Stopped Numbering Sequels

The last of these is not like the others...^note

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 Yahtzee's Rhymedown Spectacular

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):

First Installment
Numbered Sequel
Numbered sequel + subtitle (or 3D).
Subtitle
Recycled Title
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. Alternatively, they might be trying to help people forget how many sequels they're currently on. And in both cases it's for the same reason: in general, the more sequels there are, the less likely any of them are to be, well, good.
The plotline of the story is non-linear 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 the situation.
The studio might feel that a sequel numbered too high might be avoided by audiences that could perceive a Continuity Lock-Out.
- 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.
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. Especially if a Star Trek Movie Curse might lead to people assuming the upcoming installment will be bad.
Requels, where the original movies are part of the continuity, but characters from original movies are reduced to cameos in favour of a new cast of characters as a soft reboot, will often use the same title as the original movie.
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.)

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

The Lupin III TV shows have gone back and forth between using numbered titles and not. The second series, which aired from 1977 to 1980 and lasted 155 episodes, was not numbered as a sequel, as it wasn't intended to be a direct continuation of the much shorter-lived 1971 series that only lasted 21 episodes, and thus the two shows were nicknamed after the color of Lupin's jacket. Thus the first series is often called the "Green Jacket" series and the second series is "Red Jacket". However, the third series from 1984 is officially titled Lupin III: Part III (with fans once again unofficially distinguishing it from its predecessors by the color of Lupin's jacket, "Pink Jacket" in this case). The fourth series from 2015 originally aired in Japan simply as Lupin III, but later DVD and Blu-ray releases added "Part 4" to the title (and the series was similarly nicknamed "Blue Jacket" based on Lupin's new design). The 2018 series was called Lupin III: Part 5, followed by a Part 6 in 2021 and a prequel series (Lupin Zero) in 2022.
Present with the Non-Serial Movies for Pokémon the Series. After Pokémon: The First Movie, 2000, 3, and 4Ever, the movies completely dropped the numbering starting with the fifth: Pokémon Heroes.

Fan Works

Vow of Nudity: After posting Haara's sixth story (as well as an "episode zero" prequel), the author went back and removed all the numbers from the story titles.

Films — Animation

The Happy Heroes series numbered its second movie, Happy Heroes 2, but not its third movie, Happy Heroes: The Stones. As of Happy Heroes Multiverse Rescue, there's still no numbers on the further films.
Hotel Transylvania has numbered titles for its first two sequels, Hotel Transylvania 2 and Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation. The fourth and final film, however, is simply titled Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (though some promotions still labelled it with the number 4).
A minimalist example: How to Train Your Dragon (2010) was followed by just one numbered sequel, How to Train Your Dragon 2, before adopting this trope for its third installment, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.
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 second Ice Age film was called Ice Age 2: The Meltdown in early promotional footage but the 2 was removed for unknown reasons; every sequel up until the fifth film was numbered internationally.
The Shrek series starts its sequels normally with Shrek 2, then makes a play on words with Shrek the Third (to avoid confusion with the Shrek 4D ride also known as Shrek 3D on home video), and the fourth film has had several titles, including "Shrek Goes Fourth" (the working title), "Shrek: The Final Chapter" (used in marketing), and Shrek Forever After (the official title) although the fifth film will be called just Shrek 5.

