10 Video Games That Languished In Development For Years
3. Diablo III (2012)
Development Time: 11 Years (2001 to 2012)
Diablo II was an incredibly successful game released back in 2000, and it was only a matter of time for Blizzard to cash in on their success, and make a sequel. As it happens, the company began development of the sequel in 2001, but it wasn't announced to fans until much later.
The first time Blizzard made any official announcement about the development of Diablo III was in 2008. There had been rumors of the game's development prior to that time, but nothing came out of Blizzard until then. Unfortunately, the game wasn't released soon after the announcement as it needed more development.
In May 2012, the game was finally released on PC after an extensive beta test, and while 11 years is a long time to put a game together, it probably should have stayed in development a little longer.
Fans were so eager to jump back into the world of Diablo, the servers crashed, and numerous reports came out of players running into a digital wall when they tried to play the game. This was due to the game's requirement to connect to the servers to play--there was no offline play, and the resulting crash angered the fans. Eventually, the anger died down, and the game's critical acclaim and high replayability eased the tensions caused at launch.