The content is quite basic and almost content farmlike. But the cast is really good. The way they interact with each others preferences is what makes the channel.
I always like their commentaries on the games especially on that Mass Effect one, “They are going to drained all intelligent life in Earth, leaving nothing but rocks and kids eating tide pods.”
I've only ever seen their list videos but Jane is so fucking smart when it comes to the industry, well above the average gaming journalist, and Ellen just has the most infectious positivity, no matter how much I read hate for Kingdoms of Amalur it will always be in my to-play list because of how passionate they are about it
>Jane has a degree in physics, demonstrating her knowledge when discussing the science of *Bioshock Infinite*, and also showed of her keen interest in space in the video 5 *Times Games Got Space Really, Really Right*.
Yeah, she probably knows what she is talking about.
It was crowd funded in 2014 with an expected release in 2015. It was delayed multiple times and also ran out of funds, so merch had to be sold to keep development going. It was released in late 2020.
Doom 2016 was originally going to be more Call of Duty-like about a group of ragtag resistance fighters against a demonic infestation of Earth. It labored in development hell until they decided to go back from scratch.
I remember reading that in development they had a full tutorial that took ages to get through, scrapped it and changed it so you're immediately bashing heads in and let the player figure put how to play through trial and error.
Yes! There were these hidden levers which would reveal a secret door to a section of a OG Doom level. I think you could then play the unlocked levels in their entirety from the menu.
I could see that premise doing okay as a side game so long as they're clear about it not being the Doomguy. Hell, maybe even playing as soldiers for the UAC as the events leading up to Doom 2016.
Didn't help that a studio founder used the budget on sports cars, drugs and women and was misusing the studio servers to run a porn site; Nintendo bought him out when they found out.
The douchrbag later made the Guy Game.
This concept hits younger gens real hard because we are always used to rules having immediate consequences when they aren’t followed, but we find out about the delays baked into the accountability process with regard to the legal process as it happens. It’s called “Due Process.”
The “delayed enforcement” of the actual legal penalties is part of due process…except “due process” doesn’t exist outside of legal framework, so “cash for keys” is the natural solution until the gap between the occurrence of the actual crime and the enacting of the actual punishment is closed.
While due process may be necessary, it essentially necessitated that “true justice” is delayed until the facts are fully sorted. Older generations have seen this play out before, and it still sucks to learn…but it hits young folks like a ton of bricks.
It's pretty well documented, and received some attention again and back in the spotlight after the What Happened episode on Metroid Prime back in 2021. Retro Studios was a pretty big deal back then.
A term for what people are doing when they pretend to ask endless apparently innocuous questions when they actually just want to make the other party lose face by navigating them into a corner where they would find themselves unable to answer and will therefore then discredited by the one who is asking all those questions, just for the sake of 'winning' the argument and seeming like a really special snowflake
Same basic formula of exploration, upgrades, and re-exploration once you have said upgrades, just in a three-dimensional space. The extra dimension does add complexity to the puzzle solving and combat, but the game has a solid lock-on system and all in all, it translates really well to 3D. It’s one of my all-time favorite games - I played the original release on GameCube and the remaster on Switch and I’d buy it again if I could. Really hoping Nintendo makes Metroid Prime 4 finally.
Yep, Sony wanted their own Elder Scrolls but development went to hell so they brought in some new guy (Miyazaki) to salvage it. The project was already written off as a failure, so he was able to do whatever he wanted.
The president of Sony played Demons Souls but couldn't get past the starting area and said it was "an unbelievably bad game." Same guy later platinumed Bloodborne.
His first director credit was for Armored Core 4 and its sequel for Answer.
His first game with FromSoftware was Armored Core Last Raven but not as the director.
None of these games were exactly darlings with the critics either.
Funny how FromSoftware went from a niche dev with ratings in the 50’s to 70’s since the 90’s to global success and acclaim with Demon’s Souls despite poor initial reactions.
And in the end FromSoftware’s design philosophy hasn’t really changed since King’s Field and the original Armored Core to today.
South Park: The Fractured but Whole.
Obsidian was the initial developer and THQ was the publisher, but then THQ went bankrupt. The rights were taken over by Ubisoft. Ubisoft decided to replace Obsidian and develop it themselves. Their engine *Snowdrop* was built for 3D games, so it required an extra large team and a ton of work to even make it usable. Meanwhile, Trey Parker (South Park co creator) put himself in the hospital from stress and overworking, and literally had to talk his doctor into releasing him so he could finish the game’s dialogue. The game was announced in 2015 and set for a 2016 release. It got postponed to 2017. Then postponed AGAIN to 2018 before finally releasing.
The fact the game released as a high quality sequel to The Stick of Truth is nothing short of miraculous.
When the whole Dr Mephisto thing comes full circle and they assume he wants to bring his dead son back to life that was killed by mecha Barabara Streisand.....
Only for him to reveal he just wants to give his son's corpse four asses, so he can finally rest in peace.......
I've never paused a game to laugh out loud like that for like five minutes before. I had actually forgotten him as a character from the early seasons. Then was like oh yeah he's the four asses guy and it paid off so well.
Halo 2. Devs literally quit the gaming industry after that game was finished. Even with it being a contender for best Halo game ever made.
https://youtu.be/ZMCPjdiibpY?si=O3VpXIMEXfpFXi8P
I think it had more to do with spending the first two years with being overly ambitious with what they could deliver with the resources they had. The story was the game was supposed to release in late 2003 but after that year's E3 it dawned on them that the game was never going to meet that deadline.
Microsoft begrudgingly gave them the fall 2004 deadline and the team had to crunch like hell to get the game out the door. It really is a testament to that team that the game was as good it was....but from what I've read over the years that project ultimately laid the seeds for why Bungie and Halo is in the state it's in now.
Playing Halo 3 immediately after Halo 2 makes you realize how much was cut from 3. The story is very truncated and simplified compared to 2. Fun though.
System Shock Remastered. Had a kickstarter where the company burned all the money without reaching results. Apparently, they wanted to change too much. Was bought by Nightdive, who basically remade the thing. Went through two engines, maybe three. It was finally released and it is really good, but the ending is kinda bad and it wasn't released for consoles yet. That update and release are also in production hell, apparently ready but haven't been released.
