Delayed Video Games That Became Hits
For the longest time, Duke Nukem Forever was the most notorious running joke in the gaming industry. Here’s one game that was announced in 1996 and was still being “developed” ten years after. Even though the game was eventually released in 2011 it will forever become known as the game that lingered in development hell for fifteen years.
Delays are one of the biggest pitfalls in game development. Even though months-long delays in the release of the games are considered tolerable irritants for gamers, there are some games that would take years’ worth of delays before they are finally released. Games that face these long delays usually get the unfavourable image of being inferior or a bad product. If they can’t even stick to a schedule, how can they even be good, right? While some games do deserve to get this treatment from fans, some games prove the critics wrong and actually come out surprisingly high quality releases. Some of these games are:
Red Dead Redemption
Rock Star Games are known for their AAA property, Grand Theft Auto, so when the company announced in 2005 that it was going to make a sequel to a little known game they released called Red Dead Revolver, it was met with a little ambivalence. The game was going to be a western version of Grand Theft Auto. The concept raised not a few eyebrows and most of those eyebrows got glued because of the delays the game faced and its rising development cost. It was finally released in 2010 and surprised everyone for being one of the best games to come out that year.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
A relatively young game development company working out of the Ukraine announced the development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl way back in 2001. The game was going to be a first person shooter with RPG mechanics set on a very expansive game landscape. The game was met with scepticism considering that the game will be developed in a country that still hasn’t proven itself in terms of game development. It further suffered a setback when an early build of the game was leaked in 2003 and people thought it was the finished game. S.T.A.L.K.E.R was finally released in 2007 amidst significant critical and fan acclaim.
Alan Wake
This survival horror game was originally announced in 2004 but a number of personnel layoffs and various engine redesigns, among other things, resulted in the game getting delayed – six years delayed, to be exact. Everyone was expecting it to suck but it turned out for the better. Alan Wake was one of the best survival horror titles to ever come out.
Mel is a geek of many colors, being a comicbook and action figure collector, film enthusiast and music snob. He frequents Forever Geek Forum, where he’s known to speak his mind out about a lot of geek topics.
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