's magnetic boots, Isaac moves by way of a Jetpack integrated into his RIG. However, the game still maintains most of the original's atmosphere.
    • Dead Space 3, however, takes actionization so far that many players refused to consider it horror. Necromorphs no longer have to have their limbs surgically shot off: sufficient body damage is also enough. The balanced weapons of previous games are replaced by the extensive weapon-crafting system that allows for extremely overpowered combos, and universal ammo eliminates most of the inventory management. To compensate for this, the game throws dozens of Necromorphs in waves, as well as easily slaughtered Unitologist mooks. To deal with the latter, Isaac also learns to crouch, take cover and perform combat rolls.
  • Designer Sheldon Pacotti has cited this as a partial reason for the change in scope that Deus Ex: Invisible War faced — the dev team went into the project with feedback regarding what the original game did wrong instead of the elements it got right. As a result, combat and RPG elements were greatly streamlined. The skill point system was removed completely, with lead character Alex D.'s combat skills being set to maximum at the beginning of the game (you no longer had to level up proficiency in certain weapons). Augmentations were all pre-installed in Alex's body, with the only choices you had being a case of which option out of 15 possible skills (in five slots) you opted for — and in the event that you wanted to change your options, you could do so on-the-fly, while upgrade canisters were more common than they were in the prior title. Lockpicks and multitools were rolled into a single unlocking tool and made more prevalent, provided that the player did the bare minimum of exploration. Weapon mods were reduced from multiple categories with multiple levels of upgrade strength to three "slots" on each weapon that could have a mod placed on them. Specific ammo types in the original were replaced with universal ammunition — which had the downside of crippling the player if they didn't ration their shots enough in the late-game (and disincentivizing non-lethal items like the prod, which used up larger amounts of ammunition).
  • Devil May Cry might seem like an odd pick for the trope since it was always an action game with copious amounts of Rule of Cool, but the first game still had a lot more survival horror elements compared to the sequels and could be a bit slower at times as a result. Compare the first mission of the first Devil May Cry to the first mission in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening. The first game opens with a lot more suspense and you don't fight your first enemy until you're about 80% through the mission, the rest is just building atmosphere. In Devil May Cry 3 you will have already killed 5 demons within the first 20 seconds. (This is partially attributable to the fact that DMC started off life as a Resident Evil Gaiden Game.)
    • The reboot, DmC: Devil May Cry, takes this even further. There are not many side paths and even less places to explore aside from collectibles and hidden missions. Going down the linear path locks you out from backtracking and you can only move forward. There is also, Uncharted style set pieces with easier and bigger emphasis on platforming. Compared to past titles where platforming barely worked or was used as an after thought. Any semblance of horror elements are gone due to being an alternate continuity. Also, there is only one puzzle in the entire game.
    • Devil May Cry 5, the Un-Reboot, takes this even further than the reboot. While there are still collectibles, hidden missions, and some optional side paths, platforming is almost next to none. Most stages are linear hallways with the combat being the star and getting even more expansive. Nero gets new robotic arms called Devil Breakers, and Dante gets even more weapons and is allowed to select the amount the player chooses without being limited to just two or three. Newcomer V can be described as a mage type fighter the summons three different demons to the fighting for him.
  • The first Dino Crisis, like the Resident Evil series, focused on survival, and barely gave you enough ammo to deal with the dinosaurs you encountered. Dino Crisis 2 is a full-on action shooter, letting you slaughter them by the dozens, and rack up combo points to buy ever larger guns.
  • Doom:
    • The first Doom game spaced most of the combat out a bit, and often the biggest swarms of enemies were placed in a confined, maze-like space, both to keep things tense, and to prevent you from being swarmed right off the bat. Doom II was more willing to throw large groups of enemies at you all at once, and in general the new types of enemies introduced added more variety and lethality. The two level packs of Final Doom (The Plutonia Experiment in particular) set a precedent for later swarm-based mods such as Hell Revealednote .
    • Doom³, instead of being the run-and-gun shooter that the previous games were, changed genre to a scary, moody, and slow horror shooter. In response to criticism about some of the changes, the BFG Edition made a slight turn back to the gameplay of the previous entries by giving the player more ammo, changing the lighting to make the game less dark, having slightly faster player movement, etc. However, it wouldn't be until Doom (2016) that the franchise fully returned to its fast-paced run-and-gun roots.