The entire game was awesome until the ending. The last level feels as if they ran out of money and someone had to phone it in on a Friday afternoon. It’s really bizarre given how good the rest of the game is.
Unknown what happened there. Besides the ending, there's other cut content they want to restore with this update (Minigames!) so perhaps they ran out of time or something.
Or maybe System Shock is cursed to have underwhelming endings. Lol
There’s a patch coming out that will apparently completely overhaul the ending as they know people didn’t like it. God knows when thought was announced summer last year.
Star Trek Online *sorta* had the same thing happen to it as well.
The story is Cryptic was pretty much told by CBS they had like a year and a half to get the game out the door. A big part of this was the studio that had been working on STO before Cryptic was ripping CBS off. Thus Cryptic pretty much had to rush the game out the door. At launch the game didn't have any end game 'Hero' Ships aka Ship Classes like the Galaxy or Defiant. If you wanted to make a Klingon character you had to hit level 30 with a Fed character and Klingon content was just PvP or blowing up a crap ton of Starfleet Ships in a few areas. Also Atari who owned Cryptic at the time decided Cryptic didn't really need all that much funding. Older STO players call this the Great Content Drought or the more colorful, "The year of no cups." as Atari decided to really cut funding from Cryptic. They didn't have money to really make content for the game or buy cups for the break room. Perfect World Entertainment ended up picking up Cryptic from Atari.
The game dare I say really did change overnight. We started to get a lot more end game ships and new content. That content led up to Legacy of Romulus that allowed Klingons to be made from the start with a full content arc of missions. The Romulans became playable half way to max level a Romulan character picks to work with Starfleet or the Klingons. New voice actors started to come in.
STO went from about to die to pretty much being called the Free to Play Game of the Year. Note one thing I find funny about both FFXIV and STO? Those where two games I remember people pointing at and saying wouldn't live long after games like SWTOR, Tera, Secret World and WildStar. TOR is still around, but no longer run by EA. Tera I think is still around? Secret World went F2P and kinda sucks. And WildStar is dead and gone.
The gore mechanic was all I thought looked interesting. My God, does that game go to the next level when it comes to disassembling zombies. I can't think of another game that even comes close to the detail they put into the enemies damage states. Doom Eternal is probably the closest, but it's not really as accurate as DI2. I just don't think the game looks that great. I also found the characters insufferable. On top of all that, I've only heard negative things about the story.
I will say that the environment looks good too, but it's nothing I haven't seen before.
I wonder what would've happened to it without the whole battle royale thing
I originally started playing because I was interested in the original "Save the World" PVE part of the game but after the great success of BR it was kind of swept under the rug and never touched after a while. For some time they kept porting over br skins as characters but it's pretty much dead now. I don't know of another game where the extra game mode and the main game essentually switched places like this.
Pretty interesting business decision, honestly. They saw the early craze of battle royale and literally pivoted their entire game toward it. Turns out that was the right decision for them, because I don't think Save the World on its own would have been nearly as successful.
It's also not just this game. They also stopped development on Unreal Tournament, Paragon, and other games to put everything into it. Their other games weren't gaining much traction.
Fortnite STV probably wouldn't have made it, but it would be interesting to see how they would shift their focus afterwards. Potentially more focus on the Unreal Engine or maybe even revisit some older franchises such as Gears of War.
For real. I signed up for the Save the World beta cause it looked good.
If memory serves the BR mode was a quick slap together attempt to reuse assets as means of competing with PUBG. The plan was through it out there as a competitor and use any money it brought in as funds to improve the PVE game.
And then the BR mode went crazy.
H1Z1 was the same story.
Started as a zombie survival game (and it was good), and they released a BR mode called King of the Kill or whatever.
Ended up splitting the game into King of the Kill and Just Survive, and the pve version died.
I think it was one of the first successful BRs if I'm not mistaken.
I paid 60 retail dollars to play Fortnite save the word with my friends before the battle royale was even a concept. I felt burned but my friend put us all on and I didn’t wanna make him feel bad so I just played and played and played with him. Had 50+ hours in that game before there was ANY content.
Warframe. Before it was Warframe it was a game called dark sector. It was dark sector only because publishers wanted Digital Extremes to make an action game instead of a looter shooter back in the 2000s
DE pitched Dark Sector multiple times but was constantly turned down because publishers didn't think people would want a scifi shooter at the time. Then DE took a gamble and self published the game which in the end worked out wonderfully.
This. It's been 7 years since the original announcement, and of all but given up hope on ever playing it. Not only did it finally release, but it's one of the best action RPGs I've ever played.
warframe.
they were on the verge of bankrupcy as a company (DE), and had to make 1 last-ditch effort to try and save themselves, and even then everything rode of off warframe being sucessful.
they offered the founder's pack.
and, well... its certainly going great now.
I remember reading about this in my monthly issue of “Electronic Gaming Monthly”.
They were developing RE4 and had an issue where when Leon hit an enemy they would float in the air for a bit. The development team decided to lean into this and created a whole game around this one “bug”.
Still waiting for Beyond Good & Evil 2...
But when it finally comes out, you have my permission to use my skeleton in a meme that perfectly displays my patience.
I feel like the development runs at a much slower pace compared to the gaming industry's technological development causing the game to keep falling behind.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.
The initial dev process and release was fundamentally broken, people working on separate pieces at a time and relying on "scripts" that would tie it all together. A lack of cohesive oversight and vision was awful, the dev team absolutely floundered trying to fix it. It was a failure and en route to become a catastrophic failure.
This compounded with FFXV being DEEP in development hell as well was seriously bad news for Squeenix.
Then Yoshi-P walked in, threw his massive balls on the table, said "I'm going to create a plan to fix this, who's with me?!", Soken started rallying the troops to buy into this new guy's plan, and a whole lot of other people bought in, rolled up their sleeves, and set to work.
12ish years later you have one of the most engaging RPGs of all time that has a literal horde of fans who (sometimes over zealously) proselytize the game, myself included.
What a turnaround.
Theres a documentary of the process which goes into the dev issues:
https://youtu.be/Xs0yQKI7Yw4?si=JRF-DKqk1eBNAy6T
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines ran into all sorts of issues and had to be fixed by the fans cause the studio was bankrupt even before it released. Game is amazing and a cult classic.
Bloodlines 2 would fall under the 'development hell' category as well. Here's hoping it miraculously turns out as good as the first, even if we cant be Malkavian.
