It came to my attention a sudden discussion on-going currently after this E3: certain long-running franchises (to name the most representative examples right now, Resident Evil and God of War) have made several shifts in what used to be their core formula (based on what we've just seen). Resident Evil is now a first-person perspective horror game, which is something that had never happened before in a mainline entry (There is the Chronicles, Survivor and Dead Aim spin-offs, though), while God of War certainly gave a more grounded, less chaotic and combo-heavy gameplay system on their reveal video. These events sure have sparked their amount of discussion. Some like it, some don't. There's a particular argument about franchises not having to be stagnant, and shaking up things certainly is better than their cookie-cutter structure at this point: in other words, embracing changes.

But when is "change" too much of a change? Is there a point where a saga could lose its identity because it reinvents itself way too much? Or by swapping genre altogether? Or by rebooting? Or there's no limit to what you can do to a franchise as long as you slap the IP name onto whatever you can conjure?

Change is too much change if God of War doesn't have gore and is just Kratos getting emotional and crying.

Change of mood, and perspective is cool, but it seems as though it's still gritty and gory as ever, with crazy big bosses etc.

Change is too much when it removes the identity of the series and ultimately is just slapping the same name on something in order to give it exposure.

I'd argue not amount of change, but the quality the change creates.

You can take a book, adapt it to film and change a ton and if it is great then I have no issue. If the changes are a detriment to the work then it is a problem.

Obviously these can viewed subjectively. Some people hate the change RE4 brought to RE, some loved it and some did not. RE7 feels similar in that regard of being bold and divisive.

Change is too much when something is unrecognizable to its original fans.
I'm from the NES age where gamers would hop from RPG to Sports to platformers without a second thought. If a game is good, I'll play it.

Nowadays (well, probably since the 90s) gamers don't really leave their comfort zone. You have your fps fans who only play that or your sports fans who only play sports. Nothing wrong with that. They're still gamers. I just wonder if the are fans who like the fast paced, over the top GoW games and will be turned off by the new one.

I think the new game looks great and I only played 1-3 and the PSP games for the graphics and boobies. In my opinion, it's a change for the better.

Haven't seen the Resident Evil footage, yet.

Resident Evil looked horrible

So there's too much change already.

I found this vid that pretty much sums up my thoughts exactly:

I'm not entirely sure Resident Evil will be like that come the main game. I mean, it's nice for the demo but like PT and it's demo, the game that was to be released was a traditionally 3rd person game. Resident Evil 7 may be a traditional 3rd person game but the demo is more of a setup / advert for the game, right?

This said, changing the gameplay from a series may hurt it. After all, isn't that what is expected from a certain series? Fans of Gears like the over the top meat heads shooting (and chainsawing) the crap out of locusts, it's what the series is known for, the new one is much the same just the protagonists have gone on a diet. God Of War I think will be much the same, just with a new perspective allowing for a different perspective yet will hold it's roots when the combat get's hectic.

Yet these games are series with the same characters and problems, so a certain gameplay style is expected. Take Final Fantasy as an example and it's moving to the 'too far' area of things, each iteration is meant to have similar gameplay, themes and similarly named concepts but the universe and worlds they are set in different. Yet the last few they have tried to reinvent this concept and each iteration has been met with differing reactions instead of outright praise from the PS1 and early PS2 eras. SquEnix seem to be in the mind that the series need reinventing as a concept, and this is where I think they are going wrong. The concept was fine, just reinvent the stories as usual. Basically moving too far from what made it popular.

As someone said before, for me these changes are a matter of quality. I dont mind if franchises change gameplay, setting, characters, and just keep small elements that bind the games together, like Final Fantasy does for example, its just a matter of keeping high standards for every new game.
I love what we've seen of the new God of War.