The most delayed games

[electricmastro]

Just for fun, tried making a list of the games that were delayed for the longest, but still ended up getting released, based on the time between development starts/first announcements and official releases:

 

Swordquest: Airworld - 39 years
Clockwork Aquario - 29 years
American Hero - 26 years
Star Fox 2 - 24 years
Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution - 22 years
Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar - 20 years
Chip's Challenge 2 - 18 years
Metroid Dread - 16 years
Black Mesa - 16 years
Duke Nukem Forever - 14 years
Nioh - 13 years
Limbo of the Lost - 12 years
Mother 3 - 12 years
Return to Dark Castle - 12 years
Diablo III - 11 years
Prey - 11 years
Skull and Bones - 11 years
Kirby's Return to Dream Land - 11 years
Final Fantasy XV - 10 years
The Kore Gang: Outvasion from Inner Earth - 10 years
Dead Island 2 - 9 years
Doom 4 - 9 years
The Fool and His Money - 9 years
Kingdom Hearts III - 9 years
The Last Guardian - 9 years
Toki Remake - 9 years
Too Human - 9 years
Owlboy - 9 years
Spore - 8 years
System Shock Remake - 8 years
Team Fortress 2 - 8 years
Cube World - 8 years
Cyberpunk 2077 - 8 years
Dark Sector - 8 years
Paprium - 8 years
Persona 5 - 8 years
Pikmin 4 - 8 years
Red Dead Redemption 2 - 8 years
Super Meat Boy Forever - 8 years
Dreamfall Chapters - 7 years
L.A. Noire - 7 years
One Must Fall: Battlegrounds - 7 years
Resident Evil Zero - 7 years
Anthem - 7 years
Cuphead - 7 years
I Am Alive - 7 years
Mafia II - 7 years
The Talos Principle 2 - 7 years
Battlecruiser 3000AD - 7 years

 

Let me know if I missed anything.

Edited March 29 by electricmastro

[roots.genoa]

One of the first games I backed on Kickstarter was Asylum, and it was supposed to be released in December 2013. It's still being worked on (even though we haven't got any updates for a while - the latest one was January 1st). So you might add it to your list one day. 😅

[Tanooki]

The most depraved amusement I'm getting out of this was half through reading the title Duke Nukem came to mind, but it's not that...but the fact it's not even shockingly in the Top 10 anymore thanks to revelations over the this year, or in fairness console cycle.  Shantae's lost completed GBA game edged it into 11, no one saw that coming at all.  And shockingly a Nintendo game (Metroid Dread) and Starfox 2 (WTF right?) made the list above it, with SF2 even in the top 5.

 

I do question are some of these though fair to put on the list?  Was like Diablo 3 really planned and delayed over a decade?  And Kirby's Return toe Dreamland?  That's dubious, I get it was first thought up for a GC game, but it never took form until later so is that a gimme?

 

What about the generously amazing finds from the anals of lost media that Eli discovered and released under his Piko Interactive company?  40 Winks N64 was finished, canned...that rotted for like what 15-20 years.  If you go through that ones backlog, Dorke and Ymp was a lost SNES game from the mid 90s that only was finalized and released after the maker died in 2015 for sale.  The (in the day) well wanted Tyrannosaurus Tex, a FPS for GBC is another and  I could list more, but if you just ctrl+f search for 'unreleased game' on the wiki page of their releases there's a few that were advertised, given dates, then ghosted until he bought them up and dug up the corpses and re-animated them for release.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piko_Interactive

[roots.genoa]

7 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I do question are some of these though fair to put on the list?  Was like Diablo 3 really planned and delayed over a decade?  And Kirby's Return toe Dreamland?  That's dubious, I get it was first thought up for a GC game, but it never took form until later so is that a gimme?

In that case, a game like Metroid Dread shouldn't be listed. The game that was released hadn't much to do with the original DS game, and the development probably halted before restarting from scratch (except maybe the storyline and some ideas). Same for Mother 3. But it's amusing though.

[electricmastro]

7 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I do question are some of these though fair to put on the list?  Was like Diablo 3 really planned and delayed over a decade?  And Kirby's Return toe Dreamland?  That's dubious, I get it was first thought up for a GC game, but it never took form until later so is that a gimme?

Development reportedly started in 2001, but got delayed because of World of Warcraft.

 

“Development on Diablo III began in 2001 when Blizzard North was still in operation, and the game was announced on June 28, 2008, at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris, France. The original artistic design differed from that shown at Blizzard Worldwide Invitational 2008 demonstration, and had undergone three revisions before reaching the standards felt necessary by the team behind Diablo III.”

 

“A trailer for the former famously has Tychus Findlay saying, "Hell. It's about time." To put this into context, after the release of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction in June 2001, Blizzard would release Warcraft-related games exclusively for the next 9 years, until the aforementioned Wings of Liberty.”

[electricmastro]

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

In that case, a game like Metroid Dread shouldn't be listed. The game that was released hadn't much to do with the original DS game, and the development probably halted before restarting from scratch (except maybe the storyline and some ideas). Same for Mother 3. But it's amusing though.

Yep, either the info is relevant to Metroid Dread’s development history, or it isn’t. Metroid Dread had also been announcened in some magazines in 2006 I recall, with Hitoshi Sakimoto being involved throughout it all.

