Franchises

This is every franchise that I cover on LepsLair, spanning video games, film, television, and comics. Some are the pillars I have spent years with, Halo, Gears of War, Resident Evil, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Friday the 13th, and Star Wars, and others are newer loves to me like Alien, the DCU, Silent Hill, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The list covers everything from Marvel and DC on the superhero side to games like ToeJam and Earl and PowerWash Simulator. There are just so many franchises that I have loved over the years.

Each franchise page collects the games, movies, shows, and characters tied to that universe, with the history of how it started, where it went, and what is coming next. I try to build these from actually playing the games and watching the shows rather than pulling summaries off a wiki, so the character breakdowns, lore explanations, and franchise timelines reflect firsthand time spent with them. Pick a franchise below to dig into its full history, its entries in order, and the characters that hold it together.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of horror's most influential franchises, built around a burned killer named Freddy Krueger who murders teenagers in their dreams. Created by Wes Craven and launched in 1984, the series ran through nine theatrical films, a television anthology series, and decades of merchandise before stalling in development limbo following…

Age of Empires

Age of Empires is Microsoft's historical real-time strategy franchise, launched by Ensemble Studios in October 1997 and now managed by World's Edge under Xbox Game Studios. Spanning five mainline entries and multiple spin-offs across nearly three decades, the franchise covers historical periods from the Stone Age through the colonial era, tasking players with building civilizations,…

Alan Wake

Alan Wake is a psychological thriller franchise developed by Remedy Entertainment, the Finnish studio behind Max Payne, centering on a horror novelist whose written fiction becomes terrifyingly real. The original game released May 14, 2010, on Xbox 360 and established Alan Wake as Remedy's most distinctive creative voice before the follow-up Alan Wake 2 arrived…

Alien

Alien is one of science fiction's most influential franchises, built around the Xenomorph, a perfect biological weapon whose only purpose is propagation through the systematic destruction of whatever host species it encounters. Created by Ridley Scott and H.R. Giger and launched in 1979, the franchise spans nine films, a television series, multiple games, and decades…

American McGee's Alice

American McGee's Alice is a dark psychological horror franchise created by American McGee and published by Electronic Arts, reimagining Lewis Carroll's Wonderland as a manifestation of Alice Liddell's traumatized mind following the deaths of her family. The original game released in 2000, developed by Rogue Entertainment using the id Tech 3 engine, and its sequel…

Arrowverse

The Arrowverse was a shared DC Comics television universe that aired on The CW from 2012 to 2024, spanning eight live-action series connected through crossover events, shared characters, and a unified multiverse. Launched by Arrow in October 2012, the universe expanded across The Flash, Supergirl, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, Batwoman, and Superman and…

Avengers

The Avengers are Marvel's premier superhero team, assembled in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Earth's mightiest heroes to face threats no single hero could handle alone. First assembled on screen in The Avengers in 2012, the team has grown and changed across five films spanning fifteen years, from the original lineup of Iron Man, Captain…

Banjo-Kazooie

Banjo-Kazooie is a collect-a-thon platformer franchise created by Gregg Mayles and Steve Mayles at Rare, launching on Nintendo 64 on June 29, 1998. The franchise follows Banjo, an easy-going brown honey bear, and Kazooie, a sharp-tongued red-crested Breegull who lives in his backpack, through worlds stuffed with collectibles, puzzles, and the recurring villain Gruntilda the…

Batman

Batman is one of the most enduring fictional characters in the history of entertainment. Created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger and first appearing in Detective Comics issue 27 in May 1939, Bruce Wayne has spent over 85 years as Gotham City's dark knight across comics, radio, television, film, animation, and video games. The Batman…

Bioshock

BioShock is one of the most critically acclaimed franchises in first-person shooter history, built around dystopian cities with collapsed ideologies and the player's role in what remains of them. Created by Ken Levine and launched in 2007, the series spans three mainline entries published by 2K Games, all of which sit among the highest-reviewed games…