Films — Live-Action

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 second Predator movie, but retroactively the fourth in the Alien vs. Predator franchise due to the inclusion of a xenomorph skull at the end). The franchise itself stopped numbering with Predators in 2010.
- 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 was Alien: Covenant, followed by Alien: Romulus, to ensure a Title Confusion continues). And that's not counting how there was a total reversal for the other series in Prey (2022).
Amityville stopped its numbering when the series went to straight-to-video hell.
Bad Boys has Bad Boys II as sequel. Then it's Bad Boys for Life and Bad Boys: Ride or Die.
After the sequels to Bloodsport (1988) were numbered II and III, it dropped the numbering after Bloodsport 4: The Dark Kumite onward.
Children of the Corn managed to keep its numbering to the sixth installment.
The second sequel to Crocodile Dundee is called Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles instead of Crocodile Dundee III, while the first sequel was Crocodile Dundee II.
The Deadpool film series begins with Deadpool and continues with Deadpool 2. While the third film does have Deadpool 3 as a production name, its official name is Deadpool & Wolverine.
Die Hard went the Oddly Named Sequel route for its subsequent installments. In the case of Live Free or Die Hard (the fourth movie), various countries renamed it to Die Hard 4.0.
Escape Plan got a numbered sequel with a subtitle called Escape Plan 2: Hades. The third movie dropped the "3" and is just called Escape Plan: The Extractors. Note that it was supposed to be Escape Plan 3: Devil's Station, but the name changed.
The Exorcist dropped its numbering with the prequel, which morphed into two separate films.
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 (2009) (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.
- Played with The Fate of the Furious, which would be an ordinary straight example if it wasn't intended to play on "fate" rhyming with "eight." The next mainline sequel would be simply F9, followed by Fast X.
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 Blu-ray bonus content where it was confirmed that the fourth movie was deliberately called The Final Destination (as if it was the final movie). The decision would then be further justified by the plot of the fifth movie—being a prequel, all events take place before the events of the first film. A montage at the end of the fifth movie also refers to its predecessor as Final Destination 4 as opposed to The Final Destination. Played straight with Final Destination Bloodlines—the sixth installment of the franchise.
Friday the 13th:
- The series 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. Hence, the ninth film was called Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.
- 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 an 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 took things back to square one, and its sequel, Halloween II, started the numbering all over again.
- And then the 2018 Halloween film goes back to square one again, followed by Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends.
Harry Potter: The films never had numbered titles, but the DVD spines are labeled "Year 1", "Year 2", Year 3", etc., much like the U.S. editions of the Harry Potter books, with the Deathly Hallows Part 1 DVD labeled "Year 7: Part 1". The Deathly Hallows Part 2 DVD has a blank space where it should logically say "Year 7: Part 2".
Hellraiser dropped the numbering after Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth.
Highlander:
- Highlander III: The Sorcerer was released as Highlander: The Final Dimension in North America, without any numbering on its title. Justified, as the numbered title implied that it was a continuation of the infamous Highlander II: The Quickening when it's really an alternate sequel to the first movie.
- Highlander: Endgame had no numbering at any region, likely since it was a continuation of the TV series, which itself was set in an Alternate Continuity to the first movie.
Home Alone stopped with the fifth movie, Home Alone: The Holiday Heist. The fourth, Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House, is sometimes marketed without the number.
The Howling stopped numbering on its seventh installment, Howling New Moon Rising. The sequel/semi-reboot The Howling: Reborn continued the trend.
Insidious use the numbering sequels at the second and third installments (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3), but drop the numbering on the fourth film The Last Sky, so as the fifth film The Red Door.
Jaws series dropped the numbering on the fourth installment. As a meta joke, the Real Trailer, Fake Movie for Jaws 19 reveals other installments would be numbered... except the 13th, "Jaws 12: Part 2".
Jurassic Park skipped numbering on the second film and added it for the third. The number was once again omitted for the fourth film and its sequels.
The Karate Kid:
- 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. Though the 2025 film Karate Kid: Legends merged the continuities.
The Leprechaun series dropped numbering its sequels after Leprechaun 4: In Space.
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 (1996) had two numbered sequels (Mission: Impossible II and III), and then just appropriate subtitles moving forward (Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation, and Fallout). Then Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning had "Part One", which was then scrapped since that film's sequel got retitled as Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.
A Nightmare on Elm Street stopped its numbering with the sixth film, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, though the onscreen title card for A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child already omitted the number, despite the advertising including it.
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.
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 then decided to continue the subtitle format as Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension.
The seventh installment of the Police Academy series officially doesn't have a number as a title.
The Rambo series has the oddest title evolution of them all, going from First Blood to Rambo: First Blood Part II, then to Rambo III, then Rambo (also known as John Rambo in some markets), and finally ending with Rambo: Last Blood.
The 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.
Saw:
- Zig-zagged with the film titles. The films from Saw II to Saw VI all have roman numerals in their titles matching their correspondent entry number. The next film after Saw VI is instead titled Saw 3D (or Saw: The Final Chapter in its home video release). The two following films, Jigsaw and Spiral, followed this new "format" suit with the use of completely different titles (with "Saw" being relegated to a subtitle for the latter film: From the Book of Saw). Lastly, the tenth film, Saw X, returned to the roman numerals.
- Averted in some markets with 3D and Jigsaw, which in those regions were re-titled Saw VII and Saw VIII, respectively.
- Inverted with the series of soundtrack songs derived from the first film's "Hello Zepp". The ones from Saw II to IV had different unnumbered names ("Hello Eric", "Final Test", "Let Go"); starting with Saw V, they're titled "Zepp Five", "Zepp Six", "Zepp Eight", and so on. Saw 3D's rendition is the only exception, being titled "The Final Zepp" instead.
The first four Scream movies were all numbered until the fifth film, which lacks a number or subtitle, simply called Scream like the original. The film itself, in one of many Leaning on the Fourth Wall moments, discusses this as the eighth installment of the Stab series dropped the number too. The sixth film returned to numbering, this time in Roman numerals, with the title Scream VI. Scream 7 then returned to Arabic numbers.
Star Trek:
- The 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.
Every Terminator sequel from Terminator Salvation (the fourth one) and onward is subtitle only.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series stopped its numbering after the third film, which is fitting because not many want to remember the fourth film.
Universal Soldier tried its luck with two numbered and subtitled direct-to-video sequels first, then 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).
Les Visiteurs II: The Corridors of Time is the sequel to Les Visiteurs. Then the third film, Les Visiteurs: Bastille Day, dropped "III" or "3" altogether.
For the two-part film adaptation of Wicked, the first half, Wicked (2024), is titled onscreen as Wicked: Part I. The second half was originally titled Wicked: Part II, but was later renamed Wicked: For Good after the release of Part I. That said, it's still titled Wicked: Part II in some foreign versions.
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. 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.^note

