We learn to count from kindergarten: one, two, three. It is the fundamental logic of the world. Series in film, literature, and gaming follow this rule, too. A breakout hit gets a sequel, and if that thrives, we get a third. Sure, you have the Yakuza series using '0' for a prequel, or Battlefield opting for '1' because it is set in the Great War, but generally, numbers climb in chronological or release order. You cannot have a third act without a second, can you?

Yet, the games industry is rife with non-conformists. Developers who slap high numbers on titles without a predecessor, skip integers entirely, or release multiple entries under the same confusing numbering scheme. Today, we have gathered these games that treat numerical order as a mere suggestion.

Super People, developed by Wonder People, arrived with grand ambitions as a latecomer to the battle royale scene. It garnered quite a bit of buzz during its alpha and entered Early Access in October 2022. So far, so good. But just two months into service, the developers suddenly rebranded the game as 'Super People 2'. It wasn’t a formal launch or a true sequel; they simply slapped a '2' on the title because of a 2.0 major update. It remains one of the most baffling 'self-promoted numbering' incidents in gaming history.

This rebrand was likely a desperate marketing ploy to retain a dwindling player base by shouting, 'Look how much we’ve changed!' Sadly, that cry ended in a hollow echo when they announced the service’s termination the following year. They attempted a resurrection on Steam this past September, reverting to the original name 'Super People,' only to shut down again two months later. It is a tragic tale of numbering—oscillating between 1 and 2, only to collapse into 0.

Super Mario Bros. is the bible of platformers. After the massive success of the first game, fans naturally clamoured for a sequel. Nintendo obliged, but this is where the lineage gets knotted. The 'Super Mario Bros. 2' released in Japan was essentially a brutal expansion pack—a 'spicy' version featuring poison mushrooms and jumps requiring micro-precision control.

Nintendo of America looked at this and decided, 'This is too difficult for American kids to beat.' But they couldn't leave fans without a sequel, so they took Shigeru Miyamoto’s entirely unrelated game, 'Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic,' slapped a Mario skin on it, and released it as the American 'Super Mario Bros. 2'. We ended up with two different 'Mario 2s', leaving gamers confused for years. To think the Mario we know—the one who pulls turnips and tosses them—wasn't even Mario to begin with? What a soap opera of an origin story.

If you frequented arcades in the 90s, you might remember the fighting game 'Waku Waku 7'. With its cheery atmosphere and eccentric cast, it secured a loyal following. Seeing the '7' plastered on the title, players naturally assumed, 'Ah, I must have missed the first six games.' But no matter how hard you searched, there were no predecessors. They never existed in the first place.

In short, 'Waku Waku 7' is the gaming equivalent of 'Fantastic Four'. The '7' doesn't refer to a series count, but to the seven 'Waku Waku Balls' in the game's lore. It is an overt parody of Dragon Ball, where collecting seven balls grants a wish. Because they were obsessed with the number seven, they shoved it in the title, leaving innocent gamers on a wild goose chase for non-existent sequels. Given how stellar the character designs were, if they had just launched as 'Waku Waku 1', we might actually be on our seventh instalment by now. Had it been a smash hit, who knows if we’d be playing 'Waku Waku 8' or 'Waku Waku 7-2' today?

The progenitor of 'garbage-fire' simulators, Goat Simulator. A game that turned bugs and chaotic physics engines into core features, its sequel numbering is just as deranged as the gameplay. After the massive success of the original, the developers announced a sequel titled 'Goat Simulator 3'. When baffled fans asked why, the developers nonchalantly replied, 'Wait, did we not make a second one?'

If you dig into the installation folder or the executable, you’ll find it labeled 'Goat2'. They even parodied the long-awaited 'Dead Island 2' trailer, poking fun at the fact that they were jumping straight to 3. If this developer is willing to butt heads with common sense and industry rules, who knows if the next one will be 'Goat Simulator 5' or 'Goat Simulator 0'? Don't try to predict it; just embrace the madness.

Surpassing even Goat Simulator 3, we have the original 'numbering destroyer': the indie game 'McPixel 3'. The original 'McPixel', released in 2012, was a chaotic comedy game where you had 20 seconds to defuse bombs. Ten years later, in 2022, the sequel arrived with a '3' slapped on it. Naturally, there was no second game.

The developers went so far as to create a mockumentary to explain (?) this. The story goes that they tried to make 'McPixel 2' a next-gen blockbuster, but it failed. They supposedly tried to implement ray-tracing, an open-world RPG structure, and a 'fart physics system' that required immense computing power, which ultimately broke the developers and the project. So they skipped 2 and went back to basics for 3. On Steam, they cheekily bundle the first and third games together as the 'McPixel Trilogy'. It is nothing short of glorious.