Borderlands

Borderlands is Gearbox Software's looter-shooter franchise, the genre it created with the original game in 2009, combining first-person shooting with role-playing game loot systems and open-world exploration across cel-shaded science fiction settings. Published by 2K Games under Take-Two Interactive, which acquired Gearbox in June 2024 for $460 million, the franchise has sold over 87 million…

Burnout

Burnout is an arcade racing franchise developed by Criterion Games and published initially by Acclaim Entertainment and later by Electronic Arts, running from 2001 through the last mainline entry Burnout Paradise in 2008. The franchise built its identity around aggressive, collision-focused racing where causing crashes was as mechanically rewarded as finishing first, and its Crash…

Call of Duty

Call of Duty is Activision's annual first-person shooter franchise, running continuously since 2003 and now owned by Microsoft following the completion of its $69 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition in October 2023. The franchise has produced over twenty mainline entries developed across three primary studios, Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Sledgehammer Games, and is the best-selling first-person…

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Call of Duty: Black Ops is a sub-franchise within the broader Call of Duty series, developed primarily by Treyarch and set across a connected narrative spanning Cold War espionage, near-future warfare, and covert operations. Beginning with Call of Duty: Black Ops in 2010, the sub-series has produced seven entries through Black Ops 7 in November…

Captain America

Captain America is one of the oldest and most recognizable superhero identities in American fiction, created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for Timely Comics in 1941 and continuously published by Marvel Comics across eight decades since. The character's core premise, a physically weak young man from Brooklyn given superhuman capabilities by a wartime serum…

Child's Play

Child's Play is one of horror's longest-running franchises, built around a serial killer named Charles Lee Ray whose soul becomes trapped inside a Good Guy doll through a voodoo ritual. Created by Don Mancini and launched in 1988, the franchise spans seven films in the original continuity, a separate 2019 remake, three seasons of a…

Cities: Skylines

Cities: Skylines is a city-building simulation franchise developed by Colossal Order and published by Paradox Interactive, launched March 10, 2015, as the game that effectively ended the EA SimCity series' dominance of the genre. The original game sold over fifteen million copies, built one of the most active modding communities in the simulation genre, and…

Control

Control is Remedy Entertainment's paranormal action-adventure franchise set in the brutalist Oldest House, a skyscraper in New York City that serves as the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control, a secret government organization that investigates and contains Objects of Power and Altered World Events. The original game released August 27, 2019, featuring Jesse Faden…

Crackdown

Crackdown is Microsoft's open-world action franchise created by David Jones, the designer behind the original Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings, spanning three entries released in 2007, 2010, and 2019. The series places players in the role of a superpowered Agency operative in futuristic dystopian cities, with character abilities improving through use across combat, agility, driving,…

Crash Bandicoot

Crash Bandicoot is a platformer franchise created by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin at Naughty Dog, designed as the PlayStation's answer to Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog when it launched September 9, 1996. The series follows Crash, a genetically enhanced marsupial from the Wumpa Islands, through adventures opposing the mad scientist Doctor Neo Cortex,…

DC Comics

DC Comics is one of the two dominant American superhero comic book publishers, operating since 1934 under various corporate names and currently a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. The publisher's catalog includes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and hundreds of other characters whose stories have defined the superhero genre across eight…

DCEU

The DC Extended Universe was Warner Bros.' shared superhero film franchise built around DC Comics characters, running from Man of Steel in June 2013 through Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom in December 2023. Spanning fifteen films across eleven years, the DCEU established a interconnected universe featuring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Shazam, and others before…

DCU

The DC Universe is James Gunn and Peter Safran's rebooted DC Comics shared universe, launched with the animated series Creature Commandos on Max in December 2024 and the theatrical film Superman on July 11, 2025. Unlike the DC Extended Universe that preceded it, the DCU is designed as a unified continuity spanning films, television, animation,…

Dead by Daylight

Dead by Daylight is an asymmetric multiplayer horror franchise developed and published by Behaviour Interactive, launched June 2016 on PC and subsequently released on all major platforms. The game pits four survivors against one killer in a cat-and-mouse horror scenario where survivors must repair generators and escape while the killer hunts and sacrifices them to…