Literature

Many novel series start off 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.
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".
Goosebumps had Night of the Living Dummy books 1, 2, and 3, then Bride of the Living Dummy, Slappy's Nightmare, Revenge Of The Living Dummy and Son of Slappy.
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.

Live-Action TV

The early seasons of the US edition of Big Brother were numbered for each season, starting with the 2nd Season titled as Big Brother 2. The First Season (which was also referred to as Big Brother 2000) was later retroactively referred to as Big Brother 1. Big Brother 7 & Big Brother 9 were both considered special editions of the game, and thus added an additional subtitle to those seasons (Big Brother 7 All-Stars and Big Brother 9 'Til Death Do You Part). However, this stopped starting with the Eleventh Season, where the show was simplified back to Big Brother. While the show would keep the regular title into the 2010s and 2020s (only changing the name for the spin-offs and for the Twenty-Third Season, which was another All-Stars Season), the Big Brother fan community still uses the old title format for the later seasons, such as the recent Twenty-Fourth Season of Big Brother, referred to as Big Brother 24 or BB 24 for short.
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.
After 30 installments of WrestleMania, the WWE simply quit numbering the event going forward. Now simply calling every following rendition 'Wrestlemania'. Despite this, fans still refer to them by number and even WWE staff will still slip up from time to time. It ended up working well in WWE's favor when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, forcing them to relocate WrestleMania 36 from Raymond James Stadium to the Performance Center (Raymond James Stadium would end up hosting 37 instead of SoFi Stadium, which would then host 39).

Music

Canadian Punk band Billy Talent's albums: Billy Talent, Billy Talent II, Billy Talent III, Dead Silence
Mostly averted by Chicago, who only once before their 20th album (which, oddly, is named "Twenty 1") broke their numbering sequence, with Hot Streets. (which would have been XII otherwise). Since then, about the only exceptions have been Christmas albums and legacy releases, though their 2022 effort Born for This Moment has no number either.
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.
Composer Gustav Mahler was superstitious about the so-called "Curse of the ninth", in which other notable composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert died in the middle of working on their Symphony no. 10. So after completing his "Symphony no. 8", his next symphonic work was not entitled "Symphony no. 9" but Das Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth). After that, however, he felt safe enough to compose a next symphony numbered 9... and proceeded to die in the middle of working on his Symphony no. 10.
Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin (sometimes called Led Zeppelin I), Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III and, depending on your point of view, the untitled fourth album (usually called Led Zeppelin IV. The fifth album is called Houses of the Holy, breaking the numbering.
SiIvaGunner: Prior to President Haltmann's takeover of the channel, the periodic Highest Quality Video Game Rips series was numbered. Post-takeover, the first two (The Voice's and Haltmann's) were left unnumbered due to being their respective hosts' personal picks rather than the title character's, and mostly every succeeding album in the series is instead marked by a random letter or word.

Podcast

A Running Gag in We Hate Movies is that Steve Sadjak hates this trope so much that, in the unlikely event he ever gets elected to the United States Senate, he will outright introduce legislation requiring movie studios to make every installment of a franchise a Numbered Sequel paired with a subtitle, irrespective of Continuity Reboots or how confusing or unwieldy this gets. So, for example, The Dark Knight would become Batman 6: The Dark Knight, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom would become Jurassic Park 5: Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom, and The Avengers (2012) would become Iron Man 3: Hulk 3: Captain America 2: Thor 2: The Avengers. (Which would then presumably make the actual Iron Man 3 technically Iron Man 4: Iron Man 3.)

