8 Video Games That Escaped Development Hell (But Shouldn’t Have)

Time In Development Hell: 4 Years

A video game tie-in missing the movie’s release date by a few months is slightly embarrassing; missing it by a full three years is downright shameful. That’s what happened with Argonaut Games take on Alien: Resurrection, a movie that wasn’t exactly beloved to start with.

The game started life as a Resident Evil style third person adventure, with players guiding Ripley through locations from the movie. They spent years working on this build before deciding it just didn’t work, and decided to shift to a first person shooter style instead. The movie had come and gone in cinemas by that point, so they could afford to take their time.

When the game finally came along in 2000 it received praise for its admittedly tense atmosphere, but thanks to fiddly controls and insane difficulty levels it was nearly impossible to enjoy the damn thing.