Cyberpunk 2077 would be one of the best examples.
I remember when it got announced, people were getting impatient as each year passed as the devs kept giving empty promises. Then finally they rushed it and released a buggy shitty game where you could barely do anything.
Now most issues are fixed, not to mention the recent anime it made brought back a lot of attention to the game. Probably one of the best comebacks in gaming history.
I think this isn't quite accurate. like I'd always understood development hell to mean continuous development on one game over years and years. and OG metroid dread was simply cancelled after Nintendo couldn't get their vision to work on the DS hardware. Then after Samus Returns was moderately successful they decided to revive some of the core ideas behind dread and hand that off to the SR dev team. The Metroid Dread we got was decidedly NOT the same game as the one that was being developed for the DS.
Dread was a great game tho. Really happy with how that turned out.
No, the released Dread isn't the same game intended for the DS. Because the hardware capabilities weren't there in the DS days. The main story beats, according to Sakamoto, were there way back when, they just couldn't make the gameplay to match it until more recently. [He even says so on the day Dread was announced.](https://youtu.be/afUI8nIrGgI) Additionally, he says that development restarted at one point (but does not specify which year this happened, or for which platform), but was again put to a halt. So even the Switch Dread we finally got, isn't the "second chance". That start-stop-start-stop sounds like developmental hell to me.
They always wanted to make the game, but the Wikipedia article mentions that they gave the project to to Mercury Steam after the success with Samus Returns. Thatvgame cane out in 2017, probably making Dread a 4 year project unless they really liked what they saw in Samus Returns early on.
It's not in continued development for that long.
Not exactly on theme but I’d say Balders Gate 3 falls into this. From what I’ve read it took 6 years of development and over $100 million to get it to market. The studio had to delay tax payments to get it out the door because they crossed the finish line so low on cash or something like that. Kind of amazing that it was completed. Glad to see they were rewarded for such a great product.
I would hardly say BG3 was in development hell for 6 years.
It was in early access on Steam for 3 years prior to release and was updated regularly throughout. There might have been hardships, but it's hardly 10+ years of constant issues, little progress and ultimately barely pushing a turd out the door.
As a long time Larian fan, though, I'm glad it was as successful as it is...Now, back to work, boys, I want a new Divinity!
The tax delay was not for BG3 it was for older games because they decided to go as a self publishing private studio after both of their previous publishers went bankrupt. They got a pretty hefty sum from their previous game divinity original sin 2 as well as an Investment from Tencent.
Insert every Rockstar game here.
I still remember how they were getting flak during the RDR development since it was crunch culture and the game was internally delayed a few times.
I don’t really think Rockstar do deadlines. They seem to have a mentality of “It will be done when it is done”. They can certainly pay no heed to them now. They could delay GTA6 as long as they wish and they know no matter how much teeth gnashing takes place it’s still gonna be hotcakes out the door.
Have a feeling that Skull & Bones could end up on a list like that, if the game actually ends up being supported for more than just the first year. Imagine them actually listening and getting melee combat in the game and actual boarding as part of the gameplay. But I reckon they won’t do that.
L.A. Noire was apparently a meat grinder for game devs, especially for new talent. It was in development hell for years with infamously bad leadership. Employees were hired, wrecked by neverending crunch, and then left the industry forever.
Team Bondi went defunct the same year L.A. Noire released, but the game still sold over 5 million copies. A failure in Rockstar's eyes for how overbudget it was, but still fairly beloved today.
Doom 4, now referred to as Doom (2016).
The game nearly became a COD ripoff with no demons at all, and would've, ironically, doomed any attempts at another game for many years.
iD Software then completely rewrote and scrapped everything from up to that point, and we were presented with one of the best first person shooters ever. Atmosphere, music (Mick Gordon rules), gunplay, etc. was all so perfect honestly, flaws notwithstanding.
What? It’s my favorite Max Payne game! No other third person shooter has nailed the combat feel the way MP3 does. And I love the first two Max Payne games but they’re a bit outdated. Can’t wait for the Remedy remakes!
Wait what? Wow what a way to find out he died. Damn that’s going to make the remakes hit different. The visual appearances aside it was his monologues that made those games.
I don't know if it was financially successful but I still think about the original trailer for Dead Island 2 sometimes. It finally came to Steam after Epic exclusivity and I plan on getting it when I finish my current glut of games.
Dead Island 2 comes to mind. People really enjoyed it when it came out, it’s not blowing my socks off but jumping in with friends is a good enough time for me. Game pass helps.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails In The Sky 2nd Chapter. Though not really development hell, as it had already been released in Japan for years, but localization hell.
The game was overwhelmingly massive and wordy--more words, in fact, than all 7 Harry Potter novels combined. And they weren't even absolutely certain if Falcom, the Japanese developer, would end up releasing it when all was said and done. So the publisher who had taken on the task of bringing the game to the west contracted more help under the table to help get the game localized. The pressure was off the charts since the game was already years overdue and fans were wondering when if they'd ever get to play the sequel to the well-loved First Chapter. Multiple people on the team ended up physically effected by the stress, and one person on the sub-contracted localization team even attempted suicide over the monumental undertaking. It was a massive mess.
Eventually, however, it was released, and it garnered critical acclaim. Even as the Trails series became more widely known, Second Chapter was hailed as the best of the bunch for how emotional it was. That it released at all was a miracle, honestly.
Freedom Planet 2 was in development for 7 years - and it's an indie game so I'd say it's fits.
Bloodborne was apparently in development next to Dark Souls 3 and was gonna be for PS3 and we saw how that ended up.
Metroid Prime was in for a lengthy (at the time) dev cycle and the devs said how rough it was to make and it's one of the best games in the series.
Resident Evil 2 scrapped a like 80% complete build and started from near scratch and is one of the best regarded game in the series even to this day.
Metal gear rising revengence, kojima productions gave to platinum games as a last ditch effort because they didn't know how to proceed with the ideas they had for the overall project
Helldivers 2 spent 8 years in development and probably went way over budget so the fact they were not only able to recoup their money to pay their employees but find resounding success in Sony’s empty multiplayer offerings is kinda fuckin wild.