Tabletop Games

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).
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).

Toys

Transformers: Generation 1 is numbered as such as opposed to Transformers: Generation 2, then it stops right there. The next Transformers property was Beast Wars, a reinvention of the franchise after the middling sales of G2. The various iterations of the franchise are still referred to as "generations", but they never again have been numbered.

Video Games

Ace Combat:
- The 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 didn't blow up: Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies. The plan worked. 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 finally announced a full-blown Continuity Reboot with Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. However, both X2/Joint Assault and Assault Horizon take place in self-contained settings (both titles being set on Earth as opposed to the Strangereal setting of previous games while also having no ties to one another), meaning one could write off these games as not being "true" sequels to the other AC titles.
- Following Assault Horizon, Project Aces would work on two mobile titles (Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy, a remake of Ace Combat 2 bearing the more appropriate title 3D: Cross Rumble in Japanese, 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.
Advance Wars dropped the numbers for the third and fourth games on the Nintendo DS.
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 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 (basically "Assassins Creed 2.2"). This was followed by newcomer Connor Kenway's Assassin's Creed III which shifted to the Era of The American Revolution. There was also a minor game titled Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, set roughly in the same era but with a different setting (New Orleans, rather than the northeastern parts of III) and a new, unrelated protagonist.
- 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. Incidentally, the 2026 remake, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, drops the number from the title.
- After Black Flag, the two 2014 entries—Assassin's Creed Rogue on the previous seventh gen consoles and Assassin's Creed: Unity on then-current eighth gen—marked Ubisoft just giving 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 since stated that Unity is left unnumbered because it was 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. Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla (and so on) have kept the numberless sequels trend going since.
A retroactive example happened with the sequel to Battlezone (1998), which was firstly released in 1999 as Battlezone II: Combat Commander. When Rebellion went on to develop a remaster for that sequel, they dropped the numeral and released it in 2018 as Battlezone: Combat Commander.
The BEMANI games have slowly stopped numbering their sequels, of the eight actively supported games in the franchise, only two (beatmania IIDX and Nostalgia) still number their sequels (though jubeat has never numbered its sequels, and DANCERUSH only has one installment at the moment).
The BioShock series goes BioShock, BioShock 2, BioShock Infinite. Though in this case, this was more so to separate Infinite from the Rapture storyline from the previous titles.
In North America 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.
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 II, Ghosts, Advanced Warfare, and Black Ops III...
Castlevania:
- The original Castlevania was followed by Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, all three on the NES, and Super Castlevania IV on the Super NES. The sequels stopped using numerals afterward when they started appearing on non-Nintendo consoles, particularly with Castlevania: Bloodlines on the Genesis.
- Castlevania II: Simon's Quest was titled Dracula II: Noroi no Fūin in Japanese and was the only one of the above sequels with a numbered title. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse is otherwise known as Akumajō Densetsu (although it had the working title of "Dracula III"), while Super Castlevania IV is simply titled Akumajō Dracula (same name as the first Famicom game). While Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo was technically the tenth installment, the "X" in the title is a letter and not a number (and the title would be reused years later for a direct sequel).
- Castlevania: The Adventure had its own numbered sequel, Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge, both being Game Boy games. As a result, Castlevania II could refer to either, Simon's Quest on the NES or Belmont's Revenge on the Game Boy. There's less ambiguity with the Japanese titles, as the two games were part of a side series titled Dracula Densetsu and Dracula Densetsu II respectively.
Interestingly, this was inverted with Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series by the third game, as otherwise Tiberian Sun would've been named as Command & Conquer 2 (although at the time the division between the Tiberian and Red Alert subseries was less firmly established, so it might also have been named Command & Conquer 3).
Contra sequels were never really numbered, aside from Contra III: The Alien Wars for the SNES, which was the third game on home consoles following the first two NES games, and that was just the American title (in Japanese, it was known as Contra Spirits). However, the second NES game was not titled "Contra II", but Super C (which itself was loosely based on Super Contra, the arcade sequel to Contra). Operation C, a Game Boy sequel to Super C, was also released prior to Contra III, but was not counted among this numbering due to Konami of America at the time numbering their portable games separately, as reflected by the fact that the later Game Boy port of Contra III was simply titled Contra: The Alien Wars without the number. Ironically, an official Contra 4 would be released years later on the Nintendo DS as a direct sequel to Contra III, after several unnumbered sequels on home consoles such as Contra: Hard Corps on the Genesis and Contra: Shattered Soldier on the PS2.