  • Dragon Age II had been heavily actionized in comparison to its predecessor. Whereas the first game typically had 5-6 enemies per room that took a while to kill and had most of the same skills the player party had, and you had to place a heavy emphasis on tactics. Here you fight dozens of much weaker enemies per encounter, usually in several waves that often teleported out of nowhere. The combat became far more over-the-top, with rogues jumping several metres through the air and even heavily armored templars able to do backflips, every kill led to a shower of blood (if not someone exploding outright) and enemies were lucky if they could have two or three skills. Relatively rare and challenging mini-bosses like Revenants and Desire Demons were also downgraded to Elite Mooks.
    • Non-combat parts of the game were also trimmed: there were less dialogues on the whole, they became simpler (3 choices as opposed to 4-5), non-violent alternatives to combat appear once in a blue moon and the (already limited) exploration aspect is practically non-existent due to Cut and Paste Environments.
  • Dynasty Warriors began life as a 3D Fighting Game in a similar vein to the Soul Series. Starting with the second game, however, the series made the jump to full-on Hack and Slash with light Real-Time Strategy elements that operates firmly on the Conservation of Ninjutsu by having the player's character able to take on dozens of mooks at a time. Each sequel and spin-off since then has only embraced this style of gameplay and taken it to increasing heights.
  • When The Elder Scrolls began, it featured combat that not only had a diceroll mechanic, but it required the player to right-click the mouse and swivel it around to swing their weapon. The latter was scrapped in the third game, Morrowind, and the next game ditched the former in favor of FPS-style combat. The fifth game, Skyrim, added Dual Wielding and the ability to fight on horseback, but sacrificed the underwater combat of its two predecessors.
  • The first Endless Nightmare is a Survival Horror game all the way, with barely any action and you spend most of the game fleeing from the undead. The second game have some scary parts, but you're now capable of collecting firearms and killing zombies left and right. And then the sequels turns you into monster-slaying badasses with tons and tons of action throughout.
  • The first two Fallout games were straight-up turn-based RPGs. Starting with Fallout 3, the series became either an RPG with heavy FPS elements or an FPS with heavy RPG elements depending on who you ask; either way, it became a lot more action-packed. Then Fallout 4 became an Actionized Sequel to the Actionized Sequel: The combat system has taken several cues from first-person shooters, incorporating dynamic crosshairs, authentic iron sights, V.A.T.S now works like Bullet Time rather than turn-based combat, you can now quick bash with guns, and grenades are now secondary weapons used with a trigger button rather than their own weapon. On top of that, stealth and Pacifist Runs are no longer really viable; in 3 and New Vegas, it was possible to be fairly decent at sneaking at Level 5-ish depending on your build, but 4 with it's new perk system means that you need to be Level 38 to fully upgrade your sneaking skill. True stealth mastery like from the previous games, where you could avoid being detected by enemies in full close quarters, is no longer even really possible without a lot of skill magazines. Diplomacy options also became virtually non-existent, whereas you could usually talk your way out of most situations in the previous games.
  • Fear & Hunger: Termina: Whereas the first game somewhat discourages fighting enemies due to their high lethality, Termina encourages combat to a much greater extent. Fighting enemies has been upgraded with the "rev-up" system (which allows the player to use more consistent, powerful attacks), and many enemies are less likely to incur permanent status debuffs. Ammo for ranged weapons is much more available, making it easier to kill enemies without risking injury. Sacrificing sawed-off heads is also the only way to amass soul stones in high quantities, which are then used to learn skills.
  • The Final Fantasy series is still firmly in the RPG genre, but has slowly becoming more action-oriented, with action commands in battle, and a shift to more real-time combat, as Square Enix continue to pursue their stated goal of creating a battle engine that allows the dynamic combat of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Final Fantasy XV (formerly known as Final Fantasy Versus XIII) is a full-on Action RPG, along the lines of Kingdom Hearts. The previous installment, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII has also made many steps in that direction; Spin Offs like Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core and Dissidia Final Fantasy are a full Genre Shift.
