10 Video Games That Languished In Development For Years
5. Team Fortress 2 (2007)
Development Time: 9 Years (1998-2007)
Back in 1996, a few guys got together and created a mod they called Team Fortress for Quake. The mod added a significant number of new features to the game, and was so well received, the developers were brought to Valve to create an official version, which would eventually become Team Fortress 2.
That was when the game went into development in 1998, but it would take an additional nine years before that project would come to fruition. The main reason TF2 found itself in development hell had to do with the goings on of Valve at the time.
This was during the period where Valve was coding their gaming platform, Steam. Additionally, the bulk of Valve's programmers were taken off of their ongoing projects (TF2 included) and made to work on the Source Engine for Half Life 2 as well as Steam. There was nothing released between 2000 and 2004 when the game was confirmed to still be in development.
Fast-forward a few years, and Team Fortress 2, the first official title that wasn't a mod of an existing game, was released. The game that came out in 2007 was significantly different from the original game design, but it was critically acclaimed, and a commercial success.