Dead Rising

Dead Rising is Capcom's open-world zombie survival franchise created by Keiji Inafune, launched in August 2006 exclusively for Xbox 360. The series places players in zombie-infested environments with strict timers and a sandbox of improvised weapons built from consumer products, creating a tone that balanced comedic excess with genuine pressure. Four mainline entries ran from…

Dead Space

Dead Space is Electronic Arts' survival horror franchise set in a science fiction universe, following systems engineer Isaac Clarke across three mainline games and a 2023 remake through a narrative built around necromorphs, alien artifacts called Markers, and a sinister religion called Unitology. The original game released October 14, 2008, and is widely regarded as…

Death Stranding

Death Stranding is Hideo Kojima's post-apocalyptic action-adventure franchise developed by Kojima Productions, created following Kojima's high-profile departure from Konami in 2015. The franchise follows Sam Porter Bridges across a shattered America reconnecting isolated settlements through a network called the Chiral Network, with the central mechanic built around traversal, cargo delivery, and the tension between connection…

Doom

The Doom franchise follows humanity’s repeated attempts to exploit the power of Hell through advanced technology, and the rise of the Doom Slayer (Doom Guy), an unstoppable warrior who becomes the eternal enemy of demonic forces. Across games, films, comics, novels, and crossovers, Doom blends sci-fi, horror, and mythic action as the Slayer battles demonic…

Duck Tales

DuckTales is a Disney animated franchise based on the Uncle Scrooge comic books created by Carl Barks, spanning an original animated series from 1987 to 1990, a theatrical film in 1990, a beloved Capcom NES game, and a critically acclaimed reboot series from 2017 to 2021. The franchise follows Scrooge McDuck, the world's wealthiest anthropomorphic…

Dying Light

Dying Light is Techland's open-world zombie survival horror franchise, built around free-running traversal in infected cities with a dynamic day-night cycle that transforms the experience between navigable challenge during daylight and desperate survival after dark. The franchise launched January 27, 2015, and has sold over thirty million copies across three mainline entries. Dying Light: The…

Elder Scrolls

The Elder Scrolls is Bethesda Game Studios' open-world role-playing franchise, launching March 25, 1994, with Arena and growing into one of the most commercially successful and culturally influential RPG series in history. The franchise is defined by vast hand-crafted worlds, deep lore built across in-game books and centuries of fictional history, and a design philosophy…

Emily wants to Play

Emily Wants to Play is an indie horror franchise created by Louisiana developer Shawn Hitchcock, spanning two games released in 2015 and 2017. The series follows a pizza delivery man who becomes trapped in a haunted house and forced to survive the night against Emily, a ghostly girl, and her supernatural dolls by learning and…

Evil Dead

The Evil Dead is one of horror's most durable and most imitated franchises, born in 1981 when a young Sam Raimi took a tiny budget, a cabin in the Tennessee woods, and his friend Bruce Campbell, and turned them into a movie that has refused to die for over four decades. What started as a…

Fable

Fable is a British action role-playing franchise published by Xbox Game Studios, set in the fairytale world of Albion where players build a hero whose morality, appearance, and reputation shift based on their choices. The original trilogy was developed by Lionhead Studios under Peter Molyneux from 2004 through 2012, with the franchise going dormant following…

Fallout

Fallout is a post-apocalyptic role-playing franchise set in an America that diverged from real history in the 1950s, retaining that era's aesthetic and optimism while the Cold War escalated to nuclear exchange in 2077. The franchise was created by Black Isle Studios at Interplay in 1997 and later acquired by Bethesda Game Studios, which has…

Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy is Square Enix's flagship role-playing game franchise, created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and first released in Japan on December 18, 1987. The franchise has sold over 203 million copies worldwide as of June 2025, making it one of the best-selling role-playing franchises in history, and spans sixteen mainline numbered entries, the massively multiplayer online…