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 Japanese. They went back to numbers for Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, advertised as a direct sequel to 3.
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, with Deus Ex: Mankind Divided continuing the trend.
Zig-zagged with the Digimon World series, thanks to alternative titles in other regions. Digimon World 4 was the first installment to buck any numbering, but only in Japanese where it went by the title of Digimon World X. This is because the game was a loose tie-in to the Digimon X-Evolution film... which didn't air outside of Japan, necessitating the name change elsewhere. The next two World titles, Digimon World Re:Digitize and Digimon World -next 0rder- (both of which were direct sequels to the original World, unlike the previous games), omitted numbers in favor of being Word Sequels, though -next 0rder- stylized the O in "Order" as a zero.
Donkey Kong Country stopped numbering itself after the SNES trilogy. The follow-ups would use a subtitle instead. DKC3's immediate follow-up didn't even use the "Country" name, being called Donkey Kong 64 instead.
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 third installment of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy drops the numbering that Final Fantasy XIII-2 had.
The EBOLA franchise consists of EBOLA, EBOLA 2, EBOLA 3, and... in an attempt to bank in on Resident Evil Village, EBOLA: VILLAGE. The actual fourth installment, EBOLA 4, is scheduled for 2026 at the time of this writing.
Every Five Nights at Freddy's game after the fourth entry is not numbered. As 4 was called the final chapter, the series was considered finished for a little while until the creator decided otherwise. So technically, the series doesn't go past 4 like intended.
Every sequential sequel in both the Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon sub-series of the overall Forza franchise is given a number based on the order of its own sub-series. However, this trope will be invoked by Turn 10 Studios for their 2023 Forza Motorsport game, the eighth one in the elder Motorsport sub-series, as it's meant to be a series reboot intended to reinvigorate their series after the mostly disappointing reception they received during the Xbox One era (Motorsport 5, 6, and 7). Forza Horizon, however, remains unaffected so far as it continues to have killer success.
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.
Guitar Hero has gone back and forth, as the sequels are II, III: Legends of Rock, World Tour, 5, and Warriors of Rock.
Halo kept numbering straight, with the exception of Halo 3: ODST (a standalone expansion for Halo 3 that, contrary to what the title implies, was actually a Gaiden Game to Halo 2) and Halo: Reach (which was a prequel to the original trilogy; Bungie 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. Then Halo Infinite played it straight.
Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is the eighth mainline game in the Heroes of Might and Magic series, and is the first one to ditch the number. Possibly this was done either to subtly disregard the poorly received Might & Magic: Heroes VI and VII, or to better emphasize the game being an Un-Reboot.
The Hitman series never really had a numbering convention when Hitman: Codename 47 released, with only its first sequel having one while the next three settled for subtitles (Contracts, Blood Money, and Absolution), although players did tend to use numbers to refer to the older games in the series until the 2016 entry came along; simply titled HITMAN with no subtitle or numbering. This was followed by two sequels; a different Hitman 2 in 2018, and a different HITMAN III in 2021. So now the numbering is important to consider, and players moved on to using the subtitles to refer to the old games. The latter three games would later get merged into one homogeneous title, and be known as the World of Assassination Trilogy to further differentiate them from the legacy games.
Inverted with the Hobo (SeethingSwarm) series. The first sequel in the series only has the original Hobo title with the addition of a subtitle, Prison Brawl. The games from Hobo 3: Wanted onwards have their installment number in the title.
The second main game (the third overall) in the Kingdom Hearts series was called Kingdom Hearts II. Kingdom Hearts III, depending on how you count, is at least the tenth installment in the series. The interim games used subtitles, even the "Episode 0" game, Birth by Sleep. Oddly enough, two of these 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.
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 in its own continuity) was released in the United States as The King of Fighters 2006 despite the original Maximum Impact seeing no alterations to its title for American markets.
King's Quest: Mask of Eternity, the eighth entry in the King's Quest series. One supposes they thought the numbering was getting ridiculous by that point.
The Legendary Starfy/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").
The Legend of Heroes series: The first two games were numbered, and III through VI had both a number and a subtitle. The last of these, which was given the subtitle Trails in the Sky, was the start of the expansive Trails Series, and numbers were dropped from Sky's sequel (which was really more of a second half) onwards. Western release of Sky didn't have the number to begin with, because games III-V (they were localised Out of Order and numbered I-III) belong to the Gagharv trilogy, which isn't related to Trails. Games within each subseries flip between being numbered (Cold Steel I-IV) or given a new subtitle (Zero and Azure).
