Stopped Numbering Sequels

Oh look, they're going to spell it with a "4" instead of "E"
That's completely fucking bonkers, but let's just wait and see!
No wait, they've changed it back, so I guess that point is moot
Oh no wait, they're taking off the 4 to call it a "reboot"
A practice that in recent years I have come to abhor
But I'm willing to ignore, 'cause they're making a—! ...Thief.

— "Theft 4 Dead" from Jim And Yahtzees Rhymedown Spectacular

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A common subversion to Numbered Sequels. As the number of installments of a series goes up, the less likely it has a number behind.

Usually the series and sequel titling go in the following order (although only some series go through all five steps):

1. First Installment
2. Numbered Sequel
3. Numbered sequel + subtitle (or 3D).
4. Subtitle
5. Recycled Title
6. At this point, anything can happen, including the subtitle becoming the main title.

There are several reasons for this:

• Creators might be embarrassed that they have made so many sequels.
• The plotline of the story is nonlinear and there are lots of prequels and midquels.
• Especially among video games, the franchise may have Gaiden Game subseries. However, then it can easily be Double Subverted, depending on situation.
• The studio might feel that a sequel numbered too high might be avoided by audiences that could perceive a Continuity Lockout.
  • Related, often when a video game comes to a new console generation, it will drop the number to attract gamers who didn't play the series on the previous console generation.

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• Four Is Death in Asian markets, which explains why games originating from there tend to stop numbering after 3.
• To avoid bringing up previous numbered installments that most people don't want to acknowledge, perhaps even one where you don't want to ignore every detail.
• Finally, it's difficult to stop doing once you've started; after an installment or two without numbers, people will have completely lost track (which Mortal Kombat game are we on again? Exactly. Oh, the answer is below.).

See also Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo, Word Sequel, and Numbered Sequels.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Pokémon: The First Movie, 2000, 3, and 4Ever. The movies completely dropped the numbering starting with the fifth: Pokémon Heroes.

Films — Animated

• The Land Before Time gave up on numbering after a while... as in, somewhere near the end of the twelve sequels.
  • Starting with the eighth film, "The Big Freeze" the roman numeral was nowhere to be found on the FRONT of the cover, instead, you will find "Volume VIII" on the SPINE of the VHS cover. However, with the thirteenth film, "The Wisdom of Friends" the roman numeral doesn't even appear in the film at all. The opening titles just say "The Land Before Time" shortly followed by "The Wisdom of Friends".
• The Shrek series starts normally, then makes a play on words with "Shrek the Third", and the fourth film has several alternate titles, including "Shrek Goes Fourth" (likely the working title), "Shrek: The Final Chapter" (used in marketing), and "Shrek Forever After" (the official title). A fifth film was planned but never made; rumor has it the working title was "Shrek Pleads the Fifth".
• Minimalist example: How to Train Your Dragon was followed by just one numbered sequel, How to Train Your Dragon 2, before adopting this trope for its final installment, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.