Friday the 13th

There are few names in horror that carry as much weight as Friday the 13th. Since the original film hit theaters in 1980, the franchise has become a cornerstone of the slasher genre, evolving from a single shocking twist into a sprawling series of movies, games, comics, and more. At the center of it all…

Gears of War

Gears of War is a military science fiction video game franchise created by Cliff Bleszinski and Epic Games, now owned by Microsoft and developed by The Coalition. The series launched October 7, 2006 with the original Gears of War as an Xbox 360 exclusive and has sold over 40 million copies. It is best known…

Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters is Ivan Reitman's 1984 comedy horror franchise following a team of parapsychologists who investigate and capture ghosts in New York City. One of the most commercially successful comedies of its era, the franchise spans five films in the main continuity, a standalone 2016 reboot, animated series, games, and a theme park presence that has…

Goat Simulator

Goat Simulator is a comedy sandbox franchise developed by Coffee Stain Studios and published through the studio's own Coffee Stain Publishing label, originating as an April Fool's joke game jam prototype in 2013 before becoming a genuine commercial release in April 2014. The franchise follows a destructive goat named Pilgor through increasingly chaotic open-world environments,…

God of War

God of War is Sony's action-adventure franchise created by David Jaffe and developed by Santa Monica Studio, following Kratos, a Spartan warrior who murders the Greek god of war Ares and sets a war against Olympus in motion, and later reinvents himself as a Norse mythological figure raising his son Atreus through a world of…

Hades

Hades is Supergiant Games' Greek mythology roguelike franchise, spanning two entries developed and published by the San Francisco independent studio. The original Hades released in full September 17, 2020, and is cited among the greatest games ever made, winning multiple Game of the Year awards and demonstrating that the roguelike genre could support deep narrative…

Halloween

Halloween is John Carpenter's 1978 slasher franchise built around Michael Myers, a silent masked killer from Haddonfield, Illinois who murdered his sister at six years old and has been returning to kill ever since. Across twelve theatrical films spanning four distinct timelines, multiple reboots, and decades of cultural impact, Michael Myers remains one of horror's…

Halo

Halo is a military science fiction video game franchise originally created by Bungie, currently developed by Halo Studios, formerly 343 Industries, under Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios. The series launched November 15, 2001 with Halo: Combat Evolved as an Xbox launch title and has sold over 81 million copies across its history. It is one of…

Hellraiser

Hellraiser is a supernatural horror franchise created by Clive Barker, adapted from his 1986 novella The Hellbound Heart, centering on the Lament Configuration, a puzzle box that opens a gateway to a dimension of extreme experience where pleasure and pain are indistinguishable, and the Cenobites, beings from that dimension who arrive to fulfill the desire…

High on Life

High on Life is a first-person shooter franchise developed and published by Squanch Games, built around a cast of talking alien guns with distinct personalities who provide continuous commentary throughout gameplay. The original game launched December 13, 2022, on Xbox Game Pass and became the most-played game on the platform in the week of its…

Infamous

Infamous is Sucker Punch Productions' open-world superhero franchise, launching May 26, 2009, exclusively on PlayStation 3. The series places the player in the role of a Conduit, a human with latent superpowers activated by specific triggers, navigating a morality system in which choices determine whether the character becomes a hero or a villain and unlock…

Jets'n'Guns

Jets'n'Guns is a horizontally scrolling shooter franchise developed and self-published by Rake in Grass, a three-person independent studio based in Prague, Czech Republic. The original game released November 17, 2004, for Windows with a soundtrack composed and performed by Swedish power metal band Machinae Supremacy, and the franchise expanded to Linux, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation,…

King of the Hill

King of the Hill is an animated comedy franchise created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels for Fox. It follows Hank Hill, an assistant manager at Strickland Propane, along with his family and neighbors in the fictional town of Arlen, Texas. The comedy comes from ordinary life rather than outsized premises, built around Hank selling…

Kingdom Hearts

Kingdom Hearts is an action role-playing franchise created by Tetsuya Nomura at Square Enix in collaboration with Disney, combining Square Enix's original characters with Disney's animated worlds in a connected mythology built around the concepts of darkness, light, and the heart. The first game released March 28, 2002, for PlayStation 2 and the series has…