  • Finding Teddy provides an extreme example; the original was an Adventure Game where you play a tiny little girl adventuring into the whimsical fantasy world of Exidus where she has to solve puzzles to make her way through, helpless to defend herself against the huge monsters that will kill her in a variety of comically violent ways (only for her to immediately try again). The sequel (originally called Finding Teddy 2 but later renamed to Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus) saw a complete Genre Shift to a platforming action Metroidvania game where the now-older girl returns to Exidus to save it from evil by beating the crap out of evil with her sword and shield.
  • Front Mission ventured into this when Front Mission: Gun Hazard was released as the second video game in the franchise. A side-scrolling shooter with 2 player co-op, it was a complete change of pace from the original Front Mission. This was followed up by the release of Alternative two games later. Alternative plays out in real-time strategy albeit there is an action element as the game lets players control the action in first-person ala an FPS. After the releases of Front Mission 3, the Front Mission remake 1st, and 4, yet a third action spin-off was released - Online. An MMO third-person shooter with FPS elements, the action took place in real-time and focused heavily on team-based play such that it never truly lost the Front Mission appeal. Evolved continued the trend a few years later as the second TPS title (also has a bit of FPS in it), although it completely abandons a lot of the Front Mission appeal (teamwork, slower-paced gameplay). Instead, it better resembles Armored Core with some unusual additions (regenerating health, arcade-y gameplay). Although it wasn't developed by the core Front Mission team, Evolved was hated by all fans, even by the hardcore who know that Front Mission isn't all about turn-based strategy and were eagerly awaiting a new action title.
    • Front Mission 3 follows suit. With large amounts of its tactical nature being scaled back (number of playable units dropping from 12 to 4, missions taking place on tiny maps, customization made bare bones), it is comparatively more action-oriented as far as TRPGs go than its predecessors. Front Mission 4 returns back to much of its roots.
  • In contrast to the slower pace of the original, Shenmue II positively brims with action and quick time sequences, in addition to other major changes.
  • Hitman:
    • The games have waffled in tone between games, but Absolution stands out, replacing the "globetrotting man of mystery" style with a much darker, grittier, and wanton tone in the vein of grindhouse films. Absolution also had a shift in gameplay, controlling more like an action-stealth game such as Splinter Cell, and having much less of the sandboxy levels Hitman is known for, with more typical "sneak from point A to point B" sections in between them.
    • Inverted with the first game: While it includes plenty of stealth gameplay that the series would get best known for, it also has several levels where it turns into a full blown shooter complete with boss fights with the final one even consisting of you mowing down a small army of 48's with a minigun. Hitman 2: Silent Assassin both continued and inverted this — it increased the stealth aspect and gave much harsher punishments for not embracing it, though at the same time the Easy mode allowed way more survivability than the first game if players felt like going all Rambo.
  • Ittle Dew 2 has a greatly increased focus on combat compared to its predecessor. Ittle moves faster, starts out with a larger health meter, can dodge roll, and fights enemies that are more dangerous than most of the monsters she fought in the first game.
  • Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy is an action game already, but it's more of a standard platformer. Sequels introduced gunplay and somewhat less straight-up platforming.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • The first game had about equal amounts of combat, platforming, and puzzle-solving. The combat in the first game was very simple, as you could do basic sword swings, a few spells, a few summons, and by the end of the game Sora gets exactly 4 "special attacks", and upgrading attacks in that game was nothing more than adding a few more hits to his basic swing and making the hits pack more of a punch (while its re-release added in a few more special abilities via new finishing moves).
    • The second console game - at which point the series had already set forth the motion that Sora was basically the Messianic Archetype and now needed to prove just exactly what made a 15-year-old boy better than grown, experienced men and women with supernatural powers - focused mainly on combat. As a result, the player was given a ridiculous number of ways to kick ass: Drive Forms, more elaborate Summon Magic, much more powerful and varied Spells, combo attacks with party members, the ability to equip whole new combat techniques as well as upgrade basic swings like in the first game, and, perhaps most infamously, Action Commands that let Sora pull off moves worthy of the Matrix (whew).
    • And the third console game went even farther, with powerful new attacks and abilities being unlocked at every turn.
  • Madou Monogatari I is an Actionized Remake. In a departure from the turn-based menu combat it's known for, the Mega Drive version features real-time battle encounters where Arle can jump, crouch, and even defend against enemy attacks. All of her spells are bound to a button command performed on the D-Pad while holding the A button, such as pressing "down, left, up, right" to cast Ice Storm. Because the battles play in real time, skilled players can rapidly churn out spells and possibly defeat enemies before they could even touch Arle.