Films — Live-Action

• The Omen:
  • Following The Omen (1976) and Damien: Omen II, the conclusion to the original trilogy was originally released as simply The Final Conflict, without a number or even the series title (the trailers made its status as a sequel obvious by including clips from, and name-dropping, the previous two films). Home video releases label it as Omen III: The Final Conflict, but the movie itself still contains the shorter, original title card.
  • The made-for-TV sequel averted this trope, returning to normalcy with its title - Omen IV: The Awakening.
• Friday the 13th dropped its numbering after the eighth part when the series was moved to New Line Cinema mostly due to it being an artifact of Paramount still owning the Friday the 13th name, while New Line owning character, concept and everything else.
  • Though usually listed with numbers on video boxes, posters and such, the fourth and fifth Friday the 13th movies already didn't technically have numbers in their titles (none were shown in the onscreen title cards). On the other hand, Jason X does resume the count for one entry, which makes this franchise a improbably genuine Zig Zagged Trope.
• The Halloween series goes all over the place with its sequel titles.
  • Halloween (1978) was followed by Halloween II (1981) and Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
  • Then, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers changed from Roman numerals to Arabic numerals.
  • Then the sixth movie, which was originally called Halloween 666, ended up being called Halloween 6: the Curse of Michael Myers in its producer's cut and just Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers in its theatrical cut, ending the numbering.
  • Then Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later and Halloween: Resurrection kept it that way, the remake of Halloween (2007) took things back to square one, and its sequel, Halloween II (2009), started the numbering all over again.
  • And then the 2018 Halloween film goes back to square one again.
• Jaws series dropped the numbering on the fourth installment.
  • The Fake Movie Real Trailer for Jaws 19 reveals other installments would be numbered... except the 13th, "Jaws 12: Part 2".
• The first four Paranormal Activity movies were simply numbered with no subtitles until the 2014 Spin-Off Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones. The fifth movie in the main continuity (the sixth film in the series overall) was originally going back to the numbers as Paranormal Activity 5, but is now continuing the subtitle format as Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension.
• Police Academy series. The seventh installment officially doesn't have number as a title.
• Rocky series. Justified because there was over 15 year hiatus between Rocky V and Rocky Balboa. Plus a lot of stuff in Rocky V did not happen.
• The Rambo series which has oddest title-evolution of them all, going from First Blood and Rambo: First Blood Part II to Rambo III to the 2008 sequel, (John) Rambo. Discussed in a Rambo NES review by The Angry Video Game Nerd.
  "I was making fun of Rocky 6 being called Rocky Balboa, so I made a sarcastic comment: 'What are they gonna do, call it John Rambo?' And that's what they did! And I feel bad, like I picked on a retard or something: 'Hey, whaddya, RETARDED?! ...oh. I'm sorry."
• The Star Trek movie series dropped its numbers with 1994's Star Trek: Generations, as it was felt that with the The Next Generation cast taking over the franchise, it was best to make a fresh start for marketing purposes. However, the Blu-Ray Discs of these movies have numbers VII-X on their cases.
  • The 2009 movie (a continuity reboot) is simply called Star Trek with no numbers (although some refer to it as Star Trek XI) or subtitles. Its sequels follow suit by only having a subtitle of sorts (despite lacking a separator), Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond.
• Star Wars started its episodic numbering with the "Episode V" seen in the opening crawl of The Empire Strikes Back, but did not start including the numbers on posters and merchandise until the first prequel, Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Then, for The Force Awakens, the "Episode VII" was dropped from the posters and only included in the crawl again. The spinoff films, not listed as part of the Star Wars Saga, including Rogue One: A Star Wars Story do not have episode numbers at all.
• The Karate Kid movies:
  • The fourth film was called The Next Karate Kid, which makes sense since it has nothing to do with Daniel this time.
  • The fifth one is a remake of the first (while incorporating elements of the sequel) simply called The Karate Kid (2010), even though the martial art focused on the film is Kung-Fu, not Karate (they try to justify the title in the movie). The film is called The Kung-Fu Kid in some countries.
• The Highlander film series dropped the numerals with its fourth film.
  • Justified because the fourth film, Highlander: Endgame was The Movie of the TV show, which was of an explicitly Alternate Continuity to the previous films. ("Explicitly" in that Highlander III: The Sorcerer did completely ignore the events of Highlander II: The Quickening, but both counted the original film as canon while the TV series only ever took it in Broad Strokes. Highlander canon is... annoying.)
  • The American release of Highlander III also dropped the numeral, calling itself Highlander: Final Dimension as well.
• Hellraiser dropped the numbering after Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth.
• Children of the Corn managed to keep its numbering to the sixth installment.
