Top 10 Games Still Stuck In Development Hell
In the gaming industry, there’s nothing worse than a tease. Sure, it’s one thing to be told outright that the one game you so desperately desire (for me, it’s Bulletstorm 2) isn’t being made, but to know that your coveted title has long been worked on and still isn’t ready yet? That’s a special kind of pain inflicted upon a poor gamer’s soul.
It’s the wait that hurts the most, especially when your most wanted game has the amorphous blob of a release date that is “sometime in the future.” It sucks, of course, but the unfortunate truth is that the industry currently has a slew of promising titles that have long been in development, with nary a launch window to be found.
For now, though, let us take a look at ten of these proverbial carrot-danglers (in no particular order), and see if we can get through their teases together. Please note that we tried to confine this list to games that are actually confirmed to be in development, and not just games that we really want to see (sorry, Shenmue 3). Keep your Kleenex and Haagen-Dazs handy if you must—this could get painful.
The Last Guardian
Beating? Meet Dead Horse. Dead Horse, Beating. Yes, the next project from Fumito Ueda’s Team Ico, creators of seminal PS2 classics ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, has become synonymous with the words “development hell” in our post-Duke Nukem Forever world.
First revealed in 2009, The Last Guardian originally had a release window of late 2011, but has since gone through numerous delays and development snafus since, including Ueda’s departure from Sony toward the end of last year. According to SCE Worldwide head Shuhei Yoshida, the game is making “slow progress,” and is working its way through “technical difficulties” with the help of various other external studios. Ueda himself is still working on the game daily as a contractor, so there’s still plenty of reason to believe that the next installment in the Ico series will be just as magical as the previous two, whenever it does come out. Here’s to hoping it’s soon.
Overstrike
After years of developing PlayStation-exclusive titles such as the Ratchet & Clank and Resistance series, Insomniac is set to make its first multiplatform appearance with Overstrike, an action game featuring four-player co-op about a team of eccentric special agents. When it was first shown at last year’s E3, the presumed shooter looked quite charming, with characters who appeared to have personality and a nifty focus on cooperative fun.
The only problem is that we’ve heard almost nothing about it since last June. Recent rumors suggest that the title may not be coming until late 2013/early 2014, which is quite a wait, but considering Insomniac’s pedigree, it’s hard to imagine Overstrike not being worth it.
Final Fantasy Versus XIII
There probably isn’t a series that’s better at annoying its fan base than Final Fantasy. From outright denying continuous clamoring for a Final Fantasy VII remake to making a direct sequel to the lukewarmly received Final Fantasy XIII, Square Enix’s moneymaker has had quite the tumultuous relationship with its most hardcore consumers in recent years. Final Fantasy Versus XIII, originally announced in 2006, would stand to help heal this discord, if only it would just come out already.
Currently being developed by Tetsuya Nomura and the team behind Kingdom Hearts I and II, Versus XIII actually looks like something new and refreshing from the long-running RPG behemoth, taking place in more modern setting and featuring an overall more mature aesthetic. It’s a shame then, that that the game is taking so long to get itself straight, especially considering that Final Fantasy XIII-2 was conceived, finished, and shipped in about the same amount of time it took Final Fantasy Versus XIII to actually enter full production. Ouch. At the moment, there’s no indication that Versus XIII is coming out at any time in the near future.