Last of Us

The Last of Us is a post-apocalyptic survival franchise created by Neil Druckmann and developed by Naughty Dog for Sony Interactive Entertainment, set in a United States overrun by a Cordyceps fungal infection that transforms humans into zombie-like creatures. The original game released in June 2013 and is widely regarded as one of the best…

Layers of Fear

Layers of Fear is a psychological horror franchise developed and published by Bloober Team, the Polish studio behind The Medium and the Silent Hill 2 remake. Built around first-person exploration of environments that shift and distort in response to the player's progress, the franchise focuses on protagonists consumed by creative obsession to the point of…

Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead is Valve's cooperative first-person shooter franchise centered on groups of survivors fighting through hordes of infected in the days following a pandemic outbreak. Two games released in 2008 and 2009, both featuring the AI Director, a dynamic difficulty system that monitors player performance and adjusts enemy spawns, pacing, and resources in real…

Lego

LEGO's entertainment franchise spans decades of video games and films built around the company's interlocking plastic brick products and the licensed intellectual properties attached to them. Beginning with LEGO Island in 1997 and expanding into one of gaming's most reliable licensed game formulas through TT Games and Traveller's Tales, the franchise has produced games covering…

Little Nightmares

Little Nightmares is a puzzle-platform horror franchise created by Tarsier Studios and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment, set in surreal nightmarish environments where small child protagonists must navigate deadly worlds populated by grotesque, oversized adult figures. The original game released April 28, 2017, and the franchise has sold over twenty million copies across three mainline…

Marvel

Marvel is an American entertainment company founded in 1939 as Timely Comics, creating some of the most recognized fictional characters in the world across comics, film, television, animation, and merchandise. Marvel Comics introduced Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four, and hundreds of other characters across eight…

Marvel Cinematic Universe

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the shared superhero franchise produced by Marvel Studios, launched with Iron Man on May 2, 2008, and now spanning over thirty films, dozens of Disney+ series, and a total worldwide gross approaching $30 billion. Built by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige across three distinct narrative arcs, the MCU introduced comics…

Mass Effect

Mass Effect is one of the most beloved science fiction role-playing franchises ever made, developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. Built around player choice, deep characters, and a galaxy-spanning war for survival, the series follows Commander Shepard and the crew of the Normandy as they fight to stop the Reapers, an ancient race…

Metal Gear

Metal Gear is one of the most influential and acclaimed franchises in video game history, the series that essentially invented stealth gaming as we know it. Created by visionary designer Hideo Kojima and published by Konami, it follows legendary soldiers Solid Snake and Big Boss through decades of espionage, betrayal, and warnings about nuclear proliferation…

Metro

Metro is one of gaming's most atmospheric post-apocalyptic franchises, a series of survival horror first-person shooters developed by 4A Games and based on the best-selling novels of Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. Set in the irradiated ruins of Moscow after a nuclear war, the games follow the survivors who fled underground into the city's vast subway…

Monkey Island

Monkey Island is one of the most beloved adventure game series ever made, a pirate comedy created by Ron Gilbert at LucasArts that has charmed players since 1990. Following the misadventures of wannabe pirate Guybrush Threepwood across the Caribbean, the series became the gold standard for point-and-click adventures thanks to its razor-sharp writing, inventive puzzles,…

Myst

Myst is one of the most influential and important video game franchises ever created, a series of first-person puzzle adventures from developer Cyan, founded by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller. When the original launched in 1993, it became a cultural phenomenon, the best-selling PC game of the entire twentieth century, and a driving force behind…

Need for Speed

Need for Speed is one of the longest-running and best-selling racing franchises in gaming history, published by Electronic Arts since 1994. Built on a foundation of illegal street racing, high-speed police pursuits, and deep car customization, the series has defined arcade racing for three decades. From the import tuner craze of the Underground games to…

