Development hell is where dreams go to die.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s essentially limbo for media projects in which
they sit and remain unfinished, or have no hope of progressing any further.
There have been multiple cases in the video game industry in which a highly anticipated
or hyped titled has fallen into development hell.
Some, like Cyberpunk 2077, seem to be fighting their way out of development hell, or other
titles like Fortress 2 that have proved climbing out of this limbo isn’t impossible.
Unfortunately for many other titles, that may not ever be a reality.
So today, we’re mourning our losses with our list of the top 10 hyped video games that
are stuck in development hell.
And a few that never got out.
10 Hellraid Remember Dead Island?
Well the developers behind that title, Techland, were set to create another zombie filled video
game by the name of Hellraid, but it never saw the light of day.
Back in 2014 a trailer for the game was shown off at E3, and it had some pretty serious
gothic medieval tones mixed with dark souls vibes, but in first person.
Available for single player or co-op, the trailer boasted three different modes, story,
mission and arena, with a skill tree, character customization, all that fun RPG stuff.
The whole premise was that you’d be fighting back demons and zombies to prevent an invasion
from coming out the gates of hell.
The release date of 2015 was inevitably pushed back because Techland dropped everything they
were doing in order to work on Dying Light.
It’s never been confirmed whether or not Hellraid will be released, and its current
status is on hold.
9 Prey 2 Prey 2’s development hell story is one of
the only ones on this list that actually has a happy ending.
For those of you who have followed the Prey 2 story, the game, which was meant to be a
sequel to the 2006 Prey title, was eventually cancelled, but Bethesda would later revamp
the series with a new Prey release in 2017 that took the series in a new direction.
Back in 2006 though, Prey 2 was announced by devs Human Head Studios.
The actual development didn’t begin until 2009 though, with Bethesda only formally announcing
the title in 2011, revealing that the game would go from a first person shooter to more
of an open world.
Bethesda then cancelled it in 2014.
In 2016, Bethesda would announce that that new Prey game was being developed by Arkane,
still exploring similar themes as the original title but all work that had been previously
done by Human Head Studios was completely trashed.
8 Sonic X-treme Sonic X-Treme was in development hell for
only a hand full of years; 1994 to 1997.
At the time, it was really hyped.
It was meant to be the first fully 3D Sonic game, and the first to debut on the Sega Saturn
console.
Now for context, there was a lot of crap going on at Sega after the first Sonic game was
released for the Genesis in 1991.
There was a lot of animosity between the Sega factions in Japan and America, and while the
Japanese staff were working on Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic and Knuckles, the Americans were
working on Sonic Spinball.
By the time 1994 came around, different creative heads at the Sega Technical Institute and
over at Sega in Japan were still clashing, and the development for the Sonic X-treme
game was constantly shifted.
The Sega Saturn was also becoming a priority over genesis games, and what had previously
been working on for the game for the Genesis soon became void.
Because of all of these issues, the game ended up being worked on by two different development
teams with two different game engines.
And you can imagine how well that went.
In 1996 a demo game of the title was released, but key members on both development teams
became ill, crippling their efforts, and Sega announced in 1997 that the title was cancelled.
Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast would become the first full Sonic 3D game.
7 Half Life 3 Do you really think Half Life 3 will ever
be a thing?
Likely not, but there are still a few committed fans out there who hold hope.
Back in 2008, concept art for Half Life 2: Episode 3 surfaced, and rumor had it that
Valve was working on creating a deaf character for the game.
From then on out, there was a lot of confusion about whether Valve would be releasing episode
3 or a brand never half-life game overall, a third in the series.
Between 2016 and 2017, three of the key writers for Half-Life, as well as the portal series,
left Valve, and many critics saw this as a confirmation that a third game would never
happen.
In 2017, one of those writers, Marc Laidlaw, published a short story online that plays
as Half Life fanfic; something that many speculated was actually the plot to the Episode 3 game
that never came into existence.
It’s never been flat out confirmed that Half-Life 3 is in the works, nor has it been
denied, but many fans have given up on the hope in the meantime.
6 Dead Island 2 After 2011’s Dead Island zombie video game
was released, there was talk that a sequel was in the works.
But, despite being announced at E3 in 2014, it never came.
At the time, the game was promised to take place in California, which had been quarantined
due to an outbreak of the zombie virus from the first game.
The developers who had worked on the first game, Techland yet again, ended up dropping
out, instead working on the Dying Light game.
From there, Yager Development took over, but then they also dropped the game due to Yager
and publisher Deep Silver having different views on the game’s direction.
This also led to Yager filing a law suit for insolvency in 2015.
Developers Sumo Digital then picked up the pieces back in 2016, and for the next two
years, announcements were made that the game was still in the works.