  • Unless you go by the onscreen title cards, in which case the fourth film had already forgone a number - a "IV" was just put on the video box.
• The Fast and the Furious: The sequel was called 2 Fast 2 Furious, the third film had a subtitle (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift) and the fourth film is called Fast & Furious (although there is a small "IV" on the side of the DVD box, underneath the title; some countries still called it Fast and Furious 4). The fifth film is called Fast Five. Guess they took anger management. Then they probably got slowed down to the point it rekindled their irritation with Fast & Furious 6 and Furious 7...
  • And in Britain Fast Five was renamed Fast & Furious 5, presumably because the marketers were concerned that people would see the pictures of Vin Diesel in a big car and not be able to work out which series the movie was part of.
• Final Destination went for the Recycled Title on its fourth installment, The Final Destination, then went back to numbers for the fifth installment.
  • Justified by Bluray bonus content where it was confirmed that the fourth movie was deliberately called THE Final Destination (as if it was the final movie).
    • ...and this decision was justified by the plot of the fifth movie. Being a prequel all events take place before the events of the first film.
• A Nightmare on Elm Street series stopped its numbering on the sixth film Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare.
• The Howling stopped numbering on its seventh installment, Howling New Moon Rising. The sequel/semi-reboot The Howling: Reborn continued the trend.
• Every Terminator sequel from Terminator Salvation (the fourth one) and onward is subtitle only.
• The Exorcist's dropped its numbering for the prequel, which morphed into two separate films.
• Amityville series stopped its numbering when it went to straight-to-video hell.
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series stopped its numbering after the third film, which is fitting because not many wants to remember the fourth film.
• Alien is weird about this. The second movie didn't use a number (Aliens), the third did (Alien³), but then the fourth didn't (Alien: Resurrection).
• Predator stopped numbering at the 2010 film Predators.
• When counting the Alien, Predator and Alien vs. Predator Crossover films as part of a singular franchise, the idiosyncrasy becomes maddening: Alien is singular for the first, third, fourth and "seventh" installments, plural in the second and "eighth", and numbered for 3 only (where it is the fifth film); Predator is always singular except for the "ninth" installment, and only numbered for 2 (the fourth film overall). The quantum continuity status that Prometheus presently holds is the only thing keeping a fan's skull from imploding at this point (and then, the sequel to Prometheus will be called Alien: Covenant to ensure a Title Confusion continues).
• Jurassic Park dropped numbering on the second film and returned it for the third film. The title was once again dropped for the fourth film.
• Bloodsport series dropped the numbering from the fourth film.
• Die Hard series went for the Oddly Named Sequel on its subsequent installments. In the case of Live Free or Die Hard (the fourth movie), various countries renamed it to Die Hard 4.0.
• Leprechaun series dropped numbering when the fourth film recycled the whole thing IN SPACE!
• Saw can be criticised for many things, but it was doing so well with its numbering. Sequels had Roman numerals... until its send-off, Saw 3D.
  • They did sort of save face on home video though by calling it The Final Chapter instead which is less confusing.
• While the Harry Potter films never had numbered titles, the DVD spines were labeled "Year 1", "Year 2", Year 3", etc. (This is taken from the U.S. editions of the Harry Potter books, which labeled the book spines the same way.) When Deathly Hallows, Part 1 hit DVD, it was labeled "Year 7: Part 1" on the spine. For some reason, this is where they stopped and the Hallows, Part 2 DVD has a blank space where it should logically say "Year 7: Part 2".
• The Marine was followed by The Marine 2, but the third film will be The Marine: Homefront. Note that each film has a different main character and lead actor, so dropping the numbering makes some sense.
• Mission: Impossible had two numbered sequels (Mission: Impossible II and III), and then just appropriate subtitles moving forward (Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation, and Fallout).
• Universal Soldier tried its luck with two numbered and subtitled direct to video sequels first, them dropped the numbering but not the subtitles for a new shot at a theatrical part two. The next installment rebooted the series again as a new part two, but kept the same naming convention, as did the part following that one. The full lineup is now: Universal Soldier, Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms, Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business, Universal Soldier: The Return, Universal Soldier: Regeneration and Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (also known as Universal Soldier: A New Dimension).
• The X-Men film series stopped numbering installments after X2: X-Men United, which remains the only mainline X-Men film to have a number in its title. ^note (Deadpool 2 is part of an adjacent side-franchise dubiously set within the X-Men film continuity, and was sometimes referred to as The Untitled Deadpool Sequel by Fox.) Justified by X-Men: First Class being a prequel and X-Men: Days of Future Past involving time-travel; numbers simply don't help to keep the movies in chronological order.