Ori

Ori is one of the most beautiful and emotionally resonant franchises in modern gaming, a pair of metroidvania platformers developed by Moon Studios and published by Xbox Game Studios. Renowned for their breathtaking hand-painted visuals, their sweeping orchestral scores, and their genuinely moving stories told largely without words, the Ori games proved that a platformer…

Outlast

Outlast is one of the most terrifying survival horror franchises in gaming, developed by independent Montreal studio Red Barrels. Built on a simple but brutal idea, the games strip players of all weapons and force them to survive through hiding, running, and sheer nerve, armed with nothing but a camcorder and its night vision mode.…

Overwatch

Overwatch is Blizzard Entertainment's team-based hero shooter, a game that arrived in 2016 and effectively defined an entire genre. Built around a colorful, wildly varied roster of heroes, each with their own personality, abilities, and ultimate power, Overwatch blended objective-based team play with the kind of polished presentation only Blizzard delivers. It became a cultural…

Peanuts

Peanuts is one of the most beloved comic strip franchises in history, created by Charles M. Schulz and running continuously from October 2, 1950 to February 13, 2000, the day after Schulz died. Built around the lovable loser Charlie Brown, his beagle Snoopy, and a cast of children navigating the small frustrations of childhood with…

Power Rangers

Power Rangers is an American superhero franchise launched on August 28, 1993, built around color-coded teams of young heroes who pilot giant robots called Zords and fight against increasingly powerful alien threats. Created by Haim Saban and Shuki Levy and adapted from the Japanese Super Sentai series, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers premiered on Fox Kids…

PowerWash Simulator

PowerWash Simulator is one of gaming's most unlikely success stories, a first-person cleaning game from British studio FuturLab that turned the simple act of spraying dirt off surfaces into a soothing, oddly addictive phenomenon. There are no enemies, no timers, and no way to fail, just you, a power washer, and a world full of…

Prototype

Prototype is an open-world action-adventure franchise developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Activision, spanning two entries released in 2009 and 2012. The games follow shape-shifting protagonists in a Manhattan under military quarantine, with unrestricted movement across the city's buildings and streets and a combat system built around morphing limbs into weapons and absorbing the…

Ready or Not

Ready or Not is a horror comedy film franchise from Searchlight Pictures, directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett of the Radio Silence collective. The original film released August 21, 2019, with Samara Weaving as Grace, a young woman who discovers on her wedding night that her wealthy new in-laws require new family members to…

Red Dead Redemption

Red Dead Redemption is Rockstar Games' Western action-adventure franchise, spanning three titles from 2004 through 2018 across the American frontier. Red Dead Revolver in 2004 established the brand before Red Dead Redemption in 2010 transformed it into one of the most critically acclaimed open-world games ever made. Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018, a prequel…

Resident Evil

Resident Evil is one of the most important horror franchises in gaming, created by Capcom in 1996 and still going strong three decades later. The series helped define survival horror with a mix of puzzle solving, limited resources, and slow building tension built around engineered viruses and corporate experiments gone wrong. Across its many games,…

RoboCop

RoboCop is Paul Verhoeven's satirical science fiction franchise launched in 1987, following Alex Murphy, a Detroit police officer killed in the line of duty and resurrected as a cyborg law enforcement unit by the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products. The franchise blended extreme violence with sharp corporate satire, making it one of the more politically pointed…

Rugrats

The Rugrats franchise is one of Nickelodeon’s first cartoons that they produced. It started as a simple cartoon that debuted in 1991. Created by Arlene Klasky, Gabor Csupo, and Paul Germain, Rugrats follows a group of toddlers who explore the world through imaginative adventures. The franchise grew into multiple television series, feature films, video games,…

Saints Row

Saints Row is an open-world crime franchise developed by Volition and published across its run by THQ and Deep Silver, running from 2006 through the closure of the studio in 2023. Beginning as a Grand Theft Auto competitor set in the fictional city of Stilwater, the franchise escalated through four mainline entries from grounded gang…