  • Mass Effect:
    • Mass Effect 2 has more and faster-paced action than its predecessor. Best exemplified by the Vanguard class's new ability - a gravity-powered Foe-Tossing Charge - or the increased variety of heavy weapons, which range from a Grenade Launcher to a borderline Too Awesome to Use personal nuke. The action features more action too: gunships, explosions and solving things by blowing something up become increasingly common.
    • Mass Effect 3 also doesn’t disappoint on that front. In particular, melee combat does far more damage in the third game, as every class either has access to a personal Laser Blade or a biotic punch, and weak enemies can be pushed away with a gun-butt before they attack. As for the story, the wartime setting makes this inevitable, but the game features no less than three dedicated action setpieces of nothing but stuff getting destroyed.
  • Compared to the first two Medal of Honor titles, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault has missions set in the frontline, namely the Normandy beach landings, fighting in the bocage alongside US Paratroopers, and trekking through enemy-occupied towns guns blazing. It's expansions, Spearhead and Breakthrough remove the Stealth-Based Mission aspect entirely. note 
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots made the run 'n' gun style of gameplay an option as compared to earlier titles which were more stealth focused and were more difficult to run 'n' gun. There's also the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance spin-off, which almost completely ditches stealth and focuses on the action.
  • Metro 2033 was a heavily atmospheric and very unforgiving game, where the combat was against mainly small (3-4) groups of mutants who killed you in a couple of hits. Encounters against similar-sized groups of humans were rarer and could often be avoided by stealth. Ammo was very rare as well, (having 100 of ANY kind is a sign of extraordinary luck). Metro: Last Light increases the action dramatically, and balances the amount of time you spend fighting humans and the time you spend fighting mutants. In some missions, you may face as many human enemies as you fought in the entirety of Metro 2033. Combat has been streamlined, with the melee attack now being done with a quick button tap, and health regeneration taking noticeably less time. Gunplay has been improved and tightened immensely. Weapons and ammo are proliferated immensely, and it's possible to modify the guns. The Bastard you get early in the game can easily and comfortably stay with you as your weapon of choice, remaining a viable option even in the endgame, whereas everyone dropped their Bastard for a 74 in 2033 the moment they could.
  • Metroid:
    • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes compared to Metroid Prime. Echoes ups the difficulty and frequency of combat sequences, and adds more boss fights, as opposed to just one major boss per area in the first game. The game also adds FPS-oriented concepts such as an ammo system for the standard beam weapons (previous games in the series had limited it to Missiles and Power Bombs) and a multiplayer mode. Lastly, while the native Chozo civilization of Tallon IV from Prime was a peaceful race that slowly got consumed by the Phazon, the Luminoth of Aether from Echoes had to become a warrior race due to 50 years of constant war against the Ing; many Luminoth bodies remaining from that war can be found all over the game world.
    • Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. There are a lot more actionized setpieces (like dropping a giant bomb on a Leviathan shield, the demolition trooper escort mission, Hypermode, the free-fall Ridley fight) and less isolated parts. It is also more linear, but mostly due to level design, as you fly around several planets and the areas are smaller. There is still plenty of exploring to do, but combat takes a strong precedence over it.
    • Metroid: Other M takes it even further by giving Samus loads of melee attacks, dodging and other combat-related abilities.
    • Additions to the gameplay system, such as the Melee Counter and the Aeion Abilities, give Metroid: Samus Returns a somewhat more action-based feel than the other 2D Metroid games.
    • Metroid Dread is this to both Metroid Fusion (to which it is a direct chronological sequel) and Samus Returns (the last game released beforehand and the one with which it shares a team and engine). Samus's Counter-Attack can be done while running, and it causes damage to enemies. The much more prevalent E.M.M.I. also stick around to menace Samus after she evades them, unlike the SA-X which tended to show up for a moment before menacingly stalking away.
  • Monster Hunter: Rise, in comparison to its predecessors, streamlines its gameplay with an emphasis on getting players into battle with monsters more quickly. To that end, the need to track monsters down was removed: all monster locations are presented on the map (you still need to approach the monster to identify it first). Palamutes also help toward this end by allowing players to more quickly traverse each region. The Wirebugs make movement more dynamic, opening up new ways to explore the game world and to fight with monsters.
