7 Years Ago, Breaking Bad Replaced Walter White In A Spinoff That Barely Lasted A Year

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Published Oct 2, 2026, 12:00 AM EDT

Nicholas Becher is a gaming journalist with an MFA in Creative Writing from FAU. With extensive experience playing video games, he covers all forms of gaming content at Screen Rant, from breaking news to the latest fan theories. Most-played games range from Clair Obscur to Civ to Elden Ring to Halo 2 and beyond.

Walter White's transformation from desperate high school chemistry teacher to ruthless drug kingpin remains one of television's defining character arcs. Bryan Cranston's performance turned "I-am-the-one-who-knocks Heisenberg" into a pop-culture icon, while Breaking Bad helped push serialized television further into an era dominated by complicated, morally compromised protagonists.

Walt could be sympathetic, terrifying, calculating, and self-destructive, sometimes all within the same episode, making his gradual descent into a straight-up menace on society integral to the show's legacy. By the time Breaking Bad ended in 2013, Walter White had become almost inseparable from the franchise itself. Better Call Saul would later prove that this universe could thrive without putting Walt at its center, but another spinoff took a very different approach that didn't pan out quite as well.

Seven years ago, Breaking Bad attempted to replace Walter White again with an entirely new protagonist, shifting the focus away from Heisenberg and placing fans in the shoes of a new criminal building an empire of their own.

Breaking Bad's 2019 Walt Replacement Didn't Last Very Long

Criminal Elements' cheeky title might have been the best thing the spinoff had going for it. Released in 2019, the free-to-play strategy game took the world of Breaking Bad and replaced Walter White as its playable protagonist with an unnamed associate working under Walt and Jesse Pinkman. Heisenberg was still a major presence, serving as one of the player's mentors, but instead of controlling the character whose rise built the franchise, players were tasked with becoming a kingpin of their own.

Gameplay revolved around constructing and upgrading a criminal base, improving the lab, producing resources, expanding territory, and attacking rival operations. Players could recruit familiar characters, including Saul Goodman, Mike Ehrmantraut, Gus Fring, and others as "Specialists," each providing different benefits for combat, defense, and resource production. The game began around Walt and Jesse's humble RV operation before gradually allowing the player's organization to grow into a much larger enterprise. As a free-to-play release, it also featured multiple currencies and in-app purchases.

Unsurprisingly, the attempt to turn Breaking Bad into a long-running mobile strategy game ultimately didn't last. Criminal Elements launched broadly on iOS and Android in June 2019, but was shut down on September 6, 2020, only about 15 months later, and is no longer available through the major mobile storefronts. Walt may have remained part of the story, but the experiment of putting a new criminal in his protagonist role proved remarkably short-lived.

Criminal Elements Proves Not Every IP Needs A Game Adaptation

Breaking Bad: Criminal Elements is a good reminder that not every enormously successful IP needs to be turned into a game. Breaking Bad built its reputation on meticulous writing, unforgettable performances, and a slow-burn character study of Walter White's transformation into Heisenberg. Reducing that world to a fairly conventional free-to-play mobile strategy game was always a risky move.

Although Criminal Elements was technically free to download, its design was built around the familiar mobile model of resources, currencies, timers, upgrades, and optional purchases that could speed up progression. Players were encouraged to continually improve their base, expand their criminal operation, and recruit recognizable characters, but much of that loop had little to do with what made Breaking Bad compelling in the first place. Instead of translating the tension, moral ambiguity, or careful plotting of the series into interactive form, the game largely attached familiar names and faces to mechanics that could have been copied and pasted onto almost any mobile strategy title.

For an IP as respected as Breaking Bad, Criminal Elements felt like a brazen attempt to capitalize on the brand while that brand was still enormously recognizable. Its short lifespan only reinforces how poorly the concept landed. A franchise does not automatically become better or more complete simply because it receives a video game, and Criminal Elements showed that some IPs are better off left alone.