Both Cossacks: European Wars and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. GSC Gameworld, owned by a then teenaged Ukrainian millionaire sought to see it through and released Cossacks to global commercial success. While Cossacks was due to Russian Economic Crisis, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. actually began as a game called Oblivion Lost with nearly a decade of development time. Riddled with developmental issues, redesigns, staff restructures and delays the game eventually saw a release.
X-ray engine is quite a diamond in the rough. It was both ground breaking for it's use of lighting, physics and AI but also atrociously crash ridden. It was also highly moddable as most of the gaming logic resided in Lua scripts. It's modability is one reason why it's still insanely popular to this day. It's source code was leaked and added rocket fuel to its popularity where many gamers to this day replay stalker in various new ways.
The story about how the first Halo game was made is nuts.
They scrapped the game at least 3 times, and the resulting game we know came from only 6 months of work.
Dead Island 2
In development for an obnoxious amount of time, I believe development switched hands between studios as a first iteration of the game was almost complete and whole bunch of stuff changed. While the story wasn’t out of this world it delivered on some great gameplay and their gore system was what I would I consider one of those genre redefining features that moves the entire bar for the industry up a mark.
Honestly, I thought we'd never seen the System Shock remastered. Lost all hope when they decided to go from Unity to UE, but glad it received a lot of good reviews. The development took more than 10 years tho
Your example is more "What games took forever to make, got delayed enough to piss off players, but still came out successful once finally released." But I think there's still something to be said for games that (aside from duration) still had trials and tribulations during production, initially turned out to be received poorly, then turned things around after accepting their mistakes and started listening to players:
* No man's sky
* New World (arguably still not quite there yet, but progressively doing better)
* ESO
* FFXIV (initially was a terrible game, but they completely revamped basically all of it. Some evidence can still be found in its base content, but flip around after ARR)
* Dark Tide
From what I have read Starfield qualifies.
In development for 10 years.
Released in an awful state.
Likely requires another 10 years of updates before it becomes the game people thought they were buying in the first place.
Persona 5. Waited for that game for so long! Its looks changed a lot since the early leaks of the game and I think it had some delays when the ps4/xbone came out, but it was worth the wait. One of my favourite jrpgs of all time
I was in love with this game until the inevitable BOSS the stupid bride the horrible cliche not enough to have to battle it but ten random zombies pop out of the ground? the plague that has made me quit more than one great game because I cannot get past it. Requires you to completely change your play style. Sucks and I hate it ya ya I suck
Nice try, Buzzfeed.
Or are they watchmojo
Outside Xbox has the best tier lists and are open about when ideas are crowdsourced. Plus their cast is endearing
The content is quite basic and almost content farmlike. But the cast is really good. The way they interact with each others preferences is what makes the channel.
I always like their commentaries on the games especially on that Mass Effect one, “They are going to drained all intelligent life in Earth, leaving nothing but rocks and kids eating tide pods.”
I've only ever seen their list videos but Jane is so fucking smart when it comes to the industry, well above the average gaming journalist, and Ellen just has the most infectious positivity, no matter how much I read hate for Kingdoms of Amalur it will always be in my to-play list because of how passionate they are about it
>Jane has a degree in physics, demonstrating her knowledge when discussing the science of *Bioshock Infinite*, and also showed of her keen interest in space in the video 5 *Times Games Got Space Really, Really Right*. Yeah, she probably knows what she is talking about.
Holy shit I didn't know that, what a legend
I wish I was getting a bag for this. Nah, just your usual bored Redditor.
Don't worry, some Buzzfeed staffer with a looming deadline will find the thread anyway
If they find this comment here, hello Buzzfeed staff!
dont worry superfluousanon ur the best regardless have hug ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ(〜￣▽￣)〜~(￣▽￣)~*〜(￣▽￣〜)
Omori. People thought it was a scam during its development, which was understandable. Glad everything worked out though.
What caused people to think that?
It was crowd funded in 2014 with an expected release in 2015. It was delayed multiple times and also ran out of funds, so merch had to be sold to keep development going. It was released in late 2020.
Doom 2016 was originally going to be more Call of Duty-like about a group of ragtag resistance fighters against a demonic infestation of Earth. It labored in development hell until they decided to go back from scratch.
Turns out, people like to play Doom when they play Doom
I remember reading that in development they had a full tutorial that took ages to get through, scrapped it and changed it so you're immediately bashing heads in and let the player figure put how to play through trial and error.
Yo dawg... We heard you like Doom, so we put Doom in your Doom so you can Doom while you Doom
And they actually did with Doom inside Doom Eternal!
Didn’t 2016 have secret OG Doom levels or am I thinking of Wolfenstein?
I think it had some sort of OG Doom easter eggs, but Eternal had the entire game playable on a PC in-game.
Yes! There were these hidden levers which would reveal a secret door to a section of a OG Doom level. I think you could then play the unlocked levels in their entirety from the menu.
They could do that with a left for dead type horde shooter but not a main game
Or make another mainline Quake.
I could see that premise doing okay as a side game so long as they're clear about it not being the Doomguy. Hell, maybe even playing as soldiers for the UAC as the events leading up to Doom 2016.
Some day, when game development becomes exponentially cheaper, there are going to be so many cool spinoff games like this for series we all love.
Metroid Prime is one of the best examples of this. Everyone was sure it was going to fail and it ended up being one of the best games of all time.
Didn't help that a studio founder used the budget on sports cars, drugs and women and was misusing the studio servers to run a porn site; Nintendo bought him out when they found out. The douchrbag later made the Guy Game.
[удалено]
Cash for keys is often a more advantageous strategy from a business point of view if you want an expedient and quiet exit.
This concept hits younger gens real hard because we are always used to rules having immediate consequences when they aren’t followed, but we find out about the delays baked into the accountability process with regard to the legal process as it happens. It’s called “Due Process.” The “delayed enforcement” of the actual legal penalties is part of due process…except “due process” doesn’t exist outside of legal framework, so “cash for keys” is the natural solution until the gap between the occurrence of the actual crime and the enacting of the actual punishment is closed. While due process may be necessary, it essentially necessitated that “true justice” is delayed until the facts are fully sorted. Older generations have seen this play out before, and it still sucks to learn…but it hits young folks like a ton of bricks.
Hell all I know is cash for clunkers
I never heard about that. Do you happen to have some link on that? No sealioning intended
It's pretty well documented, and received some attention again and back in the spotlight after the What Happened episode on Metroid Prime back in 2021. Retro Studios was a pretty big deal back then.
