7 Video Games That Survived Development Hell (And How)
Get the true story behind some of gaming's most complex projects.
Though not always the most patient lot, gamers have learned to appreciate that amongst all the major entertainment mediums, video games take a long time to make. Developing a video game, especially when building a new franchise from the ground up, is a massive, arduous undertaking, and therefore it can be many years before the finished article winds up on store shelves.
Throughout the relatively short history of gaming, however, there are a number of infamous cases where a project fell into what's known as 'development hell’, taking an inordinate amount of time to come out, with many becoming running jokes amongst the industry and its fans. Some even took so long between announcement and release that many assumed the games would never come out.
This can happen for a wide variety of reasons; the title being passed around from developer to developer, progress slowing to a halt due to new, unfamiliar technologies, or simple over-ambition getting the better of development staff. And whether these games were any good upon their eventual release is almost inconsequential, when compared the fascinating stories of how they finally surfaced…
7. The Last Guardian
Following the cult status achieved by Fumito Ueda’s Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, gamers eagerly anticipated news of what the beloved Japanese game developer was going to come up with next.
In 2009, The Last Guardian was officially unveiled as a PlayStation 3 exclusive. The following year at the Tokyo Game Show, a release window was announced, telling gamers to expect the game in time for the holidays in 2011.
Early in 2011, though, the game was delayed.
Development was slow and Sony weren’t happy the game’s serious performance issues on PlayStation 3. They brought in outside teams (from the likes of God of War devs Santa Monica Studios) to try and help out but, in 2012, the decision was made to move the game onto PlayStation 4 in order to fully realise Ueda’s vision. On PS4, performance greatly improved, and it was now up to the remaining developers to finish the project.
Slowing things down further was the fact that in December 2011, Ueda left Sony due to feeling “a sense of crisis within myself about a lot of things” and a number of his team followed suit. Together they formed a new studio, GenDESIGN, and were contracted to work in partnership with Japan Studio to finish The Last Guardian.
After a re-reveal in 2015 and one more delay (of course), The Last Guardian finally launched in December 2016 to a mixed, though mostly warm, critical reception.