Video game development can take up to 5 years for an average game – but these games blow that out of the water.
Video game development is a fraught thing to discuss nowadays. Thanks to ‘crunch,’ burnout, legal disputes, and financial stresses, there is any number of reasons that a video game might find its development delayed or cut off entirely. Unlike film and television which have a full century of industry growth and experience that allows them to prevent issues, Video gaming is a relatively young industry.
There are some games that have such long development times, fans wonder if they’ll ever see the light of day. All gamers know of the long wait for the official announcement for Grand Theft Auto 6 and special mention also goes to Dwarf Fortress which has been in development for 20 years by one man with no signs of a release date. While the following games did eventually make it out of development hell, the path was long and torturous for the creators.
Spore is a life-simulator that always had very high goals. The core concept was to be able to play a game that allowed the player to experience, and guide, a species through the full breadth of its evolutionary cycle. This scope, as well as the urge to balance making the game cute and making it scientifically accurate, led to the game’s long development time.
The game itself did end up managing to capture most of the early goals – players are able to play from the microbial state of life all and all the way up to galactic civilization. With many wild spinoffs and a fairly well-recieved release, this game presents a rare success story among the games which remained in development for extended times.
Too Human is a game that flew under many people’s radars, despite the long buildup of interest. This, alongside the major lawsuit involving Epic Games, made any follow-up to the game impossible. This unfortunate turn of events was not caused by the long development time, but the end result was certainly not helped by it.
The game began its life as a planned game for the Playstation in 1999. The developers, Silicon Knights, would later form a partnership with Nintendo, and the game was stuck in limbo while other games moved forward. When a new partnership was formed with Microsoft, the game finally found footing and began to take form.
After the critical success of Shadow of the Colossus, Team Ico began development on a different sort of story. Shadow is known for the bleak environments and the feeling of power as the player defeats the colossuses. In The Last Guardian, the story is flipped – players control a young boy who becomes friends with a massive beast.
The Last Guardian took so long to develop in no small part due to the auteur nature of director Fumito Ueda. His careful guidance provided Team Ico with critical darlings in their first two games, but the small team combined with the massive scale of the game they were creating led to a painfully slow process.
The class-based shooter has been a massive hit, still holding popularity today after more than 15 years after its release as a part of The Orange Box. As part of a bundle with Portal and Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2 was already in the hands of millions of people who would pick it up and experience the unique shooter.
The original Team Fortress game was released in 1996 as a Quake mod that added a class system and unique abilities. The full-game sequel was in development for nearly a decade thanks to Valve adopting the Source game engine, as well as thanks to the team creating multiple versions of the same game as they experimented with designs.
Originally intended to be a spinoff of Final Fantasy XIII, FFXV took on a darker tone and setting than most FF games and the end result took on a life of its own. Many departments and groups within the Square Enix company took part in the development in various ways, leading to an extended exchange of hands and a massive credit list.
Another facet of the long delay between planning and creation was the game Final Fantasy XIV. The massive multiplayer online role-playing game was released in 2010 with many of the team focussing their attention on this instead of FFXV. The initial launch of this other game was a commercial failure, but since the 2013 reboot, the game has been lauded as a stellar example of the genre.
The original Prey game was released in 2006 with little fanfare. The game was well-received by critics and had one of the first Native American protagonists in gaming. Though it performed well, the studio producing the game – Human Head Studios – sold off the IP which was then picked up by ZeniMax and Arkane Studios.
The 2017 game took more than a decade to produce partially due to the change of hands it underwent. Despite sharing the name, the two games are very different, with no cross-over in protagonist, setting, story, or themes. Arkane Studios took the game and made it their own, taking their time as they did so.
Diablo 3 is the 2012 sequel to 2000’s Diablo 2. Though this sequel had a shaky response on release, after some alterations to the economy and auction house, the game has reached the point of being a respectable follow-up to one of the most well-loved hack-and-slash games in video game history.
Blizzard spent so long on the game for many reasons, but the most obvious reason is World of Warcraft‘s large development requirements and cash-flow potential. WoW’s subscription model caused it to become one of the highest-earning games in history so it’s understandable that Diablo 3 was pushed to a back-burner.
Released in Japan in 2006, this game was a follow-up to Mother II, localized as Earthbound in America. Mother III was not released outside of Japan for concerns over moral panics and controversy outside of the country. This is because the game, despite its cutesy atmosphere and general core of “children with psychic powers” contains very dark themes.
Mother III ended up in development hell due to a series of unfortunate events and changes. Originally planned for the Nintendo 64, the project became too large for a single cartridge, and was then slated for the failed Dolphin add-on. After that system’s failure, the game was scrapped as Nintendo focused on their next major project – the GameCube.
Duke Nukem was once one of the major figures in the first-person shooter world. In another world, he might stand alongside Master Chief and Doom Guy. But thanks to nearly a decade without any kind of game or IP-related release, interest in the game floundered until Duke Nukem Forever finally released in 2011 with more interest in its development than its actual release.
Duke Nukem Forever‘s release was also colored by reports of being a buggy mess of a game that could have spent another few years cooking. The game had gone through several game engine changes, and utilized a small team, and by the time the IP was sold to Gearbox, it was a long shot for the game to come out rosy.
Metroid: Dread began as a sequel to Metroid: Fusion, a Game Boy Advanced game that was released in 2002. This was another highly praised game that most players expected a sequel to – a sequel they did receive… eventually. Both games are notable for the nerve-wracking horror of being hunted by enemies that are far more dangerous than Samus herself.
The game’s development began in 2005, conceived as a game that would build on the “fear-based gameplay” of Fusion. The game was announced and unannounced several times, with a major reason for slow development being producer Yoshio Sakamoto’s dissatisfaction with the DS and 3DS’s restrictive hardware.
Linden is a creative writer with a passion for stories no matter what form they take – video games, books, film & TV, or just chatting with friends. He is an avid book buyer and wishes to read one day. Linden enjoys taking his favorite things way too seriously and then stepping back and laughing at himself. His professional work has been diverse, leading from medical scribe to marketer to here.
