10 Great Video Games That Almost Never Happened At All

4. Fez

Developer Phil Fish's struggle to get cult masterpiece Fez released is gloriously captured in the brilliant Indie Game: The Movie. During the film Fish is amidst a legal battle with former business partner Jason Degroot in the build to the first ever public showing of the game at PAX East 2011. The two co-founded development company Polytron, but that partnership collapsed amongst personal differences. Due to their business arrangement, Fish needed Degroot to sign a waiver for the game to be shown, despite having long abandoned the project. What we see is the struggle of a man who has put his life into a project, knowing that somebody else could take it away at will, and in the film's most unsettling moment, Fish resolves to kill himself if the game is not released, with dead-eyed conviction. The game was developed over an achingly slow five years, characterised by press outbursts, fractured friendships and endless delays. But Fez made it. Released in 2012, its puzzles, design and open blue sky atmosphere were praised by critics. That's the most compelling aspect of playing Fez - within minutes you forget all you know about its troubled origins and are transported to it's peaceful pixilated paradise. Despite selling over a million, Fez 2 was cancelled after Phil Fish publicly condemned the gaming industry on Twitter. It remains a solitary work of perfection.