Activision was one of the first game publishing companies and is one of the largest in the world. Before pairing with Blizzard to work on a number of projects they were responsible for some extremely popular and interesting games.
Whether it was setting the standard for skating games with Tony Hawk's or creating an absolute juggernaut with Call of Duty Activision has left its mark on gaming. Here are the best-ranked franchises according to Metacritic, based on the average score across all titles within the franchise.
Updated January 18, 2022 by Russ Boswell: Activision has published and produced a ton of games over the years with many franchises developing a cult-following among players. From stints with Crash Bandicoot, to a partnership with Bungie, Activision has been prevalent in the world of gaming for decades. With Microsoft recently acquiring the publisher and developer, the following list has been updated to include accurate current scores for the franchises mentioned as well as a few new additions to the overall list that highlight some of Activision's franchises and mergers.
14 Spider-Man (66.24)
Although it's safe to say that developer Insomniac Games has set the gold standard for what makes an amazing Spider-Man game, there was a time before the studio and its publisher Sony were working on the Spider-Man IP. Prior to that, Activision was responsible for publishing the many video game adaptations that showcased the web-slinger. Although there were some pretty solid games in the bunch (like 2000's Spider-Man for the PlayStation), most of the attempts fell short of greatness.
There were a lot of Spider-Man releases that "felt like movie adaptations" more than engaging and entertaining games. Thankfully, the future of Spider-Man looks bright in the hands of Insomniac Games, but Activision managed to bring some joy to Spidey fans when it was publishing the adventures of Peter Parker and his multiverse counterparts.
13 Prototype (Metascore 72)
The Prototype franchise seemingly came out of nowhere and represented an interesting change from Activision’s typical work. Players stepped into the role of an anti-hero seeking to overthrow a powerful corporation while the city descended into chaos thanks to a rampant virus.
The sequel was praised by critics, though players didn’t embrace it as heartily. The resulting underperformance in sales may have been why Activision decided to put this franchise on the shelf and focus on other projects.
12 Destiny (75.28)
Bungie shocked the gaming world when they combined forces with Activision to work on their Destiny IP, and soon after changed their mind and split from the publisher in order to handle the development of their game as a solo act once more. Still, there was a time when Activision and Bungie were working together on Destiny's future, giving us a glimpse at what the combined forces of the two studios could do for the franchise.
It's arguable that the merger was a good thing, with many of the DLC offerings for the expanding MMO-shooter's universe falling short of "success" when it comes to Metacritic scoring. Still, there were some diamonds in the rough, giving players some exhilarating content to explore (even if it felt lackluster in terms of size).
11 Crash Bandicoot (Metascore 76.89)
First up we have the classic platforming series Crash Bandicoot. Activision has been the game’s publisher since 2008 and has revived the series for many gamers. Starting with the critically acclaimed Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy they successfully brought the series back, though many gamers considered it a rage game and insisted they upped the difficulty from the original.
They went on to create a number of spinoff racing series that achieved moderate success. Assuming the series was sufficiently profitable for Activision it’s likely there will be a number of other titles appearing in the future.
10 Dark Reign (Metascore 77)
The Dark Reign series is an interesting collection of real-time strategy games that deal with the survivors of a civil war that has the world on the brink of an all out apocalypse. You’re charged with going back in time to prevent this disaster by keeping the founder of the Togra faction alive and preventing the civil war in the first place.
While the games were praised by critics they didn’t do so well commercially and the series was scrapped after Dark Reign 2. Considering how well other franchises are doing it’s unlikely they’ll revive it any time soon if ever.
9 Guitar Hero (Metascore 77.04)
The Guitar Hero franchise was an absolute beast when Activision bought it from RedOctane in the early 2000’s and made them a lot of money until about 2010. They released dozens of titles ranging from the established series Guitar Hero to spinoffs like Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.
After a while the market became saturated as Activision kept pumping out new music to play along to but made only minor tweaks to gameplay or interactivity. Eventually the franchise grew stale and it’s been in hiatus ever since.
8 Call of Duty (Metascore 77.21)
This is probably Activision’s flagship series given how many titles have been released and how popular and profitable the Call of Duty franchise has been for them. The original series, Modern Warfare, Black Ops, and Ghost series have all been immensely popular with multiple titles and continued releases to this day.
There have been some complaints about repetition or dumbing down the difficulty to make the games accessible to everyone, but the fanbase is enormous thanks to popular multiplayer and zombie modes. This is likely going to be Activision’s cash cow for many, many years.
7 Skylanders (Metascore 78.73)
Activision’s Skylanders franchise was a stroke of genius to tie popular characters to a new series while also pushing the sales of action figures that made playing the game much more interesting. This combination resulted in a very popular and profitable new franchise for Activision.
Metacritics opinion of the series has been a bit of a rollercoaster with some titles getting rave reviews and others getting a shrug. Overall Metacritic's opinion of the series has been largely positive and given the profitability of both game sales and toy sales this is a series that will likely continue for a long time.
6 Quake (Metascore 79.06)
Originally Quake was a shooter that embraced Lovecraftian horror themes, Activision turned it into an alien-based science fiction series and the franchise blossomed from there. The single-player titles did alright by Metacritic’s standards, but the multiplayer in Quake III Arena was when things hit a peak.
Activision ducked out the door after Quake Live failed to prove profitable and the franchise has passed into a number of different hands before finding a home with Bethesda Softworks. Fans of the original Quake may not like the changes that were made, but they owe the company a lot for fantastic multiplayer.
5 Interstate (Metascore 80)
Interstate was a brief, but critically acclaimed combat racing series for the PC from the late 90’s. Players were placed in the role of a vigilante seeking vengeance for the death of his sister in Interstate ’76. The game did fairly well resulting in a sequel Interstate ’82 and the spinoff series Vigilante 8.
But somewhere along the line the series was shelved and Activision seems to have no interest in reviving it. It could be it wasn’t as popular with gamers as they hoped, the genre seemed to be dying off, or they just focused on more profitable franchises at the time.
4 Tony Hawk’s (Metascore 85.53)
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The skateboarding series Tony Hawk’s was the franchise that really put Activision on the map for many mainstream gamers. In particular the Pro Skater series was incredibly popular and introduced a number of trick game mechanics that would be copied or built upon in other series by other game developers.
Although Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 was panned by Metacritic, the studio redeemed itself with a stellar remake of the series' original releases in Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 + 2. The end result is a nostalgia-filled riot that takes the original formula that was so beloved by fans and ushers it into the modern age.
2 Sekiro (89.66)
Everyone recognizes FromSoftware as the genius creators behind Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, considering how much the game feels like a Dark Souls title, but Activision was the publisher for the first entry in the (possibly) new franchise. Those looking for some Dark Souls-inspired gameplay with some heavy Asian influences will fall in love with Sekiro's dark, gritty, and absolutely punishing gameplay.
It remains to be seen if the franchise will continue into the future, so it's important to take the "series" spot on this list with a grain of salt since it only consists of one game at the moment. Hopefully, Activision and FromSoftware will continue to knock it out of the park with any future titles.
1 Total War (Metascore 90)
Surprisingly Activision’s best ranked franchise according to Metacritic is Total War. What’s surprising about this is they were only in possession of the franchise for two titles, Medieval: Total War, and Rome: Total War. These two titles received amazing reviews by Metacritic and saw many sales.
Unfortunately for Activision, the development company behind the game Creative Assembly was bought by Sega and parted ways with Activision. Though they were only involved for a few years, those few years saw the creation of two amazing games that changed the landscape of real-time strategy games for quite some time.