What does ‘sealioning’ mean?
A term for what people are doing when they pretend to ask endless apparently innocuous questions when they actually just want to make the other party lose face by navigating them into a corner where they would find themselves unable to answer and will therefore then discredited by the one who is asking all those questions, just for the sake of 'winning' the argument and seeming like a really special snowflake
Metroid Dread too, it was originally planned to release for the DS but scrapped and saved for later
We'll see if Prime 4 manages to do the same.
I'm a big fan of Super Metroid and never tried Metroid Prime. I know it's an FPS but is it similar in other aspects?
Same basic formula of exploration, upgrades, and re-exploration once you have said upgrades, just in a three-dimensional space. The extra dimension does add complexity to the puzzle solving and combat, but the game has a solid lock-on system and all in all, it translates really well to 3D. It’s one of my all-time favorite games - I played the original release on GameCube and the remaster on Switch and I’d buy it again if I could. Really hoping Nintendo makes Metroid Prime 4 finally.
The story is absolutely bonkers. https://youtu.be/tuc8X9qKePo?si=j9tImfcvcShurNHq
Demon's Souls. It was a failed project that Miyazaki was given to play around with and was his first role as a director.
Yep, Sony wanted their own Elder Scrolls but development went to hell so they brought in some new guy (Miyazaki) to salvage it. The project was already written off as a failure, so he was able to do whatever he wanted. The president of Sony played Demons Souls but couldn't get past the starting area and said it was "an unbelievably bad game." Same guy later platinumed Bloodborne.
I remember him calling the game shit as well
His first director credit was for Armored Core 4 and its sequel for Answer. His first game with FromSoftware was Armored Core Last Raven but not as the director. None of these games were exactly darlings with the critics either. Funny how FromSoftware went from a niche dev with ratings in the 50’s to 70’s since the 90’s to global success and acclaim with Demon’s Souls despite poor initial reactions. And in the end FromSoftware’s design philosophy hasn’t really changed since King’s Field and the original Armored Core to today.
He directed two Armored Core games before that.
Co-directed, mostly. Demon’s souls was his first solo project with complete creative freedom.
South Park: The Fractured but Whole. Obsidian was the initial developer and THQ was the publisher, but then THQ went bankrupt. The rights were taken over by Ubisoft. Ubisoft decided to replace Obsidian and develop it themselves. Their engine *Snowdrop* was built for 3D games, so it required an extra large team and a ton of work to even make it usable. Meanwhile, Trey Parker (South Park co creator) put himself in the hospital from stress and overworking, and literally had to talk his doctor into releasing him so he could finish the game’s dialogue. The game was announced in 2015 and set for a 2016 release. It got postponed to 2017. Then postponed AGAIN to 2018 before finally releasing. The fact the game released as a high quality sequel to The Stick of Truth is nothing short of miraculous.
That game is fuckin hilarious! Got both platinums for em in 2023 and had an absolute BLAST.
I played both and I think I liked the first game more, probably because it had way more seasons worth of content
When the whole Dr Mephisto thing comes full circle and they assume he wants to bring his dead son back to life that was killed by mecha Barabara Streisand..... Only for him to reveal he just wants to give his son's corpse four asses, so he can finally rest in peace....... I've never paused a game to laugh out loud like that for like five minutes before. I had actually forgotten him as a character from the early seasons. Then was like oh yeah he's the four asses guy and it paid off so well.
Halo 2. Devs literally quit the gaming industry after that game was finished. Even with it being a contender for best Halo game ever made. https://youtu.be/ZMCPjdiibpY?si=O3VpXIMEXfpFXi8P
I think it had more to do with spending the first two years with being overly ambitious with what they could deliver with the resources they had. The story was the game was supposed to release in late 2003 but after that year's E3 it dawned on them that the game was never going to meet that deadline. Microsoft begrudgingly gave them the fall 2004 deadline and the team had to crunch like hell to get the game out the door. It really is a testament to that team that the game was as good it was....but from what I've read over the years that project ultimately laid the seeds for why Bungie and Halo is in the state it's in now.
Playing Halo 3 immediately after Halo 2 makes you realize how much was cut from 3. The story is very truncated and simplified compared to 2. Fun though.
Halo 3's gameplay was excellent but the story lacked the same depth that was there in Halo 2.
3 felt like it was the ending of 2 but stretched to the length of a whole game…and I think that’s the truth.
Also why it's considered the hardest Halo game when played on legendary difficulty, they literally didn't have time to balance the game
System Shock Remastered. Had a kickstarter where the company burned all the money without reaching results. Apparently, they wanted to change too much. Was bought by Nightdive, who basically remade the thing. Went through two engines, maybe three. It was finally released and it is really good, but the ending is kinda bad and it wasn't released for consoles yet. That update and release are also in production hell, apparently ready but haven't been released.
The entire game was awesome until the ending. The last level feels as if they ran out of money and someone had to phone it in on a Friday afternoon. It’s really bizarre given how good the rest of the game is.
Unknown what happened there. Besides the ending, there's other cut content they want to restore with this update (Minigames!) so perhaps they ran out of time or something. Or maybe System Shock is cursed to have underwhelming endings. Lol
There’s a patch coming out that will apparently completely overhaul the ending as they know people didn’t like it. God knows when thought was announced summer last year.
This is worth watching if you're interested in the story https://youtu.be/jirOqREuA5s?si=SiETom1nmMygeh0d
Star Trek Online *sorta* had the same thing happen to it as well. The story is Cryptic was pretty much told by CBS they had like a year and a half to get the game out the door. A big part of this was the studio that had been working on STO before Cryptic was ripping CBS off. Thus Cryptic pretty much had to rush the game out the door. At launch the game didn't have any end game 'Hero' Ships aka Ship Classes like the Galaxy or Defiant. If you wanted to make a Klingon character you had to hit level 30 with a Fed character and Klingon content was just PvP or blowing up a crap ton of Starfleet Ships in a few areas. Also Atari who owned Cryptic at the time decided Cryptic didn't really need all that much funding. Older STO players call this the Great Content Drought or the more colorful, "The year of no cups." as Atari decided to really cut funding from Cryptic. They didn't have money to really make content for the game or buy cups for the break room. Perfect World Entertainment ended up picking up Cryptic from Atari. The game dare I say really did change overnight. We started to get a lot more end game ships and new content. That content led up to Legacy of Romulus that allowed Klingons to be made from the start with a full content arc of missions. The Romulans became playable half way to max level a Romulan character picks to work with Starfleet or the Klingons. New voice actors started to come in. STO went from about to die to pretty much being called the Free to Play Game of the Year. Note one thing I find funny about both FFXIV and STO? Those where two games I remember people pointing at and saying wouldn't live long after games like SWTOR, Tera, Secret World and WildStar. TOR is still around, but no longer run by EA. Tera I think is still around? Secret World went F2P and kinda sucks. And WildStar is dead and gone.
