How the hell did this game not spawn a franchise

I played this a long time ago and had fond memories of it so maybe there's a bit of nostalgia here but I really like this game. The jank and lack of instructions added to the horror imo, similar to how shitty fog in early PS1/PS2 titles just made things scarier. Sure it has some below average voice acting at times, the graphics/gameplay are a bit dated and even a couple major bugs (I didn't run into any luckily but they are there). But even with all those flaws, I still think it holds up as one of the best Lovecraftian video games. Might even be my favourite. It has a great atmosphere that makes you feel like you're in a Lovecraft story, which seems to be a hard thing to pull off in this medium. I dunno I just feel like it was a passion project from a smaller studio, it felt like they actually cared. Which is a shame that it was kinda responsible for their downfall into bankruptcy. It will forever depress me that the sequels that were planned and already in development never saw the light of day because of that.

I think I preferred the first game but not by much. Even though I liked the story, setting, and even some of the level designs, I just don't find myself enjoying the actual gameplay that much in the Dishonored series. I might be in the minority and I'm not quite sure why I feel that way, but it just doesn't click with me.

Vaas made this game for me, afterwards I just wasn't having as much fun