  • Zig-Zagged with Need for Speed series: some games are about kicking arses and taking credits in illegal street racing, some others are about professional, Gran Turismo-esque racing. Examples of the former are Most Wanted, Carbon, and Hot Pursuit, the latter are Need for Speed: ProStreet, and the ''Shift'' sub-series.
  • The Neverhood is a claymation-based adventure game with a bizarre sense of humor. Its sequel, Skullmonkeys, keeps the claymation and humor but shifts to a platformer.
  • Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch had some freedom of movement in its combat but was otherwise command and spell-heavy regardless of if you played as yourself of your familiar. Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom had a much more frenetic battle system akin to modern Tales games though with some magical elements still mixed in. This is partly justified as in the first game the main hero was no older than a preteen thus characters were more reliant on magic and familiars to fight while in the sequel nearly every party member has been trained in some combat already.
  • Nier is an Action-Adventure game with a balance between exploration and combat. Its follow-up, NieR: Automata, was co-developed by PlatinumGames, and as such, its combat is much more frenetic and lightning-paced.
  • The original sequel for the modern Ninja Gaiden series on Xbox, Ninja Gaiden II on the 360, heavily toned down the exploration and puzzle elements found in the previous game, the stages became very streamlined, finding a key or two to open a door became almost trivial — if that wasn't streamlining enough, Sigma 2 on PS3 removed any traces of exploration found in the 360 version altogether; by then modern Ninja Gaiden became just like its classic series: full blown action only, all Ryu needs to do to progress through the game is to beat enemies and push foward. Ninja Gaiden III followed on Sigma 2, being exclusively action oriented.
  • Outpost is a turn-based colony-builder in which you construct and manage a colony to house and nurture the last survivors of Earth, starting with the evacuation from Earth itself. While rebels will seize control of one of the two seed factories and start their own colony, you cannot fight them, can barely interact with them, and assuming you do well, enough of them will eventually defect to join you that their colony will collapse. Outpost 2 converts the series to an RTS in the vein of Command & Conquer that removes the entire start of the first game except the initial backstory about Earth being destroyed, putting you on a predefined Mars-like world after the colonists have already arrived and split into two warring factions. Otherwise, the colony management and resource handling was streamlined and inter-colony interactions introduced in the form of shooting at each other.
  • Ori and the Blind Forest is an exploration-focused Metroidvania with relatively light combat and Mooks, but no Bosses, where as Ori and the Will of the Wisps amps up the frequency and intensity of enemy encounters, with Ori commensurately gaining an arsenal of new combat abilities, as well as introducing proper boss battles.
  • Pac-Man World 3 emphasizes action and combat while still preserving most of the platforming elements from the previous entries.
  • Persona 5 is a cross between a dungeon-crawling Role-Playing Game and a Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World Dating Sim, following a group of high school students who become Phantom Thieves in order to punish corrupt adults and reform society while also trying to get through a year in high school. Persona 5 Strikers is an Action RPG employing the Dynasty Warriors series' real-time Hack and Slash combat engine instead of turn-based combat, following the same group half a year later as they get together for a summer vacation Road Trip Plot, with them juggling enjoying their vacation and investigating weird incidents where influential celebrities are seemingly brainwashing the masses.
  • Picross X: Picbits vs. Uzboross is a spinoff of Nintendo's Picross series. Unlike traditional Picross games, which are focused around taking your time carefully solving large puzzles, Picross X is focused on rapidly solving waves of 5 x 5 puzzles in order to outrun the Uzoboross and then defeat it.
  • Pikmin: The main games emphasize exploration and collecting treasures and resources. Hey! Pikmin puts much greater focus on battling enemies.
  • In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the game moves from traditional Turn-Based Combat to a form of Combatant Cooldown System. In addition, for the first time in the series, the human player character is capable of being directly injured during Pokémon battles and can even have their expedition crippled if they take too much damage, and the action before a player's Pokémon is sent out is played in real-time rather than in a cutscene.
  • Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, already a reinterpretation of a game with sparse fighting to have more action, was followed by Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, with much more swordfighting to showcase a revamped combat system.