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), and the Japanese subtitle of A Link Between Worlds is "Triforce of the Gods 2" ("Triforce of the Gods" being A Link to the Past's Japanese name).
The seventh mainline entry of the Like a Dragon (formerly Yakuza) series was given the localized title of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, reflecting the Genre Shift from a 3D Beat 'em Up to an RPG with turn-based combat. It was titled Ryu ga Gotoku 7 in Japanese, which is where the subtitle "Like a Dragon" came from (being a direct translation of the series' Japanese title). In fact, the series formally rebranded from Yakuza to Like a Dragon in English following this game, starting with the 2023 Kiwami edition of Ryu ga Gotoku Ishin! (Like a Dragon: Ishin!). The series seems to have dropped numbering from the English titles entirely while maintaining them in the Japanese titles: Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name was released in Japanese as Ryu ga Gotoku 7 Gaiden - Na wo Keshita Otoko, keeping the same subtitle, and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth's Japanese title is simply Ryu ga Gotoku 8 (the subtitle "Infinite Wealth" being chosen because the infinity symbol resembles a sideways 8).
Though Ruins Chaser was meant to be titled 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...
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).
All the Mario Party games after the tenth entry don’t use numbers for their titles.
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.
Mega Man (Classic), after 40 years of Numbered Sequels, dropped the habit for the twelfth main entry, Mega Man: Dual Override.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was going to be titled Metal Gear Solid 5 at one point, in order to emphasize series creator Hideo Kojima's full involvement as both writer and director, and contrast it with the previous PSP entry Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, which he only worked on as a producer, but Konami was hesitant to use a numbered title on a PSP game after having released all the previous numbered MGS entries on home consoles. The game's plot and play mechanics do set up what later became the official Metal Gear Solid V, which itself was split into two installments (the standalone prologue Ground Zeroes and the main story The Phantom Pain).
Played with for the Metroid series. Metroid was followed by only one explicitly numbered sequel, Metroid II: Return of Samus, but games would continue to number themselves in either the opening titles ("Metroid 3" and "Metroid 4") or have promotional material emphasizing the numbering ("Metroid 5"). The main entries of the Metroid Prime Series avert this trope completely, leaving the only games in the franchise that aren't numbered being the interquel side-stories (Metroid Prime Hunters, Metroid: Other M) and spinoffs (Metroid Prime: Federation Force).
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, Tales of Monkey Island and Return to Monkey Island.
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). After a crossover (Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe), an in-continuity reboot (simply titled Mortal Kombat, just like the original, but otherwise referred to as "Mortal Kombat 9" by fans and devs alike), and a Lettered Sequel to the reboot (Mortal Kombat X, wherein the "X" is—among other meanings—still meant to be indicative of the game being the tenth mainline installment), the series went back to having numbered titles with Mortal Kombat 11... only to then do a complete reversal by calling the twelfth entry Mortal Kombat 1 (due to being another Continuity Reboot and the original Mortal Kombat officially lacking a number outside of Title 1 retronyms).
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)
No More Heroes (Series): After the first game received a numbered sequel, the third game in the series, Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, didn't use a number. The debut trailer for Travis Strikes Again jokingly hinted that this was because of the nearly decade-long gap between the second and third game's releases, and that the third game is a Spin-Off. Ironically, the fourth game would be announced under the name No More Heroes III not long after, reintroducing the numbering.
The first 20 pop'n music games have their numbers in their title save for the first one; the 21st one, pop'n music Sunny Park, abandoned the numbers.
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.
Prince of Persia after Prince of Persia 3D. Since then we've had a new trilogy (The Sands of Time), a standalone Recycled Title in 2008, a Trilogy Creep to the aforementioned trilogy in 2010, and two separate reboots in 2024.
Zig-zagged with Puyo Puyo. The early sequels used Japanese pun-based titles to indicate their placement in the series: Puyo Puyo Tsu (2), Puyo Puyo Sun (3), and Puyo Puyo~n (4). Afterward, we had Puyo Pop Fever and Puyo Puyo Fever 2, which ditched the original numbering to indicate a Soft Reboot, and then Puyo Puyo 7 returned to numbering. In-between Fever 2 and 7 was the Milestone Celebration 15th Anniversary, which wasn't counted for 7. Following that, the original numbering was dropped entirely: 20th Anniversary, Quest, Tetris, Chronicle, Champions, and Tetris 2.
Subverted by the Quest for Glory series: Quest for Glory IV—despite using a numbered title on this wiki—is actually officially titled Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness, abandoning the numerals used by the previous three games. However, the very next installment proudly displayed its numeral again. This may have had to do with the confusion caused by inserting an extra game into the planned tetralogy midway through its production: Shadows of Darkness was originally planned to be the third game, so the devs may have attempted to preserve Dragon Fire's original numeral by skipping over SoD's, but later gave up and released the former as Quest for Glory V.
