7 Video Games That Survived Development Hell (And How)

Beginning life as Final Fantasy Versus XIII, a long and troubled development cycle started in 2006 with talks of the game being rebranded as the next mainline entry in the series, coming as early as 2007 due to its scope and ambition. However, it continued as Versus XIII all the way until 2012, before that decision was finally made with the game supposedly only 20-25% complete after six years.

With the project clearly not progressing at more than a snail’s pace, Square Enix were forced to step in and a reshuffle in the development team saw Hajime Tabata take over for Tetsuya Nomura as the game’s director, with development essentially starting over again.

At E3 the following year, the game was publicly re-revealed and rebranded as Final Fantasy XV – seven years after beginning development. Regular updates followed, including two playable demos released to the public in 2015 and 2016, before a release date was finally announced. After a decade in development, Final Fantasy XV would release on September 30 2017.

Only, it didn’t. Unbelievably, it was delayed yet again.

Finally, after further polishing, the game released to a largely positive critical reception on November 29th 2016. At this rate, expect to get your hands on Final Fantasy XVI sometime around the mid-2020s.