Sam and Max

Sam and Max is a comedy crime franchise created by Steve Purcell, following two anthropomorphic freelance detectives through cases that take them from their New York office to ancient Egypt, the Moon, and dimensions beyond. Sam is a six-foot Irish Wolfhound in a detective's suit. Max is a hyperkinetic three-foot rabbity thing. Together they describe…

Scream

Scream is Wes Craven's meta-horror franchise built around a masked killer known as Ghostface and the teens of Woodsboro who keep surviving him. Launched in 1996, the series invented a template for self-aware horror that every slasher franchise since has borrowed from, and it remains one of the few to sustain a genuine main character…

Silent Hill

Silent Hill is Konami's psychological horror franchise set in a fog-shrouded American town where reality splits between a normal surface world and a grotesque, rust-covered Otherworld governed by the psychological states of those within it. Created by the internal Konami team known as Team Silent and first released in 1999, the franchise produced four mainline…

Silver Surfer

The Silver Surfer is a Marvel Comics character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, first appearing in Fantastic Four #48 in March 1966 as an improvised addition by Kirby to the Galactus storyline he was developing. Norrin Radd, a humanoid from the peaceful planet Zenn-La, agreed to become the herald of the world-devouring cosmic…

Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog is Sega's flagship franchise and one of the most recognizable brands in gaming. Created by Sonic Team and launched in 1991, the blue blur began as Sega's answer to Nintendo's Mario and grew into a sprawling universe spanning dozens of games, a billion-dollar film series, multiple animated shows, and decades of comics.…

Spider-Man

Spider-Man is one of the most popular and commercially successful fictional characters in history. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, Peter Parker first appeared in Amazing Fantasy issue 15 in August 1962. A shy, bookish teenager from Queens, New York who gains spider-like abilities after being bitten by a radioactive spider, Spider-Man…

Spongebob

SpongeBob SquarePants is a Nickelodeon animated franchise created by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg, premiering May 1, 1999, and now in its seventeenth season. The longest-running animated series in Nickelodeon's history and the longest-running American animated primetime series, SpongeBob follows an optimistic sea sponge, his best friend Patrick Star, and a cast of undersea…

Spyro

Spyro the Dragon is a purple dragon platformer franchise created by Insomniac Games and originally published by Sony Computer Entertainment, launching on PlayStation in September 1998 and running across multiple development studios and publishers through the decades since. The original trilogy defined Spyro as one of the PlayStation era's defining mascots before the franchise passed…

Star Wars

Star Wars is an American multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, first debuting with the original Star Wars film in May 1977. What began as a fantasy-adventure space opera inspired by mythology, classic westerns, Akira Kurosawa films, and Joseph Campbell's hero's journey became one of the most successful and culturally significant franchises in history. The…

Stranger Things

Stranger Things is a science fiction horror series created by Matt and Ross Duffer for Netflix, set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, and running five seasons from July 15, 2016, through December 31, 2025. The series follows a group of young friends whose encounters with the Upside Down, an alternate dimension adjacent to…

Superman

Superman is the original superhero, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and published in Action Comics #1 in June 1938. The character established the template that nearly every costumed hero since has built on: extraordinary powers, a secret identity, a commitment to protecting the innocent, and a set of personal limits that made the…

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is an American multimedia franchise created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It began as an independent black-and-white comic book published by Mirage Studios in May 1984. Four teenage turtles mutated by radioactive ooze and trained in ninjutsu by a mutant rat named Splinter, each named after a Renaissance artist, living…

Terrifier

Terrifier is one of modern horror's most unlikely success stories, a brutally violent slasher franchise built by writer-director Damien Leone around Art the Clown, a silent, grinning killer who has become a genuine horror icon. What started as a character in a couple of low-budget short films grew into a series of feature films famous…

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is an American horror franchise created by Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel. The original film released October 1, 1974, following a group of young adults who fall victim to a family of cannibals in rural Texas, including the masked killer Leatherface who uses a chainsaw as his primary weapon. The…

The Dark Pictures Anthology

The Dark Pictures Anthology is a series of standalone interactive horror games developed by Supermassive Games and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. Each entry is a self-contained horror story with a cast of characters whose survival depends on the choices made by the player. The games are connected by a framing device featuring the Curator,…