While Ratchet & Clank avoids this in the United States due to the sequels not being numbered at all (the unconventional All 4 One notwithstanding), this trope is in effect in other regions:
- In Oceania and most of Europe, Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal are instead referred to as "Ratchet & Clank 2" and "Ratchet & Clank 3"^note respectively, with the numbering being dropped from the fourth game onwards.
- The series' releases in Japan are a particularly odd example as they sort of managed to do this twice; Going Commando, Up Your Arsenal, Deadlocked, and Size Matters were renamed Ratchet & Clank 2 - 5 + a new subtitle unique to Japanese, then the sequential numbering was dropped by the PS3 era as Future: Tools of Destruction and Future: A Crack in Time instead became simply "Ratchet & Clank Future" and "Ratchet & Clank Future 2" to drive home that the games had an overarching storyline (the middle installment Future: Quest for Booty was explicitly designated as a spin-off and was titled "Ratchet & Clank Future Gaiden" as a result), and finally the Japanese versions dropped the numbering for good from All 4 One onwards.
Atari Games' RBI Baseball series stopped using numbered sequels the same year, jumping from RBI Baseball 4 to RBI Baseball '93.
The Red Faction series dropped numbers from the titles after II.
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 came Repton Infinity, which included a subgame called Repton 4, but later an unrelated game was converted into a Repton game and titled EGO: Repton 4. In addition, Repton: The Lost Realms had Repton 4 as a working title, but when the game was finally released, it was unclear whether the number should be moved to 5 or even 6, and so the numbering was dropped altogether.
Resident Evil:
- Resident Evil – Code: Veronica was written as a continuation of Resident Evil 2, but was not given a numbered title due to console war politics at the time, as it was developed as a Dreamcast-exclusive at a time the main entries were being developed primarily on the PlayStation. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, which was written as a sidequel to 2, was given the honor of being the third numbered entry instead. Since the series continued to number sequels afterward, as it was followed by Resident Evil 4, Code: Veronica's lack of one sometimes leads newcomers into mistaking it for a sidestory or a spin-off. It didn't help that Capcom went on to do remakes of Resident Evil, 2, 3, and 4 while Code: Veronica would be left in the dust until after the release of Requiem (see below) in 2026, with the remake dropping "Code:" from the title (Resident Evil Veronica).
- So far, sequential mainline games released after Resident Evil 7: Biohazard feature Word Sequel subtitles. However, they also double subvert being absolutely numberless, because even though their respective title logos don't feature numbers in plain text, they're nevertheless referenced in a stylized fashion:
  - Resident Evil Village is the eighth main installment in the series and an Immediate Sequel to Resident Evil 7, but doesn't feature the number 8 in its title, instead highlighting the first four letters in "village" to form the Roman numeral VIII. Resident Evil 7 did something similar with its own logo by having the Roman numeral VII highlighted on the word "evil" instead of being written with a standard Arabic numeral (on the Japanese logo, it's an Arabic 7 inside the Z in "BIOHAZARD"), but the title is still written as Resident Evil 7 in plain text.
  - Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth main installment. Much like Village, its title also doesn't feature a corresponding sequel number. However, the title card in the closing credits shows the first three letters of the word "requiem" can be stylized to become an abbreviation which spells out "RE9". It helps that the letter "q" has the same pronunciation as the number nine (kyū) in Japanese.
The Silent Hill series tacked on a subtitle for the fourth game and dropped the numbers afterward once they started being outsourced to western developers. Silent Hill: Origins, however, was titled Silent Hill Zero in Japanese (being a prequel to the first game) and had a slashed zero in the English title, while Silent Hill: Downpour had the Working Title of Silent Hill 8 (despite actually being the seventh mainline entry^*).
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.
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.
Soldier of Fortune: Payback was produced by a budget-title/shovelware developer and its plot is completely unrelated to the first two (numbered) games.
Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Sonic the Hedgehog CD and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 are both sequels to the original game and were developed in parallel. The former was originally titled CD Sonic the Hedgehog and intended to be an Updated Re-release of the first game before becoming its own thing, while the latter was developed as a direct sequel from the start. Sonic CD also likely went unnumbered due to being released on (and marketed as a selling point for) the Sega CD hardware add-on, whereas Sonic 2 was released for the same platforms as it predecessor.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and the unnumbered Sonic & Knuckles are two halves of the same game.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is named as such simply for in-universe chronology reasons and because it's in the style of the original numbered games. Sonic Mania and Sonic Superstars are also done in the style of the original series, but don't use numbers.