Literature

• Many novel series start of with subtitles like, "The Second Novel of X Series" before switching to "A Novel of X Series". Sometimes there's a reason for this: The second novel gets labeled as such so it's easier to identify the sequel when it first comes out, while subsequent books are not necessarily set in stone in terms of numbering or continuity.
• Melisa Michaels' Skyrider series was originally intended to be a trilogy, and the first book was initially published as Skyrider 1: Skirmish. None of the other books in the series ever had a number, and reprintings of Skirmish omitted the "Skyrider 1" part as well.
• Uncle John's Bathroom Reader broke free of the "Uncle John's Nth Bathroom Reader" naming scheme after the 7th book, instead opting for subtle Toilet Humor ("Uncle John's All Purpose Extra Strength Bathroom Reader"), Alliterative Title, or a Pun-Based Title.
• Goosebumps had Night of the Living Dummy books 1-3, then Bride of the Living Dummy, Slappy's Nightmare, Revenge of the Living Dummy and Son of Slappy.
• The first paperback editions of Equal Rites and Mort had a subtitle reading "The [Third/Fourth] Discworld Novel". Later editions of the first two novels with that trade dress followed suit (originally The Colour of Magic had an X Meets Y description of the book and The Light Fantastic had "A sequel to The Colour of Magic, because nobody, least of all Terry Pratchett, knew it was going to be a series). From Sourcery, it just says "A Discworld Novel".

Music

• New wave band Daniel Amos created a series of four linked concept albums. They all had different titles, but the first three had the subtitle, The Alarma Chronicles Volume [number]. However, the final album, Fearful Symmetry, dropped the subtitle. In fact, it didn't mention The Alarma Chronicles anywhere on the front or back cover.
• Canadian Punk band Billy Talent's albums: Billy Talent, Billy Talent II, Billy Talent III, Dead Silence

Tabletop Games

• Paranoia started with (in order) 1st edition, 2nd edition, 5th edition (later declared an "unproduct"), and 3rd edition (unpublished). Then it was revived with XP (formally dropped after Microsoft complained, so this version was just called "Paranoia") and 25th Anniversary Edition (a reprint of XP with some additional material).
• They developed the Nth edition formula for the bi-yearly "Core" sets for Magic: The Gathering, up until 10th Edition. Then, they switched to numbering them by the year they come out (and do them yearly).

