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I just finished playing Commandos 1 and Desperados: DOA. As you know these two games are entirely 2D with beautiful maps. This genre Stealth strategy games is somewhere lost in the market and people usually don't see many games like these two.

Now, I tried further parts of Commandos and Desperados but they have shifted to 3D maps unlike the original, classical one? This new design hasn't been much popular in the market. This is not my personal opinion but many people on sites like IGN, youtube say the same thing.

Why don't the developers stick to the original 2D maps and scenes which created ripples in the market, which was loved by all. Why do they shift to 3D always because I've seen this happening in almost all strategy games like AOE etc

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-1 Not answerable. Because they wanted to, because it's available, because it's useful, because it looks nice, because it helps sales, because it helps gameplay, because they had their reasons and this is presuming there is anything better about 2D, when in fact it would just be chosen for the above reasons. – Jonathan Hobbs Aug 16 '12 at 8:03
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I'm not sure the title and the question even agree with each other. People do make these kinds of games still - for example, the Close Combat series. As to why some developers stopped, I'm afraid that's too broad a question. Go ask the developers you're interested in. – Martin Sojka Aug 16 '12 at 11:16

closed as not a real question by Jonathan Hobbs, Byte56, Josh Petrie, Tetrad♦ Aug 16 '12 at 15:47

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

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Main stream developers go where the market takes them. 3D was (or thought to be) desired for games, so they made their games 3D. It has to do with market analysis for what's wanted along with what's cheaper.

Hindsight is 20/20. I imagine if you were a gamer back when these games first came out and someone asked, "What about this 2D game you love, in 3D?!" you may have been really excited. You didn't know of any downsides, you had no idea the 3D would take away from the art.

Just see how it's happening with 3D movies today. I expect 10 years from now people will wonder why they even bothered making movies in 3D when 2D was much better. (Though I'm bias because I think that now). Further, I imagine some people today wonder why they ever switched from 2D art to 3D art in cartoons. And why did they ever switch from real life special effects to CG effects? Money and market analysis.

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