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.
The Star Wars: Dark Forces Saga. See Colon Cancer for what it would look like.
Super Mario Bros.:
- Played with the 2D titles. The home console games were numbered until Super Mario World, unless you're Japanese, in which case that game bore the subtitle of Super Mario Bros. 4, meaning both the home consoles games and handheld Land entries were numbered until New Super Mario Bros.. Which was then followed by New Super Mario Bros. Wii... which was followed by New Super Mario Bros. 2 (named for being the second handheld New game). The 2D games, sans the Super Mario Maker spin-off series, would then be subtitled from New Super Mario Bros. U onward.
- 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 the 3DS and Wii U/Switch installments are numbered—Mario Kart 7 and Mario Kart 8 (Deluxe)—instead of having a subtitle or the platform's name in the title like prior mainline entries. The series then reverted back to subtitles with the mobile title Mario Kart Tour, followed by Mario Kart World.^note
- Super Mario Party is the first home console Mario Party game to do away with the numbering system that all the previous entries used, a trend that continued with the next game, Mario Party Superstars. Curiously, Birdo still acknowledges that this is the 11th party, following Mario Party 10.
- Played with in the Luigi's Mansion series in regard to its second entry. In the North American and Korean versions, the game is subtitled Dark Moon, whereas other languages simply call it Luigi's Mansion 2. The third game was titled Luigi's Mansion 3 across-the-board, making it an inversion of this trope only in North America and South Korea. The Updated Re-release of Dark Moon for the Switch continued the inversion by being named Luigi's Mansion 2 HD everywhere, even in the North American and Korean localizations.
- Mario & Luigi was never numbered in the North American and European localizations, but in the Japanese versions, the series dropped the numbering starting with Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam. Zig-zagged with the Korean versions, as Partners in Time was not numbered, but Bowser's Inside Story and Dream Team were numbered, before dropping the numbering again with Paper Jam.
Syphon Filter after the PS1 trilogy.
The Super NES version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters originally had the working title of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles V according to the design documents featured in the Cowabunga Collection, continuing the numbering of the first three NES games and the Super NES port of Turtles in Time (which was released as Turtles IV). The development of parallel versions for the original NES (as well as the Genesis) likely led to the abandonment of a numbered title.
Thief (2014) was originally Thief 4, but since it was a reboot, the publisher dropped the 4 and opted for a Recycled Title instead. The Thief series had already dropped the "3" from Deadly Shadows.
Tomb Raider, 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. Years later, when the original Core Design games were remastered, the second compilation containing The Last Revelation, Chronicles, and The Angel of Darkness would follow the first trilogy compilation's lead by being titled Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered, retroactively establishing the latter game as Tomb Raider VI.
The flash game series Trollface Quest numbered its entries until the fifth one, then skipped to 13 (justified by the bad luck theme of the game), then just resorted to subtitles.
The Twisted Metal games dropped the numbering after the fourth entry. The firth game was called Twisted Metal Black, and the sixth game was called Twisted Metal: Small Brawl. The seventh installment was known as Twisted Metal: Head-On, and the eighth, and so far, latest game is titled simply Twisted Metal, though people usually add "2012" (the year it came out) to its name to distinguish it from the first game.
Virtua Fighter: After multiple revisions of Virtua Fighter 5 following its initial 2006 release and fandom jokes about how Sega apparently couldn't count to six, the sixth installment of the series, first revealed at The Game Awards in December 2024, would be officially titled Virtua Fighter Crossroads at the 2026 Summer Games Fest. However, the title font is stylized in all caps, with the "Vi" in "Virtua" highlighted in red—thus standing out as the Roman numeral VI.
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.

Other

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.
macOS:
- 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 allegedly ran out of big cats (they didn't really, but that was their excuse) and promptly switched to landmarks in California. Strangely, several of the cat names are alternate names for the same species (the puma).
- 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, to make the name consistent with their other OS's including iOS, tvOS and watchOS.
- Double Subverted in 2020, when Apple released macOS Big Sur, which finally bumps up the version number to 11.0, to coincide with the start of their transition to ARM-based Apple Silicon processors; however, they didn't make a big deal out of it, and continue to primarily market their OS's based on their names instead of version number.
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 differently (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).
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.
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 catchphrase: How Big a Boy Are Ya? Seven volumes of How Big a Boy Are Ya? were released before they broke away from the volume numbers and gave each subsequent album its own title.

Stopped Numbering Sequels
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