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

1. Fallout 3

Fallout fans can be divided between those who love Bethesda's first-person shooter take on the series, and those who pine for a return to the classic, isometric structure of Black Isle Studios' original releases. For a time, Fallout 3 (or as it was known back then, Van Buren) was going to build upon the great second RPG (after a couple of failed spin-offs like Tactics threatened a radical identity crisis), but the original team was laid off in 2003 when Interplay Entertainment went bankrupt.

The game had been quite far along in development, but the license for the franchise was sold off to Bethesda for little over $1million. Intending to put their own spin on the series and bring it more in line with their own gameplay ethos, a new team got to work on revamping the IP in 2004. Of course, during that time much of the studio's focus was on shipping The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which would eventually propel Bethesda into the mainstream.

Their rebooted version of the sequel eventually came out in 2008 to more fanfare than the studio no doubt ever expected, changing what Fallout was in the process. While Van Bruen was all but discarded, in a great twist of fate the publisher would actually go on to hire Obsidian Entertainment (home to many former Black Isle employees), to craft New Vegas and realise some ideas from the original version of the third game.