It’s A Miracle These Infamously Troubled Video Games Ever Released At All

Making video games isn’t an easy process. There is so much to do and so much can go wrong. As a result, there’s likely no game that gets through development without any issues whatsoever. A few things will always go wrong. However, for some games, only “a few” things going wrong would be ideal.

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After all, a bunch of games have had development cycles where it feels like everything goes wrong. There can be technical, licensing, staff, financial, and other issues. This typically leads to a game’s development cycle being heavily extended and the game being put into ‘development hell.’ Here is a collection of games that went through that hell, but still managed to be released.

8 Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077

Released

December 10, 2020

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol

Developer(s)

CD Projekt Red

Publisher(s)

CD Projekt Red

Engine

REDengine 4

Platform(s)

PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch 2, PC

Everyone likely remembers Cyberpunk’s very problematic launch, as the game was released in a poor state and had many issues. This is despite the game being in development for many years. After all, it was announced in 2012, but didn’t release until 2020. While it was being made, developer CD Projekt RED promised a lot of things.

Co-founder Marcin Iwinski underestimated how difficult it would be for the game to run on anything other than high-end PCs at the time. Additionally, COVID-19 occurred, which Iwinski said created further problems. All this led to a disastrous launch. That said, it has bounced back from that and is now one of the best sci-fi RPGs ever.

7 Aliens: Colonial Marines

Aliens: Colonial Marines

Released

February 12, 2013

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language

Developer(s)

Gearbox Software

Publisher(s)

Sega

Engine

Unreal Engine 3

Platform(s)

PC, PS3, Xbox 360

A few different development teams contributed to the creation of Aliens: Colonial Marines. The two primary ones were Gearbox and TimeGate Studios. Gearbox initially worked on the game until the success of Borderlands, which inspired them to switch focus to Borderlands 2. Instead of leaving Aliens: Colonial Marines to rot, they outsourced the development to TimeGate Studios.

Over the next several years, numerous development issues arose, partially due to the involvement of TimeGate, Gearbox, and publisher Sega, all of which had a say in the product. This led to a multitude of different ideas, and changes and removals were frequent. There were also optimization issues with different consoles, and the game didn’t look as good as the tech demo they showed off. However, despite plenty of problems, the game was still released in 2013.

6 Final Fantasy 15

Final Fantasy 15

Released

November 9, 2016

The Final Fantasy series is known for having some great spin-offs, which is exactly what Final Fantasy 15 was originally going to be. Of course, in that scenario, it wasn’t going to be called Final Fantasy 15. It was given the name Final Fantasy Versus 13. Partway through development, the original concept was scrapped, and the game was upgraded to a main entry, hence why it’s now called Final Fantasy 15.

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Along with this change, there were also staff reshuffles, story changes, and alterations to the gameplay. At one point, information around the game was scarce, and some thought it might end up being cancelled. However, the spin-off that became a main entry ultimately survived the lengthy development cycle and was released in 2013.

5 Metroid Dread

ESRB

T for Teen: Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence

Developer(s)

MercurySteam

Publisher(s)

Nintendo

Engine

Mercury Engine

Platform(s)

Switch

The concept of Metroid Dread has been around since the mid-2000s. It was intended to be a follow-up to Metroid Fusion. Over several years, Producer Yoshio Sakamoto made multiple attempts to develop the game for the Nintendo DS. It seems the technological limitations of the system couldn’t be overcome, though. As a result, the development continued to be halted.

Then, talk of Metroid Dread returned in the 2010s with rumors that we could see it after all. Yet, that didn’t seem to go anywhere, either. Eventually, though, Dread returned and was fully developed this time before its release in 2021. The game didn’t have the most dramatic development story, but it certainly took a long time to get made.

4 Dead Island 2

Despite the first Dead Island not being exactly beloved, a sequel began to be developed in the early to mid-2010s. Techland, the studio that developed the original game, was initially slated to create Dead Island 2. Yet, the company decided to work on Dying Light instead. No worries, as Yager Development took over development. In 2015, however, Yager was dropped from the project as well.

Things didn’t end there, though, as Sumo Digital ended up taking over development. After that, things remained quiet for a few years before it was announced that Dambuster Studios would be the new developer in 2019. So, the development studio kept changing, which must’ve caused huge disruption. Yet, Dambuster Studios managed to finish and release the game in 2023 to strong reviews.

3 Too Human

Too Human spent almost a decade in development hell. It was first announced in 1999 as an upcoming PlayStation game. Then, development stopped when Nintendo entered into an exclusive partnership with Silicon Knights, the developers of the game. Therefore, it was now set to be a GameCube title.

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Yet, not much happened with the title for several years until 2005, when Microsoft entered into a partnership with Silicon Knights, meaning it was now slated to be an Xbox 360 game. During much of this, there were also issues between Silicon Knights and Epic Games due to problems with the Unreal Engine. Eventually, though, the game was released to middling reviews in 2008.

2 Doom

DOOM

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language

Developer(s)

id Software

Publisher(s)

Bethesda Softworks

Engine

id tech 6, id tech 5

Platform(s)

PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One

Development for 2016’s Doom began in 2007, as Doom 4. For the first few years, there were various issues, particularly regarding what the game really should be. It began to move away from the series’ roots and started to become more like Call of Duty, which had just become a very influential shooter at that time.

However, after several staff departures and numerous changes, the Call of Duty-inspired version of Doom was largely scrapped. Then, in 2014, the Doom we know now was revealed, and it more closely resembled the early games in the series.

1 Duke Nukem Forever

Duke Nukem Forever was initially announced in the late ’90s after the success of Duke Nukem 3D. The fact that it didn’t actually release until 2011 suggests that there were some issues during development. According to Wired, many of the problems stemmed from the ambition of game director George Broussard, who kept making changes.

This resulted in many delays, people leaving the development team, and money running dry. Then, in 2009, the original developer, 3D Realms, halted development, and Gearbox Software bought the rights, finished the game, and eventually released it. The final product wasn’t great, but at least it was released.

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