Video Games

• The Castlevania series only had three numbered sequels to the original NES game ( Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, and Super Castlevania IV) and one for the Game Boy game Castlevania: The Adventure (Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge). The series stopped using numerals once sequels were being released on non-Nintendo consoles.
  • The numbering stopped earlier in Japan, where Dracula II: Noroi no Fūin (Simon's Quest) for the Disk System and Dracula Densetsu II (Belmont's Revenge) for the Game Boy were the only numbered sequels. The Japanese version of Dracula's Curse was titled Akumajō Densetsu (although the ending credits refers to the developers as the "Dracula III Staff"), while Super was simply titled Akumajo Dracula (justified, since it was a retelling of Simon's first adventure and not a continuation of the earlier Famicom games). However, Dracula X: Chi no Rondo for the PC Engine is technically the tenth game in the series (counting the Famicom trilogy, the two Dracula Densetsu games on Game Boy and the four versions of the original Dracula on other platforms), even though that's a letter "X" and not a Roman numeral ten.
• The Marathon series' second game had both a number and a subtitle (Marathon 2: Durandal), then the third fulfilled the trope (Marathon Infinity: Blood Tides of Lh'owon)
• The Need for Speed series, leading to the pretty awkward numbering of the Hot Pursuit subseries (Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit -> Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 -> Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit)
• Sonic the Hedgehog series. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is named as such simply for in-universe chronology reasons and because its in the style of the original numbered games.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • The 2D series did this after Super Mario Bros. 3 (not counting the Japanese version of Super Mario World, which bore the subtitle of Super Mario Bros. 4). Super Mario Galaxy 2 was the first numbered sequel on consoles since the leap to 3D. The general idea seems to be that each console has its own series of Mario games, and the N64 and GameCube only had one game each.
  • Hilarity ensues when you look at the remakes that were released on the Game Boy Advance. Each remake is chronologically numbered, but the games weren't remade in any real order... so you get titles like Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World and Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros 3. At least they avoided Colon Cancer with Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island since the full title of the Super NES version was Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. Note that the original Super Mario Advance, a remake of Super Mario Bros. 2, was not titled anything other than Super Mario Advance.
  • Inverted by the Mario Kart series, where at the end of a long series the 3DS and Wii U installments are numbered instead of having a subtitle or the platform's name on the title. So it goes Super Mario Kart (SNES), Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart: Super Circuit (GBA), Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (GCN), Mario Kart DS, Mario Kart Wii, Mario Kart 7 (3DS) and Mario Kart 8 (Wii U). Note that the numbering does not count the arcade entries ( Arcade GP, Arcade GP 2 and Arcade GP Deluxe).
• Red Faction series after II.
• The Legend of Zelda is an odd example, the sequel was simply titled Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, the rest of the series just used subtitles, making the second game a black sheep in naming (though The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is sometimes known as "Zelda III" as a shorthand). Some of the games do have the internal number noted during production or in their product IDs (The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games were 7 and 8, for example).
• The Star Wars: Dark Forces Saga, see Colon Cancer for what it would look like.
• Tomb Raider series, starting with the fourth game, The Last Revelation. While later games are not numbered, fans still refer to them by number in casual conversation, and the desktop icons for The Last Revelation and Chronicles stated that they were Tomb Raider IV and Tomb Raider V, respectively; Capcom actually used the numbers when it published those two games in Japan.
• Interestingly, that was inverted with Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series by the third game, as otherwise Tiberian Sun would've been named as Command & Conquer 2.
• Subverted with the Contra series. The first sequel was Super Contra, otherwise known as Super C on the NES. Contra III: The Alien Wars for the SNES was actually the third game in the series for home consoles following the NES versions of Contra and Super C, with the actual third game being Operation C for Game Boy. There were further Contra sequels afterward, but none of them were numbered except for Contra 4 for the Nintendo DS, which was titled as such because it was set between Contra III and Contra Hard Corps (it was really the eleventh game in the series, excluding ports).
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was going to be titled Metal Gear Solid 5: Peace Walker at one point. The numeral was dropped, likely due to its release on the PlayStation Portable when previous mainline entries were released on home consoles, despite Hideo Kojima's direct involvement in the game's development, where he goes as far as to throw in a discontinuity nod directed at Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, the previous PSP-specific MGS game (unlike MPO though, PW would later be ported to the PS3 and Xbox 360, giving it a bit of a wider release). The next numbered entry in the series, Metal Gear Solid V, ended up serving as a direct sequel to Peace Walker, with the stand-alone prologue (Ground Zeroes) being set only a few months later.
• Repton. The first three games had no particular setting, so the next three dropped the numbering in favour of titles that advertised the fact that Repton was now going around the world and through time. Next comes Repton Infinity, which includes a subgame called Repton 4, but there's also the entirely separate Ego: Repton 4 —. To add to the confusion, the PC remakes don't include Repton Infinity (and so don't include either Repton 4). The result is that no-one can agree on what number comes next, so all subsequent games have been unnumbered.
