8 Video Games That Faced Development Hell (And Turned Out AMAZING)

7. Alan Wake

Remedy's Alan Wake was supposed to be the next big property for the Xbox 360; the new franchise that would eclipse anything the competition had to offer and completely revitalise third-person shooters. While it was an admittedly great game though, it in no way lived up to the hype that its long development would have had you believe.

The studio's next franchise after finishing Max Payne 2, the title was originally set to take that title's solid core gunplay and transfer it into an open world environment. The idea was that you'd control the titular writer and use him to explore the horror of Bright Falls, driving from one creepy area to the next. Essentially, it would have mixed survival horror with sandbox gameplay, long, long before The Evil Within 2 would attempt to do the same thing.

Unfortunately, the devs couldn't quite get the two to mesh while still being able to deliver their TV-inspired, episodic narrative. Officially announced in 2005, the project was internally rebooted to fit the more linear design, eventually releasing exclusively for the Xbox 360 in 2010.