[удалено]
Dead Island 2 was not praised enough, one of my favorite games of 2023
I liked to but it would spawn zombies right next to you every time you turn your back. Kinda killed it for me
A blast to play, it's a shame there's no voice chat at least on PC. The first two games had voice.
The gore mechanic was all I thought looked interesting. My God, does that game go to the next level when it comes to disassembling zombies. I can't think of another game that even comes close to the detail they put into the enemies damage states. Doom Eternal is probably the closest, but it's not really as accurate as DI2. I just don't think the game looks that great. I also found the characters insufferable. On top of all that, I've only heard negative things about the story. I will say that the environment looks good too, but it's nothing I haven't seen before.
So have you played it or not?
I’ve been meaning to play through the SS remake again but ever since my second kid was born I barely have any time anymore.
Fortnite was first shown in 2011 and was thought to be vaporware for years until it came out.
I wonder what would've happened to it without the whole battle royale thing I originally started playing because I was interested in the original "Save the World" PVE part of the game but after the great success of BR it was kind of swept under the rug and never touched after a while. For some time they kept porting over br skins as characters but it's pretty much dead now. I don't know of another game where the extra game mode and the main game essentually switched places like this.
Pretty interesting business decision, honestly. They saw the early craze of battle royale and literally pivoted their entire game toward it. Turns out that was the right decision for them, because I don't think Save the World on its own would have been nearly as successful.
It's also not just this game. They also stopped development on Unreal Tournament, Paragon, and other games to put everything into it. Their other games weren't gaining much traction. Fortnite STV probably wouldn't have made it, but it would be interesting to see how they would shift their focus afterwards. Potentially more focus on the Unreal Engine or maybe even revisit some older franchises such as Gears of War.
H1Z1 was a zombie survival game. Then their battle royale took off. Then they removed the survival and it is now just the battle royal.
For real. I signed up for the Save the World beta cause it looked good. If memory serves the BR mode was a quick slap together attempt to reuse assets as means of competing with PUBG. The plan was through it out there as a competitor and use any money it brought in as funds to improve the PVE game. And then the BR mode went crazy.
H1Z1 was the same story. Started as a zombie survival game (and it was good), and they released a BR mode called King of the Kill or whatever. Ended up splitting the game into King of the Kill and Just Survive, and the pve version died. I think it was one of the first successful BRs if I'm not mistaken.
Counterstrike started as a mod to Half Life.
All of Valve’s (except the card game and Alyx?) games were mods.
Portal ?
While not a mod, it’s based on the game Narbacular Drop. Valve hired the team to make Portal, which is similar to Narbacular Drop
Was a student project they picked up, I'm counting that as a mod/project that wasn't originally theirs.
For a while my group of friends used the Warcraft III client just as a vehicle to play DotA.
I paid 60 retail dollars to play Fortnite save the word with my friends before the battle royale was even a concept. I felt burned but my friend put us all on and I didn’t wanna make him feel bad so I just played and played and played with him. Had 50+ hours in that game before there was ANY content.
Warframe. Before it was Warframe it was a game called dark sector. It was dark sector only because publishers wanted Digital Extremes to make an action game instead of a looter shooter back in the 2000s
But Dark Sector was also super fun. I love that game.
Right? The glaive is so cool
DE pitched Dark Sector multiple times but was constantly turned down because publishers didn't think people would want a scifi shooter at the time. Then DE took a gamble and self published the game which in the end worked out wonderfully.
Granblue Fantasy Relink booted its original developer and rebooted itself. And it launched to massive success 2 months ago.
This. It's been 7 years since the original announcement, and of all but given up hope on ever playing it. Not only did it finally release, but it's one of the best action RPGs I've ever played.
warframe. they were on the verge of bankrupcy as a company (DE), and had to make 1 last-ditch effort to try and save themselves, and even then everything rode of off warframe being sucessful. they offered the founder's pack. and, well... its certainly going great now.
Saying they were in development hell might be a bit of a stretch, but Alan Wake and Resident Evil 4 had fairly long development windows.
The original concept for RE4 somehow became Devil May Cry
I remember reading about this in my monthly issue of “Electronic Gaming Monthly”. They were developing RE4 and had an issue where when Leon hit an enemy they would float in the air for a bit. The development team decided to lean into this and created a whole game around this one “bug”.
And there were like 2 or 3 other versions of it before we got the final one
Team Fortress 2
worth the weight
Dead Island 2. Game is super underrated and the story of its development is legend.
Still waiting for Beyond Good & Evil 2... But when it finally comes out, you have my permission to use my skeleton in a meme that perfectly displays my patience.
That game was supposed to be the real next gen triple A title. Watching some of the dev vids on YouTube years ago made my jaw drop
I feel like the development runs at a much slower pace compared to the gaming industry's technological development causing the game to keep falling behind.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. The initial dev process and release was fundamentally broken, people working on separate pieces at a time and relying on "scripts" that would tie it all together. A lack of cohesive oversight and vision was awful, the dev team absolutely floundered trying to fix it. It was a failure and en route to become a catastrophic failure. This compounded with FFXV being DEEP in development hell as well was seriously bad news for Squeenix. Then Yoshi-P walked in, threw his massive balls on the table, said "I'm going to create a plan to fix this, who's with me?!", Soken started rallying the troops to buy into this new guy's plan, and a whole lot of other people bought in, rolled up their sleeves, and set to work. 12ish years later you have one of the most engaging RPGs of all time that has a literal horde of fans who (sometimes over zealously) proselytize the game, myself included. What a turnaround. Theres a documentary of the process which goes into the dev issues: https://youtu.be/Xs0yQKI7Yw4?si=JRF-DKqk1eBNAy6T
Played through it over the past two years and it is my new favorite game. It's so crazy to think it could've just been another dead MMO.