  • The Project I.G.I. sequel, Covert Strike, triples the action with less emphasis on stealth-based missions, more mooks to kill, and doubles the ammunition pickup. There's even a stage where you commandeer a heavy machine-gun from a helicopter to rain hellfire on an enemy base and destroy everything in sight.
  • Combat in Psychonauts 2 is much faster and smoother, powers have been reworked to be more useful in combat, and the number of enemy types has been expanded. Old enemy types have also been reworked to be more interesting to fight, such as the Sensors, which now attack with a powerful spin move, instead of just whacking you with an oversized stamp.
  • The first three Rainbow Six games (Rainbow Six, Rogue Spear and Raven Shield) were about careful planning since you usually died from a single shot. Lockdown gave you a health bar and removed the tactical planning part. Vegas and Vegas 2 are about three guys with Regenerating Health mowing down a massive army of mercenaries and terrorists, though you're still rather fragile compared to most contemporary shooters.
  • The Ratchet & Clank series placed more of a emphasis on combat with each successive sequel, until Deadlocked became all T/FPS. They backed up to a more balanced mix for Tools of Destruction, however.
  • Resident Evil:
    • Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis increase the action due to the wider availability of ammo and the dodge ability, making it possible to kill every monster in the game. Compare that to the original Resident Evil, where trying to kill everything was near impossible.
    • Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5, unlike the previous games, have a much more action-packed gameplay style, with fully functional manual aiming, (conditional) melee attacks, and generally more combat-friendly environments. Many players agree that they are more like action games than survival horror. As one analysis explained, the series shifted from aiming for "scary" to aiming for "tense". Or put another way, it goes from survival horror to adrenaline horror. Resident Evil 6 follows the same path.
    • The remakes for 2 and 3 invert it and play it straight, with the former turning up the survival horror aspect considerably. 3, meanwhile, is much like it's counterpart with balls to the wall action.
    • Resident Evil 7 inverts this, as it's far more Survival Horror than action. However, the sequel to this game, Resident Evil Village, plays it straight, bringing in more combat and action while still retaining extensive horror, sometimes even using horror from other genres.
  • Towards the end of the Adventure game era and the rise of the FPS genre, Sierra attempted to actionize their franchises. It backfired with King's Quest: Mask of Eternity, which sold badly enough to sink the franchise.
    • Quest for Glory V was similarly actionized, being the first game in the series where combat was required for all characters, and all characters being given swords and shields (previously the province of the Fighter and Paladin, who are expected to solve their problems with swords). However, it was already the conclusion of the series, so it can't be said to be a Franchise Killer.
    • Police Quest is a rare exemption, the games franchise re-inventing itself as Police Quest SWAT and later just SWAT. This series lived on to make 4 more games after their last adventure game precursor.
  • Sakura Wars (2019) is an actionized Soft Reboot. While the previous games featured turn-based strategy battles, the 2019 game features fast-paced hack-and-slash combat.
  • Silent Hill:
    • Although not to the same extent as Resident Evil 4 or 5, Silent Hill: Homecoming has a much more developed melee combat system, including combos, a powerful dodge move, and a lock-on camera that turns every fight into a one-on-one duel. This (plus stronger healing items and propensity of enemies to get stunlocked) made melee combat viable by itself, whereas previous games favored fleeing or using up precious ammo. Enemy encounters are still spaced out evenly and the game's overall pace is still pretty slow and brooding. It didn't work too well, so the next installment, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories took out all combat completely. 2012 Silent Hill: Downpour balanced somewhere between two extremes.
    • Before that, the franchise zig-zagged with the action quotient as well. Silent Hill 2 had less action than the first, and included the option to disable combat completely. Silent Hill 3 was significantly actionized due to better weapons like the katana, quicker pace, more monster encounters and the addition of a submachine gun, which made boss fights a (relative) breeze. Silent Hill 4 scaled back the action significantly, with clunkier controls and weaker weapons. Silent Hill: Origins downplayed it: on one hand the protagonist had less health than usual and all melee weapons broke after several hits. On the other hand, the assault rifle made a comeback, and you could pick up almost anything to use as a melee weapon and carry it in your infinite inventory.
  • Solatorobo: Red the Hunter is this when compared to its predecessor Tail Concerto, in part thanks to Red being a Contrasting Sequel Main Character to Waffle. Red's first instinct when faced with anything is to keep attacking it until it explodes, so of course his gameplay would revolve around doing as much damage as possible within the shortest amount of time (and once you obtain certain upgrades, in the flashiest way, too). It helps that Red also has a Super Mode with the story having a lot higher stakes than before.