• The Mortal Kombat sequels went from Mortal Kombat II to Mortal Kombat 4 and after that (when the series no longer had arcade releases) we got Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (the fifth game, which featured a bloodied "V" as part of its logo), Mortal Kombat: Deception (sixth) and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (seventh). The Continuity Reboot is officially titled Mortal Kombat, which is considered by the developers to be "Mortal Kombat 9", since they consider the crossover game Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe to be the eighth entry in the series. The tenth installment was titled Mortal Kombat X, as in the letter "X", not the roman numeral ten. And then the eleventh game returned to being numbered.
• Call of Duty 2, 3, 4: Modern Warfare, then Call of Duty: World at War, Modern Warfare 2 (which actually dropped the Call of Duty name in some places), Black Ops, Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops 2, Ghosts, Advanced Warfare, and Black Ops 3.
• Advance Wars dropped the numbers for the third and fourth games on the Nintendo DS.
• Guitar Hero has gone back and forth, as the sequels are II, III: Legends of Rock, World Tour, 5, and Warriors of Rock.
• The second main game (the third overall) in the Kingdom Hearts series was called Kingdom Hearts II, and all subsequent games used subtitles, even the "Episode 0" game, Birth by Sleep. Nomura is unclear if there will be a "Kingdom Hearts III". Oddly enough, two games possess a "3" in the title, despite not being main games or the intended KHIII: the interquel 358/2 Days and 3D for the Nintendo 3DS, which picks off where II (and Re:coded) ended.
  • Kingdom Hearts III was finally announced following 3D's release, making for a four game (and more than ten year-long) wait between Numbered Sequels.
• The Ace Combat series (produced in Japan, mind you) fought a long and hard battle against sequel numbering starting with the fourth. Its first sequel was simply Ace Combat 2; the second added a subtitle to Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere. When making the fourth title became inevitable, they padded it with a zero to make sure it doesn't blow up: Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies. It didn't. So they made Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War—and stumbled again. In the following three years, Ace Combat Advance, Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, and Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception were released. The final swan song for Numbered Sequels was Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation. After that, Namco couldn't take it anymore: an Ace Combat Xi: Skies of Incursion and an Ace Combat X2 (released as Ace Combat: Joint Assault) later, they have finally announced a full-blown Continuity Reboot with Ace Combat: Assault Horizon.
  • Following Assault Horizon, Project Aces would work on two mobile titles (Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy and Ace Combat: Northern Wings) and a F2P PS3 title (Ace Combat Infinity) before finally reversing the trend with the announcement of Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown.
• Inverted with The King of Fighters (somewhat). From 1994 to 2003, the series numbered its installments with the year of its release. Starting with XI, SNK chose to go with the installment number instead of the year (probably because XI took more than a year to release due to SNK spending some time messing around with new hardware; SNK also wanted to do away with their previous model of working around the clock to churn out a new title each and every year). This gets confusing because KOF Maximum Impact 2 (a 3D spinoff to the mainline KOF series) was released in the United States as The King of Fighters 2006.
• The SimCity series for PC had a good streak of numerical titles: SimCity, SimCity 2000, SimCity 3000, and SimCity 4. The fifth entry, released in 2013, was simply titled SimCity.
• Hudson Soft's Power League baseball game series for the PC Engine dropped the Roman numerals for its sixth installment, which was titled Power League '93.
• Atari Games' RBI Baseball series stopped using numbered sequels the same year, jumping from RBI Baseball 4 to RBI Baseball '93.
• Prince of Persia after Prince of Persia 3D. Since then we've had a new trilogy, a Recycled Title, and then a Trilogy Creep to the aforementioned trilogy.
• Inverted with Puyo Puyo. The early sequels used Japanese pun-based titles to indicated their placement in the series such as Puyo Puyo Tsu (2), Puyo Puyo Sun (3), and Puyo Puyo-n (4). Afterward, we had Puyo Puyo Fever, Puyo Puyo Fever 2, and Puyo Puyo 7.
• The Assassin's Creed franchise has gotten a little silly with this over the years:
  • Initially there was a logic behind each numbered entry featuring a new protagonist and setting. Assassin's Creed was followed by Assassin's Creed II, shifting from Middle East/The Crusades to Italy/The Renaissance and Altair to Ezio. Ezio Auditore proved to be a Breakout Character and spawned two sequels - Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, which was effectively Assassins Creed 2.1 and then Assassin's Creed: Revelations. This was followed by newcomer Connor Kenway's Assassin's Creed III which shifted to the Era of The American Revolution.
  • After III, Ubisoft changed their minds and gave a number and a subtitle for Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, used to differentiate it as a Genre Shift pirate game. The protagonist was the grandfather of Connor Kenway and the setting is still North America, so it still made sense.
  • After Black Flag, the two 2014 console entries- Assassin's Creed: Rogue on the last-gen consoles and Assassin's Creed: Unity on current-gen- have seen Ubisoft just give up completely on the numbering system, with Rogue seen as a continuation of the North American/Kenway story but featuring a character, Shay Cormac, who is separate from the three Kenways, while the other game is set among a new cast in France during the Revolution and is a next-gen overhaul moreover. Ubisoft has since stated that Unity is left unnumbered because it is a new beginning, and there are no plans to continue numbering Assassin's Creed titles. This was confirmed by the 2015 entry in the series being titled Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, moving the storyline to 19th century London with Jacob Frye as the protagonist.