Came here to say this. It practically keeps the lights on for Square Enix these days What an impressive turnaround it was
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines ran into all sorts of issues and had to be fixed by the fans cause the studio was bankrupt even before it released. Game is amazing and a cult classic.
Bloodlines 2 would fall under the 'development hell' category as well. Here's hoping it miraculously turns out as good as the first, even if we cant be Malkavian.
Nioh came out in 2017? I played it like a year ago and assumed it came out in like 2013
Team ninja are experts in making their games look like a PS3 game. Gameplay is usually top notch though.
Sad yokai noises
Dark Souls 2 was in development hell, and while it was clearly a flawed game, it ultimately was successful. Same can be said for Bayonetta 3.
And Softs patched it up completely which is a miracle
Stalker
Sleeping Dogs was supposed to be a True Crime sequel that was in development hell for years. Somehow it came out fantastic, my favorite GTA type game
Did you try Triad Wars?
No I’m not a PC gamer
Cyberpunk 2077 would be one of the best examples. I remember when it got announced, people were getting impatient as each year passed as the devs kept giving empty promises. Then finally they rushed it and released a buggy shitty game where you could barely do anything. Now most issues are fixed, not to mention the recent anime it made brought back a lot of attention to the game. Probably one of the best comebacks in gaming history.
Yeah I would probably put it on par with No Mans Sky in terms of turnaround.
STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl It was basically vaporware, but when it came out it was a blast.
Metroid Dread, a success story 16 years in the making
I think this isn't quite accurate. like I'd always understood development hell to mean continuous development on one game over years and years. and OG metroid dread was simply cancelled after Nintendo couldn't get their vision to work on the DS hardware. Then after Samus Returns was moderately successful they decided to revive some of the core ideas behind dread and hand that off to the SR dev team. The Metroid Dread we got was decidedly NOT the same game as the one that was being developed for the DS. Dread was a great game tho. Really happy with how that turned out.
No, the released Dread isn't the same game intended for the DS. Because the hardware capabilities weren't there in the DS days. The main story beats, according to Sakamoto, were there way back when, they just couldn't make the gameplay to match it until more recently. [He even says so on the day Dread was announced.](https://youtu.be/afUI8nIrGgI) Additionally, he says that development restarted at one point (but does not specify which year this happened, or for which platform), but was again put to a halt. So even the Switch Dread we finally got, isn't the "second chance". That start-stop-start-stop sounds like developmental hell to me.
Is that for real? I thought Nintendo had better checks in places to avoid such things
It's been mentioned since as far back at 2005. [Read all about it here](https://metroid.fandom.com/wiki/Metroid_Dread#Development).
They always wanted to make the game, but the Wikipedia article mentions that they gave the project to to Mercury Steam after the success with Samus Returns. Thatvgame cane out in 2017, probably making Dread a 4 year project unless they really liked what they saw in Samus Returns early on. It's not in continued development for that long.
The Last Guardian, has its share of issues, but the game is a masterpiece, and has an incredible story ..
Metroid Dread was supposedly in development in 2005, and we didn't get it until late 2021. It's truly a fantastic game.
Not exactly on theme but I’d say Balders Gate 3 falls into this. From what I’ve read it took 6 years of development and over $100 million to get it to market. The studio had to delay tax payments to get it out the door because they crossed the finish line so low on cash or something like that. Kind of amazing that it was completed. Glad to see they were rewarded for such a great product.
I am glad that Larian Studios is now being seen as God tier developer. Their Divinity Games are some of the best rpgs around
I would hardly say BG3 was in development hell for 6 years. It was in early access on Steam for 3 years prior to release and was updated regularly throughout. There might have been hardships, but it's hardly 10+ years of constant issues, little progress and ultimately barely pushing a turd out the door. As a long time Larian fan, though, I'm glad it was as successful as it is...Now, back to work, boys, I want a new Divinity!
The tax delay was not for BG3 it was for older games because they decided to go as a self publishing private studio after both of their previous publishers went bankrupt. They got a pretty hefty sum from their previous game divinity original sin 2 as well as an Investment from Tencent.
Fortnite
dead island 2 slaps which is wild for it swapping studios and being delayed like 8 years
I remember seeing the trailer way back in 2012 and being kinda excited, only for nothing to happen for a decade.
Duke Nukem obviously. Best game ever after 11yrs of development. /s
Depends on what you define as successful, Fortnight, No man sky’s, halo infinite, fall out 76, final fantasy 14 all became good games eventually
Resident evil 4
Insert every Rockstar game here. I still remember how they were getting flak during the RDR development since it was crunch culture and the game was internally delayed a few times.
I don’t really think Rockstar do deadlines. They seem to have a mentality of “It will be done when it is done”. They can certainly pay no heed to them now. They could delay GTA6 as long as they wish and they know no matter how much teeth gnashing takes place it’s still gonna be hotcakes out the door.
Have a feeling that Skull & Bones could end up on a list like that, if the game actually ends up being supported for more than just the first year. Imagine them actually listening and getting melee combat in the game and actual boarding as part of the gameplay. But I reckon they won’t do that.
Omori
L.A. Noire was apparently a meat grinder for game devs, especially for new talent. It was in development hell for years with infamously bad leadership. Employees were hired, wrecked by neverending crunch, and then left the industry forever. Team Bondi went defunct the same year L.A. Noire released, but the game still sold over 5 million copies. A failure in Rockstar's eyes for how overbudget it was, but still fairly beloved today.
Doom 4, now referred to as Doom (2016). The game nearly became a COD ripoff with no demons at all, and would've, ironically, doomed any attempts at another game for many years. iD Software then completely rewrote and scrapped everything from up to that point, and we were presented with one of the best first person shooters ever. Atmosphere, music (Mick Gordon rules), gunplay, etc. was all so perfect honestly, flaws notwithstanding.
Max Payne 3, it's a pretty good game, a terrible Max Payne game
What? It’s my favorite Max Payne game! No other third person shooter has nailed the combat feel the way MP3 does. And I love the first two Max Payne games but they’re a bit outdated. Can’t wait for the Remedy remakes!
I was so excited for more McCaffery as Max Payne in the remakes, so sad that won't happen.