The Evil Within

The Evil Within is a survival horror video game series created by Shinji Mikami, the designer behind the original Resident Evil and Resident Evil 4. Published by Bethesda Softworks and developed by Tango Gameworks, the series consists of two mainline games released in 2014 and 2017. Both games follow Detective Sebastian Castellanos as he navigates…

The Ring

The Ring is a horror franchise originating from Koji Suzuki's 1991 Japanese novel Ring. The story follows a cursed videotape, and anyone who watches it receives a phone call telling them they will die in seven days. The franchise has produced Japanese films, an American remake series, novels, manga, video games, and a crossover with…

The Simpsons

The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon, premiering on the Fox Broadcasting Company on December 17, 1989. The longest-running American animated series, the longest-running American sitcom, and the longest-running American scripted primetime television show in history, The Simpsons follows the Simpson…

ToeJam & Earl

ToeJam and Earl is a video game franchise created by Greg Johnson and Mark Voorsanger, beginning with the original ToeJam and Earl on Sega Genesis in 1991. The games follow two alien rappers, ToeJam and Earl, who crash-land on Earth and must collect the pieces of their spaceship while navigating a bizarre version of suburban…

Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider is a video game franchise created by Core Design, published originally by Eidos Interactive, and now owned by Crystal Dynamics under Embracer Group. The series began with the original Tomb Raider in October 1996 and has sold over 88 million copies worldwide. Lara Croft, the protagonist of the series, an archaeologist and adventurer…

Turnip Boy

Turnip Boy is an independent video game franchise developed by Snoozy Kazoo and published by Graffiti Games. Beginning with Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion in 2021, the series follows Turnip Boy, a small anthropomorphic turnip who owes an enormous tax debt to a corrupt mayor and must complete increasingly absurd tasks to pay it off.…

Two Point

Two Point is a business simulation franchise developed by Two Point Studios and published by Sega, set in the shared fictional world of Two Point County. Founded in 2016 by Gary Carr, Mark Webley, and Seb Starr, veterans of Theme Hospital, Black and White, and Fable, the studio has released three games building on the…

Uncharted

Uncharted is Naughty Dog's action-adventure franchise published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, following treasure hunter Nathan Drake through globe-spanning adventures involving historical mysteries, exotic locations, and the gap between romanticized adventure and its actual human cost. Created by Amy Hennig and launched November 19, 2007, the series ran four mainline entries and a standalone spinoff through…

Unravel

Unravel is a puzzle-platformer franchise developed by Swedish studio Coldwood Interactive and published by Electronic Arts under the EA Originals label, following small creatures made of yarn called Yarnys through naturalistic environments rendered in a Nordic aesthetic. The original Unravel released February 9, 2016, and Unravel Two released June 9, 2018, the latter announced and…

View Askewniverse

Kevin Smith built something rare in the 1990s: a shared universe of characters and locations that cross over between films, comics, and TV. It all started with a black-and-white indie film shot in a convenience store and grew into a sprawling collection of stories known as the View Askewniverse. Named after Smith's production company View…

Walking Dead

The Walking Dead is a post-apocalyptic media franchise created by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard, originating as a comic book series published by Image Comics and Skybound Entertainment from October 2003 through July 2019. The franchise centers on survival in a world overrun by reanimated dead referred to as walkers, with the human…

Watch Dogs

Watch Dogs is Ubisoft’s open-world techno-thriller franchise built around the idea that modern cities are fully connected, fully monitored, and fully vulnerable. Each entry follows a different protagonist using hacking, surveillance, and digital manipulation to fight corrupt corporations, criminal networks, and government overreach. The series blends stealth, action, and systemic sandbox gameplay, letting players turn…

X-Men

X-Men is a superhero franchise created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, first appearing in The X-Men issue 1 in September 1963. The franchise follows a group of mutants, humans born with a genetic trait called the X-gene that grants them extraordinary abilities, who are persecuted by a society that fears what it…

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