• Crash Bandicoot stopped numbering after the third game, Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, which was incidentally the last platformer entry produced by the original team at Naughty Dog, although the Wrath of Cortex and Twinsanity were retitled Crash Bandicoot 4 and 5 respectively in Japan.
• Spyro the Dragon.
  • The series stopped numbering after the second game, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!.
  • Done again with the GBA Spyro games. After the second, Spyro 2: Season of Flame, they stopped being numbered.
• BioShock, BioShock 2, BioShock Infinite. Though in this case it's more to separate Infinite from the Rapture storyline.
• Only Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge is numbered in the Monkey Island series. The others are just called The Curse of Monkey Island, Escape from Monkey Island and Tales of Monkey Island. Justified as Fanon Discontinuity by many, since creator Ron Gilbert planned a trilogy but left LucasArts after the second. The third game had to retcon some things in order to tie in the plot. Ron Gilbert remains interested in some day releasing "the real Monkey Island 3" (his words). If it is ever made, it is unknown how it will fit into the chronology.
• Syphon Filter after the PS1 trilogy.
• Soldier of Fortune: Payback was produced by a budget-title/shovelware developer, and its plot is completely unrelated to the first two (numbered) games.
• The Pop N Music series averted this up through pop'n music 20: Fantasia, but the 21st game in the series has been announced and has no number in the title, opting for only a subtitle instead.
• Alone in the Dark used numbers for the original trilogy of DOS games and some of their ports, but not the later Multi-Platform games.
• The third installment of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy drops the numbering that Final Fantasy XIII-2 had.
• In the U.S. and Europe, Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter became simply Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, and fittingly so, as it marks a major divergence from the first four Breath of Fire games.
• Metroid was followed by only one numbered sequel, Metroid II: Return of Samus, but the two others that followed it had "Metroid 3" (Super Metroid) and "Metroid 4" (Metroid: Fusion) on the opening screen. Given the series' Anachronic Order, then it went all over the place. The Metroid Prime subseries also had two numbered sequels, along with one that didn't as it was an Interquel (Metroid Prime: Hunters), plus a pinball remake.
• Donkey Kong Country stopped after the SNES trilogy. The follow-ups were Donkey Kong 64 (last one by Rare) and Donkey Kong Country Returns (first to use the "Country" subtitle again).
• Densetsu no Stafy had numbered sequels for the first four installments, but for the fifth went for a subtitle ("Densetsu no Stafy Taiketsu! Daīru Kaizokudan", meaning "The Legendary Starfy Confrontation! Dairu Pirate Squad").
• Dragon Age: Origins was followed up with Dragon Age II and later Dragon Age: Inquisition, although the latter was initially marketed as Dragon Age III: Inquisition before dropping the III before release.
• The Silent Hill series tacked on a subtitle for the fourth game, and dropped the numbers afterward.
• Grand Theft Auto took the odd approach of, after three numbered games, naming the next two after their locations rather than more numbers, despite them being full-length games with ever-larger game worlds and upgraded mechanics. The idea may be that they are not numbered sequels since Vice City and San Andreas were actually prequels set before the events of Grand Theft Auto III during the '80s and '90s respectively - after two portable spinoffs that also served as prequels, the Roman numerals picked up right where they'd left off with Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto V, which were set in a separate continuity from III and its prequels.
• King's Quest: Mask of Eternity: One supposes they thought it was getting ridiculous.
• The Hitman series after Hitman 2: Silent Assassin.
• Thief 2014 was originally Thief 4, but since it was a reboot, the publisher dropped the 4. The series had already dropped the 3 from Deadly Shadows.
• Deus Ex: Invisible War was originally Deus Ex 2: Invisible War, but the 2 was dropped when development began on the Xbox version. Deus Ex: Human Revolution kept the non-numbered sequel thing going. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided continues the trend.
• Halo kept numbering straight, with the exception of Halo: Reach, which was a prequel and they didn't want to call it Halo 0. Halo 5: Guardians was initially called just Halo for the new console (Xbox One), but Microsoft later gave it a proper 5.
• Though Ruins Chaser was meant to be titled as Lufia III, the game that came out after it was cancelled was simply Lufia: The Legend Returns. Then again, Lufia II was a Prequel to the first game...
• Mass Effect: Andromeda, as the developers have stated it is meant to be the start of a new adventure rather than a continuation of Commander Shepard's story. It didn't quite stop the fandom from referring to it as Mass Effect 4 until its title was announced.
• In the Wing Commander series, the fifth "main" game dropped the numbering of sequels from earlier games, the series stepping back from the extensive Full Motion Video of the previous two installations to more of a focus on gameplay, after creator Chris Roberts left Origin.
• The third game in the No More Heroes series, Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, doesn't use a number. The debut trailer jokingly hints that this is because of the nearly decade long gap between the second and third game's releases.
• Narrowly averted by The Sims 4. It was originally conceived as an MMO titled The Sims Olympus before gears changed late in development to turn it into a single player game akin to previous entries in the series.
• Ratchet & Clank zig-zags this trope to hell and back once you compare the regions. Officially, the original NTSC titles for Going Commando and Up Your Arseanal don't have numbers in them, just the visual motif in their logo designs. The Japanese versions and certain PAL versions however do include the number, and in Japan the numbering continues through to "Ratchet & Clank 4" and "Ratchet & Clank 5". Lastly, the Japanese title for A Crack in Time begins with "Ratchet & Clank Future 2" (which makes Quest for Booty...?).