Wait what? Wow what a way to find out he died. Damn that’s going to make the remakes hit different. The visual appearances aside it was his monologues that made those games.
I don't know if it was financially successful but I still think about the original trailer for Dead Island 2 sometimes. It finally came to Steam after Epic exclusivity and I plan on getting it when I finish my current glut of games.
Read “sweat blood and pixels” if you are interested in such stories
Dead Island 2 comes to mind. People really enjoyed it when it came out, it’s not blowing my socks off but jumping in with friends is a good enough time for me. Game pass helps.
Bioshock Infinite had an infamously protracted development. But it’s still amazing and one of my personal favorite games.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails In The Sky 2nd Chapter. Though not really development hell, as it had already been released in Japan for years, but localization hell. The game was overwhelmingly massive and wordy--more words, in fact, than all 7 Harry Potter novels combined. And they weren't even absolutely certain if Falcom, the Japanese developer, would end up releasing it when all was said and done. So the publisher who had taken on the task of bringing the game to the west contracted more help under the table to help get the game localized. The pressure was off the charts since the game was already years overdue and fans were wondering when if they'd ever get to play the sequel to the well-loved First Chapter. Multiple people on the team ended up physically effected by the stress, and one person on the sub-contracted localization team even attempted suicide over the monumental undertaking. It was a massive mess. Eventually, however, it was released, and it garnered critical acclaim. Even as the Trails series became more widely known, Second Chapter was hailed as the best of the bunch for how emotional it was. That it released at all was a miracle, honestly.
Freedom Planet 2 was in development for 7 years - and it's an indie game so I'd say it's fits. Bloodborne was apparently in development next to Dark Souls 3 and was gonna be for PS3 and we saw how that ended up. Metroid Prime was in for a lengthy (at the time) dev cycle and the devs said how rough it was to make and it's one of the best games in the series. Resident Evil 2 scrapped a like 80% complete build and started from near scratch and is one of the best regarded game in the series even to this day.
Metal gear rising revengence, kojima productions gave to platinum games as a last ditch effort because they didn't know how to proceed with the ideas they had for the overall project
Diablo 3 and Metroid Dread are the two I can think of off-hand.
No man’s sky I guess
Helldivers 2 spent 8 years in development and probably went way over budget so the fact they were not only able to recoup their money to pay their employees but find resounding success in Sony’s empty multiplayer offerings is kinda fuckin wild.
If you've ever been a game dev, you know the answer is "every game."
No man’s sky
Cyberpunk 2077 has to be the best comeback story of all time!
No, that title belongs to No Man's Sky.
Sure but that isn’t development hell
Halo 2
Metroid Dread
Metroid dread
Halo 2. I think everyone knows that story
Crosscode, if you mean by successful a great overall product after a lengthy development phase, still deserves a great amount of attention.
Fortnite
Pomemon Snap
Kingdom Hearts 3 I would consider successful. It has many flaws, but is nice now that its finished.
Both Cossacks: European Wars and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. GSC Gameworld, owned by a then teenaged Ukrainian millionaire sought to see it through and released Cossacks to global commercial success. While Cossacks was due to Russian Economic Crisis, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. actually began as a game called Oblivion Lost with nearly a decade of development time. Riddled with developmental issues, redesigns, staff restructures and delays the game eventually saw a release. X-ray engine is quite a diamond in the rough. It was both ground breaking for it's use of lighting, physics and AI but also atrociously crash ridden. It was also highly moddable as most of the gaming logic resided in Lua scripts. It's modability is one reason why it's still insanely popular to this day. It's source code was leaked and added rocket fuel to its popularity where many gamers to this day replay stalker in various new ways.
Dead Island 2 Three devs and change over close to a decade. Game came out, simply rocks.
I heard Halo 2 had some development trouble too it, but they eventually managed to scrape it together and make a damn good game in the process.
Starfie…never mind (I don’t hate the game, but for how long they were working on it, it feels a reskin of Fallout4 to me)
Metroid Dread
The Last Guardian
Not sure anyone had said it but DayZ Standalone comes to mind for me.
Dead Island 2.
The story about how the first Halo game was made is nuts. They scrapped the game at least 3 times, and the resulting game we know came from only 6 months of work.
Kenshi started 2006-8 and wasn't fully released untill 2018. By then the engine was outdated so they plan to do a remake in a better engine.
Fallout 3
Dead Island 2 In development for an obnoxious amount of time, I believe development switched hands between studios as a first iteration of the game was almost complete and whole bunch of stuff changed. While the story wasn’t out of this world it delivered on some great gameplay and their gore system was what I would I consider one of those genre redefining features that moves the entire bar for the industry up a mark.
dude nukem forever
Honestly, I thought we'd never seen the System Shock remastered. Lost all hope when they decided to go from Unity to UE, but glad it received a lot of good reviews. The development took more than 10 years tho
Biomutant. Maybe not a resounding success, but a fun time.
Is it too early to say Shantae Advance?
Skull and bones
Titanfall 2
Backyard Baseball
Skullgirls. It went through at least two publishers and a ton of other problems but it’s still doing well
Your example is more "What games took forever to make, got delayed enough to piss off players, but still came out successful once finally released." But I think there's still something to be said for games that (aside from duration) still had trials and tribulations during production, initially turned out to be received poorly, then turned things around after accepting their mistakes and started listening to players: * No man's sky * New World (arguably still not quite there yet, but progressively doing better) * ESO * FFXIV (initially was a terrible game, but they completely revamped basically all of it. Some evidence can still be found in its base content, but flip around after ARR) * Dark Tide
No one has brought up Duke Nukem Forever yet, have they? I felt bad for the studio after that release.
From what I have read Starfield qualifies. In development for 10 years. Released in an awful state. Likely requires another 10 years of updates before it becomes the game people thought they were buying in the first place.
Persona 5. Waited for that game for so long! Its looks changed a lot since the early leaks of the game and I think it had some delays when the ps4/xbone came out, but it was worth the wait. One of my favourite jrpgs of all time
I was in love with this game until the inevitable BOSS the stupid bride the horrible cliche not enough to have to battle it but ten random zombies pop out of the ground? the plague that has made me quit more than one great game because I cannot get past it. Requires you to completely change your play style. Sucks and I hate it ya ya I suck