10 Amazing Video Games With INCREDIBLY Short Development Times
Rockstar turned Vice City around in a year. What have you done?
Creating video games can be a very long and complex process, with different artists, designers and coders all having to focus on a single project.
We are currently used to waiting four or five years for the release of the next game in our favourite series, even a decade. After all, a great deal of work goes into this collaborative process, and there is also a lot that can go wrong if the designers don’t take their time.
Perhaps though, you are from a different time - one when games could be designed and created by a small team of developers in a year. When annual releases of games were a common occurrence.
In some ways, this process is still around with series such as Call of Duty and sport-based games such as FIFA. These franchises, however, have monumental teams and funds behind them as the designers know they can recoup their expenses.
Whichever approach designers take to games, there are some that have pushed the boundaries of regular development time while also maintaining the quality of the product. Games that are considered classics, but were designed and developed in an incredibly small timeframe.
10. Resident Evil 2 - 18 Months (Sort Of)
Resident Evil 2 has found its place comfortably in the annals of gaming history. It has even had a well-received remake, that reintroduced this ultimate survival horror game to a new generation of gamers. It would be hard to tell when playing the game, but the original had a rocky time in development.
After the popular release of Resident Evil by Capcom, a sequel was a no brainer. They had a good premise and a big enough fan base that they could easily expand on the original idea. The team had around One and a half years to develop this project, not an insurmountable time frame for them.
Around halfway through development, when a partially working version of the game existed, development was suddenly scrapped. It is estimated that the game was 60 % – 80 % complete at this point. It was later said that some designers were just not happy with the game and wanted it to be reworked.
This means that the development of a great deal of Resident evil 2 happened in a six to nine-month time frame after this redesign, quite a task. A version of the original still exists online and is referred to as Resident Evil 1.5. I guess we should be glad they did rework it or we might not have this classic horror series.