Other

• Windows:
  • "Client" editions stopped using version numbers after 3.1 on the DOS-based versions and 4.0 on the NT versions, opting for sequel numbers based on the year of release. Then came XP (which combined the DOS and NT lines) and Vista, but then averted with Windows 7, Windows 8 (and 8.1), and Windows 10. (Windows 9 was an Un-Installment.)
  • The internal version numbers followed the public numbers up until 4.0, then went different (Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 were internally 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 respectively) until they jumped straight to version 10.0 for Windows 10.
  • "Server" editions have been using year numbering ever since Windows 2000 (though using the suffix "R2" for versions close to the previous one), with names mostly consistent since Windows Server 2003 (companion to Windows XP) up to and including the current Windows Server 2016 (companion to Windows 10).
• Similarly, Apple stopped marketing new versions of macOS under their version numbers after 10.1 because they decided the internal codenames, named for species of big cats, were more interesting. And then they ran out of big cats (not really, but that was their excuse) and switched to landmarks in California. The really weird part was that most of them are alternate names for the same cat.
  • Though Apple stopped referring to the 10.x numbers, they still continued to sell their OS as Mac OS X. Weirdly, the next time they changed the name, in 2012, they Averted this by dropping the Mac part and not the number, leaving it as just OS X, despite the diminishing number of Mac users who would remember Mac OS versions 1-9. Then, in 2016 they reversed course and dropped the number for good and brought back the Mac part, renaming the OS yet again to just macOS.
• Computer chip maker Intel made personal computer CPU chips named 8086, 80186, 80286, 80386, 80486...and then went with "Pentium" because rival chipmaker AMD was using the same numeric designation for their chips, and Intel was informed that they couldn't trademark a number. Since then, they've branched out into different "lines", which often ended up with numbers attached — Pentium III, Core 2, etc.
• Normally, at the start of an episode of Jeopardy!, announcer Johnny Gilbert will state how many days the returning champion has been reigning ("…whose x day cash winnings total y dollars…"). When Ken Jennings went on his hot streak, they eventually stopped declaring how many days he'd been champion (he made it to 74 before losing his 75th game). The practice resumed once Jennings was defeated.
• Tulsa, Oklahoma radio hosts Brent Douglas and Phil Stone created the Roy D. Mercer character for the purpose of Prank Calls which they would play on-air. These skits became so popular that they started releasing them on Capitol Records in The '90s. The first seven compilations were simply titled after Roy's Catch-Phrase: How Big a Boy Are Ya? Seven volumes of How Big a Boy Are Ya? were released before they broke away fom the volume numbers and gave each subsequent album its own title.
• Porn Film Series usually subvert this trope. It is not uncommon to have the same title series run into the 30s, 40s, 69, and beyond (without skipping an installment). If they do have a "reboot" of the series, they will usually add the word "new" or something similar to the title and additional titles become "New Title 2" and so on.

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