A release date has been announced for December 31st 2019, but at this point, who knows if
it’ll stick.
5 Crack Down 3 Crack Down 3 has had a long history of being
in development.
Back in 2015, Microsoft announced Dave Jones as the creative director behind the new Crack
Down game, which would be making use of a new cloud gaming technology called Cloudgine.
This is when things get a little confusing.
Later, that tech would be abandoned, and Jones would say that he was only a consultant on
the game, statin, I quote, “I wasn’t doing the development.”
By 2017, Jones was completely removed from the project, with devs Epic Games now taking
over.
In between those two years though, Microsoft had contracted a bunch of different studios
to contribute to the game.
Then in 2018 at E3, new Crack Down 3 footage was shown, starring Terry Crews.
The game’s release date has been pushed back yet again, to early 2019, apparently
to giv3e it a more favourable launch window.
Microsoft has delayed the game numerous times as well, and rumour has it that the latest
delay is reportedly the last time the company will be willing to push the title.
4 Routine Back in 2012, it was announced that an indie
space horror title Routine would be coming out in 2013.
The original trailer that was released depicted the player character wandering around through
a desolate space station, all while hiding from homicidal robots and collecting resources.
It had some serious Alien vibes, and while the development was slow, every now and then,
the devs behind it, Lunar Software, would release updates.
Gameplay footage was released in the summer of 2013, and it looked incredibly promising.
Then in 2014, the devs went quiet for six months before releasing an update that said
the game was still in development, and again in 2015, they announced they were removing
placeholder art work, tweaking and polishing.
THEN almost a full year went past before devs made a new statement about the game, saying,
I quote, “Routine is our first project as a team and while we do have some previous
experience individually this has been a huge undertaking where we have clearly underestimated
a lot of the workload.
We are happy with everything we have learnt and we are still completely committed to releasing
something that we are all proud of and hopefully something that you will all enjoy.”
Halloween of 2016 brought new updates, along with a release date and a pretty new trailer,
announcing its release for March 2017.
But that didn’t work out either, with the devs announcing that they were working through
issues with the games multiple endings, and for all of 2017, there was radio silence.
The last statement concerning the game was a bit vague, appreciative towards fans for
still remembering that Routine was in the works, and admitting that the devs have had
their own personal issues throughout the past recent while.
For now, they plan on remaining silent until the game is 99% complete.
3 Beyond Good and Evil 2 There are a lot of people out there who have
high hopes for Beyond Good and Evil 2.
The game, a sequel to the early 2000s ubisoft cult classic, has been in the works for over
a decade now.
Rumours have been flying around for years; the sequel, which had initially been shut
down because of the lack of commercial success the first game had, was rumoured to be in
the works in 2007, and then in 2009 a leaked trailer appeared online.
At the 2017 E3, a new cinematic trailer was released for the game, promising that the
game was now out of development hell and moving forward.
The 2018 E3 was more promising; we got to see some gameplay footage, which looked stunning.
But the devs also announced a new initiative with Joseph Gordon Levitt’s collaborative
online community that encouraged users to submit and create art assets for the game
to use in its massive open world.
Some people are still skeptical that the game will see the light of day.
But the latest hype around it seems promising.
2 Star Citizen It’s hard to really confirm or deny whether
Star Citizen is in development hell.
One thing for sure though is that the game is seemingly nowhere near a release date.
Star Citizen is a PC title from developers Cloud Imperium Games.
It’s a massive multiplayer game that so far has been funded by a kickstarter campaign.
Boasting space exploration, trade and combat, the game was originally planned for 2014,
but since has been delayed because of how massive an undertaking it has been, along
with the addition of more and more game features.
In the meantime, they’ve released a single player story driven game set in the same universe
called Squadron 42.
Regardless, if the game is ever completed and released, it’ll be absolutely mind blowing.
And while it seems hopefully, the immensity of detail that seems to be going into it could
mean that full game won’t see the light of day for at least several more years down
the road.
1 Agent Agent is one of Rockstar’s most highly anticipated
titles that fans of the developer have been begging for for a long, long time.
Agent is a stealth action game meant to be an exclusive for the Playstation, set in the
70s during the Cold War.
According to Rockstar, it would take players into, I quote, “the world of counter-intelligence,
espionage and political assassinations.”
Whether or not the game is still in the works is a mystery, and most involved at Sony or
Rockstar defer questions about it.
The last anything official was heard of the game, Take Two interactive had re-registered
trademarks for the game in 2013.
In 2017, concept art was allegedly leaked online, along with concept art for a second
Bully game, although it was never confirmed if this concept art was actually
There we have it friends!
Which of these games do you have hope for still?
What other games in development hell have been making you a sad panda?
Let us know in those comments below!
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