20 Ridiculous Reasons Video Games Were Cancelled
6. The Two Lead Developers Got Sick From Crunch - Sonic X-Treme
Ultimately the only thing "X-Treme" about Sega's first attempt at a 3D Sonic game was the utterly inhumane conditions which the key team members suffered through.
Sonic X-Treme began development in 1994, with Sega setting a December 1996 release deadline - a tight ask considering the trickiness of the Sega Saturn's hardware and the more complex nature of 3D games development.
Sensing the pressure, programmer Chris Coffin ultimately cancelled his apartment lease and moved into the development office, working up to 20 hours per day to try and finish the game.
By the summer of 1996, Coffin contracted severe pneumonia as a result of being overworked, while designer Chris Senn lost so much weight through exhaustion a doctor told him he could die within six months.
This hellish predicament dragged on until October 1996, when faced with the two most important team members out of commission, producer Mike Wallis finally pulled the plug.
And it's utterly absurd that the situation got this dire at all - the Christmas 1996 deadline clearly wasn't achievable, at which point the producers and Sega should've simply accepted that Sonic X-Treme would release in 1997 instead with its dev team happy and healthy.