8 Video Games That Escaped Development Hell (But Shouldn’t Have)
3. Ride To Hell: Retribution
Time In Development Hell: 5 Years
Ride To Hell started life as an open world, GTA-style clone where the player could drive just about any style of vehicle and go wherever they wanted. A large chunk of work was completed on the game, including open-world areas and voice recordings, before it was canned in 2009.
However, it seems that development quietly continued under the control of another developer, who heavily redesigned it and removed the open-world segments. The game finally arrived in 2013 to eye-wateringly poor reviews, where every single element - from gameplay to story to level design - came under harsh criticism; even the sex mini-game became infamous for just how terrible it was.
Ride To Hell was labelled the worst game of 2013, and possibly one of the worst ever. Needless to say, plans for other games in the series were quietly cancelled; hopefully, they’ll stay that way this time.