  • Splatoon 2 has smaller maps for more conflict and introduces the Dualies, but the special weapons are what's really more intense than the original. Miss the Inkzooka? It's replaced by a Jet Pack with an ink cannon! The Inkstrike is basically just an ICBM. Why not equip Splashdown and BE the Inkstrike? Or use an Ink Storm for longer-term area control, or use Tenta Missiles to potentially bring Death from Above to the entire enemy team at once, or just straight-up use a copyright-friendly Spirit Bomb?
  • Splinter Cell:
    • Splinter Cell: Conviction turns up the action and gives Sam Fisher another level in badass. It had rather mixed reactions from fans of the franchise who preferred pure stealth.
    • Splinter Cell: Blacklist downplayed it by making stealth a viable approach again while allowing for the Conviction-style or even regular TPS gameplay - though even on the easier difficulties, trying to play too aggressively will get you killed fast; it's better to play smart, be tactical, and make use of all your gadgets to even the odds in your favour.
  • Super Paper Mario is the only Paper Mario game that's completely real time (barring one turn-based fight).
  • While Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge is relatively faster-paced than The Arcade Game, Turtles in Time and The Manhattan Project (the games that inspired it), with wider attack options, this is played straighter in regards to the 1987 cartoon that the game's more faithfully based on. The cartoon only had a sporadic amount of action as the plots put emphasis on comedy. Here, there's still some comedy, yet the plot is minimalized to allow for many exciting action setpieces.
  • The original Tomb Raider I had an even balance between combat and platforming/puzzle solving. Its sequel shifted focus closer to combat by letting Lara start with a shotgun in addition to her trademark pistols and adding a greater quantity of both animal, human, and supernatural enemies. Tomb Raider III upped even more to the point Lara was mockingly called "City Raider", and was being treated more as a spy with a license to kill than an adventurer.
  • The first two Turrican were slow, methodical Metroidvania platformers while the console sequels and Turrican 3 were fast-paced run & gun shooters more akin to Contra.
  • Muse Software's Wolfenstein series originally consisted of two top-down Stealth-Based Games (Castle Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein) all about sneaking around Nazi fortresses (preferably) undetected. Then when id Software entered the picture with Wolfenstein 3-D, they scrapped the stealth mechanics, and turned it into a fast-paced action game with a first-person perspective. Later installments such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein have brought back many of the stealth elements, but they still have a high emphasis on action.
  • The first Zone of the Enders had some open-exploration as you travel between different areas of Antilia, a space colony orbiting Jupiter, went on fetch missions, the occasional S.O.S. missions, and find sub-weapons to perform tasks needed to advance the game. Its sequel, The 2nd Runner, ditches all of that and opt for much more action-driven gameplay and linear level progression.
  • Syphon Filter 1 focused mainly on slow-paced espionage, with occasional bursts of action, while the sequel was more heavy on run-&-gun firefights, with only 7 of the 21 levels requiring stealth, then the third game ditched mandatory stealth almost entirely except for one mission. The 6th-gen games had a more even balance between stealth and action.
  • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link shifted its focus away from collecting items and solving puzzles in dungeons towards a more developed side scrolling combat system where Link can perform different sword attacks and cast magic. Instead of being able to just mindlessly hack away at enemies, the sequel now have enemies who either need specific sword attacks or magic to defeat and other enemies like Iron Knuckles require precise timing to hit them when they're open to attack.

    Web Animation 
  • Red vs. Blue only had sparse gunfights (after all, it's basically a video game deathmatch where everyone involved is very incompetent) until season 8, where with Monty Oum's character animation the restrictions of the Halo engine were off and thus an uptick in action scenes ensued, starting with a car breaking through a wall. The following two seasons were even half machinima, half animation to give more room for the action. Things quieted down afterwards (season 11 downright had no custom animation), with only the occasional combat... until season 18, which for being the first fully-animated and done by the same people of DEATH BATTLE!, mostly centered around frantic battles and chases.

    Western Animation 

Alternative Title(s): Actionised Sequel, Actionized Prequel, Actionised Prequel

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