 

I’m not saying Metroid Dread 2006 is the same as Metroid Dread 2021, but if it’s relevant, then that’s enough for me. lol

Edited March 30 by electricmastro

[Tanooki]

6 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

In that case, a game like Metroid Dread shouldn't be listed. The game that was released hadn't much to do with the original DS game, and the development probably halted before restarting from scratch (except maybe the storyline and some ideas). Same for Mother 3. But it's amusing though.

I agree.  I don't think it deserves the dating but I just grabbed some stuff for that post.  It was just a random fart in the wind of a note within a Prime game, and it caused fanboy speculation.  At some point later ignoring and denying it for years, they started to maybe on some computer started a document or maybe sketched a few ideas that also wasn't even a real 'start' so you have to kind of guess at it since Nintendo won't ever likely say.  Mother 3 definitely would be one, I mean, most fanboys who lose it over the franchise will conflate it with Earthbound 64 that I think started on N64, then went on to the DD, to then twice fail those ...rot in hell for years, then was demade/finished into a 2D title on the GBA in the 00s.  I really don't buy into that crap in the slightest.  Maybe some concepts were lifted from a failed project/pair of projects which happens often with other media, but the delay time on that isn't touching reality at all.

[roots.genoa]

The problem with most recent games is that they were (probably) not supposed to be released the year they were announced anyway. Which was not the case for a game like Clockwork Aquario for instance, since games took less than a year to develop at the time.

 

So regarding Diablo III indeed, I think 11 years is a little excessive, but to be fair I'm not sure they ever announced a release date. Same with most Nintendo games; Metroid Prime 4 was clearly delayed many times but they never announced any release date technically, so you can't say how much precisely.

[electricmastro]

15 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

So regarding Diablo III indeed, I think 11 years is a little excessive, but to be fair I'm not sure they ever announced a release date. Same with most Nintendo games; Metroid Prime 4 was clearly delayed many times but they never announced any release date technically, so you can't say how much precisely.

It was still being developed as far back as 2001 (a source I just found claims 2000). Understanding that, nothing can really change the fact that the development history is in truth over 10 years, so that’s relevant enough to me to put on the list, despite how different the game may have turned out in 2012:

 

“Diablo III began development at Blizzard North in 2000, and continued until the studio closed in 2005. An almost entirely new development team took over at Blizzard Irvine in 2005, and the game they created is what we know today and what the rest of this wiki covers.

 

Few elements of the original Blizzard North version of Diablo III were retained, and no one working at Blizzard has given any details about why the original game was scrapped or which elements were retained in the new version. Even the ex-Blizzard North employees have had little to say on the matter, whether out of professional courtesy, loyalty to old friends at Blizzard, or fear of Blizzard's lawyers.

 

There was never any announcement that Diablo III was under production until the game's debut at the WWI Paris event in June 2008. After that time, the new Diablo III team admitted that the game was under production back at Blizzard North in the early 00s, but they've never given any details about what that version of the game was like.” - https://www.diablowiki.net/Diablo_III:_Blizzard_North_version

[roots.genoa]

It's perfectly OK if you count the development time for each game. I just assumed you measured the delay time (the delay between the original planned release date and the real one) since it's about delayed games. But as long as you use the same rule for every game, I don't mind of course.

[BassGuitari]

It probably shouldn't count since it was actually two separate games by two different developers that just have the same title, but it took 12 years from first announcement to get a game called Aliens: Colonial Marines.

 

It was not worth the wait.

[zzip]

Is it really a delayed game if the development was cancelled and then the project was picked up years later by a different team of people?  I.E. Swordquest Airworld.   Feels more like a homage, it's not even the same platform.  Several other games on the list probably would be in the same boat.

 

To me a delayed game is one that falls into development hell,  but is still being actively developed and suddenly against all odds it gets released.

Edited April 1 by zzip

[electricmastro]

On 4/1/2024 at 3:15 AM, roots.genoa said:

It's perfectly OK if you count the development time for each game. I just assumed you measured the delay time (the delay between the original planned release date and the real one) since it's about delayed games. But as long as you use the same rule for every game, I don't mind of course.

Yeah, I think I should admit upfront right now that I’m not that good with wording things. lol

 

If someone can better word this to me in such a way that I can keep games like Swordquest: Airworld, Clockwork Aquario, and American Hero on there, because they seem to fall under similar circumstances to begin with, then it would be appreciated.

[CatPix]

I think "delayed games" works well, but maybe you could exclude games that spent time in development hell? Games that were simply cancelled then someone years later released them are very different and tell a different story than games stuck in development hell.

For example, we know Duke Nukem Forever changed 3D engine, so there is probably little code remaining from the early years. Some games (especially sequels) may be announced, then scrapped, then a new one made under the same title. But are they even the same game if nothing was retained from the previous work?

For example, if (big if XD ) Valve releases a Half-Life 3, it will probably be totally different from what they worked on between 2013 and 2014. So if they ever make a Half-life 3, would you consider that this first iteration is part of it or totally disconnected? The story will probably retain elements, but after all it's the point of a sequel.

[Ankos]

The English release of the first game in the Mother series could be called delayed in the same way that Starfox 2 is. Cancelled and then resurrected. I guess that's technically just a version of the game that got delayed though

[Tanooki]

41 minutes ago, Ankos said:

The English release of the first game in the Mother series could be called delayed in the same way that Starfox 2 is. Cancelled and then resurrected. I guess that's technically just a version of the game that got delayed though

You're correct, and even if that strangely wouldn't deserve credit which would be wrong, in Japan Mother 1+2 also got a JP GBA release as well in the earlier-mid 2000s.