Not to mention the absolute clown show of Star Wars: Battlefront (2004), Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005), Star Wars: Battlefront (2015) and Star Wars: Battlefront II (2017). Come on, 4 isn’t even that high of a number.

I’m wondering if the aversion to numbered titles has to do with execs wanting to divert attention from the sheer number of sequels and reboots being churned out by AAA studios, often way beyond their franchises’ reasonable ending points. I remember when Final Fantasy was often the subject of mild ridicule for its absurdly-high sequel numbering, and at this point, a lot of AAA franchises would be starting to get into the double digits. Dropping the sequel numbering may be an effort to get people to forget just how long those franchises have been milked.

That’s not the case everywhere, and I think sometimes on reboots they just want to signify that the franchise is “starting fresh” to a degree (Doom and SW:B for instance), but it’s still aggravating that completely-identical title repeats are for some reason acceptable now.