8 Amazing Video Games That SURVIVED Development Hell
These games crawled from the depths of development hell and astounded us all.
Developing even the simplest of video games is an extraordinary complex and challenging undertaking, potentially requiring hundreds or even thousands of people to pool their skills and knowledge for years in the pursuit of a (hopefully) quality end product.
As such there are literally hundreds of high-profile video games that have ended up trapped in development hell for one reason or another.
Perhaps the production got caught up in business red tape behind-the-scenes, maybe the creative vision just wasn't working, or it's possible the entire project had been mismanaged from the get-go.
It's sadly common for games in development hell to either never release at all or simply put out a terrible end product just to ship the damn thing, but every so often a game manages to claw its way out and blow everyone away.
These incredibly rare, unicorn titles all managed to weather the serious storms of their development and release an outstanding final game that, not merely a credit to its franchise, might even be a generational all-timer.
They are, however, most certainly exceptions in the history of games development...
8. Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil 4 spent an entire six years in development, which back at the turn of century was an absolute age - especially as the first three entries in the survival horror series were put out in just half that time.
But the fourth installment went through a staggering five iterations before finally hitting stores in 2005, with one discarded prototype even going on to become Devil May Cry.
During this period numerous directors were shuffled in and out of the project, until the first game's director Shinji Mikami stepped in to deliver the final released product.
With Capcom threatening to put the series on ice if Resident Evil 4 underperformed, Mikami took many bold swings, shifting the focus from pure horror to an action-horror hybrid, introducing an over-the-shoulder camera, and shifting the mayhem to rural Spain.
It was all a massive gamble, then, but Resident Evil 4 ultimately went on to become a massive critical and commercial success, remaining the series' high-point to this very day and proving massively influential on the survival horror genre ever since.