8 Amazing Video Games That SURVIVED Development Hell

Clearly I need more coffee. That's the problem, isn't it? All right, you little demons, Jules here for WhatCulture.com, back again with another episode of the awesomely named and awfully hosted Choose Your Own Adventure, the weekly medieval themed format where I, the Crown Jules of WhatCulture.com, take a list chosen by you. Yes, you, the person who has unfortunately got some pretty devastating news to tell you. As of about 10 minutes before I started recording this episode, my girlfriend, the lovely and wonderful Kerry, informed me that a giant pigeon flew into, I can confirm that Big Pidge, what up Big Pidge, who now has a comical bandage over his head, is flying. He's just got the wrong house. It's why you shouldn't drink and fly. Yes, you get to decide what list I'd like to each and every week, and this is what we have none other to thank than Ro-teh-ski-teh-five-ski for their amazing suggestion of amazing video games that somehow, despite all the odds, survived development hell. And here's the thing, making video games, it's a big project, and it's not uncommon to hear stories of games that go on for years in development, sometimes even decades, and when they enter that sort of sweet spot, they go into what we call development hell, where because of issues with publishers, of funding, of just people dying, that happens quite a lot, things change a lot around the project, meaning that it just gets delayed upon delayed upon delayed, and usually that's where they stay, just in development hell, and they're just crossed off a big spreadsheet that just says, yeah, sorry about that. However, sometimes they come through the other side. Most of them are rubbish, but these games that we're talking about today, they not only survived development hell, but were absolutely and utterly amazing. So let's talk about them, because I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are eight amazing video games that survived development hell. And you know the drill by now, put your suggestions for next week's episode down in the comments section below, and let's get on with the list, shall we? By talking about number eight, Resident Evil 4. Richard Nixon presents Resident Evil. That's my new vocal stim, cool. Now, Resident Evil 4 spent an entire six years in development, which back at the turn of the century was an absolute eye sage, especially as the first three entries in the survival horror series were put out in half that time. But the fourth instalment went through a staggering five iterations before finally hitting the stores in 2005, with one discarded prototype even going on to become Devil May Cry. You might have heard of it, Devil May Cry. Now, during this period, numerous directors were shuffled in and out of the project until the first game's director, Shinji Mikami, stepped in to deliver the final realised product. And with Capcom threatening to put the series on ice if Resident Evil 4 underperformed, Mikami took many a bold swing here, shifting the focus from pure horror to action-horror hybrid, introducing an over-the-shoulder camera, and shifting the mayhem to rural Spain. It was a massive gamble, but Resident Evil 4 ultimately went on to become a massive critical and commercial success, remaining the series' high point to this very day and proving massively influential on the survival horror genre ever since. So yeah, in short, pretty bloody good. South Park The Fractured But Whole South Park The Fractured But Whole proves beyond any doubt that even the most obvious slam-dunk sequel can run afoul of devastating unforeseen issues. Though a sequel to Obsidian's 2014 hit RPG South Park The Stick of Truth was quickly given the green light, things fell apart after THQ went, uh, bankrupt in 2012. Ubisoft then acquired the rights to the series and switched development from Obsidian to Ubisoft San Francisco. The new team redesigned the original gameplay format in their bespoke Snowdrop engine, and because South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker were intensely involved in development, production was subjected to delays because of their busy schedules. Production was frantic enough that Trey Parker even left the hospital while still recovering from gallbladder removal surgery to record more lines of dialogue for the game. That's dedication. But even so, it was delayed almost a year beyond its original 2016 December release date, but the long wait ultimately proved worth it as The Fractured But Whole served up a riotous superhero parody that significantly improved the gameplay from its predecessor. Now let's talk about Metroid Dread. A sequel to 2002's much-loved Metroid Fusion was first conceived in the mid-2000s, with the intent to release on Nintendo's new handhold, at the time, the Nintendo DES. However, development stalled in the years that followed largely due to the technical limitations of the date alias itself, with producer Yoshiro Sakamoto feeling pretty unhappy with the progress there, and so Metroid Dread was effectively put on ice. It wasn't until the release of the Switch that Sakamoto was convinced that the technology was finally there to do Dread justice, and in 2021 the game's revival was officially announced, shocking fans who'd actually long since given up on it. I mean, you're just going along your day, you've just gone to the Bureau de Change, you've bought yourself a jelly deal on a pork pie because you're in the UK, and you're just going, what's all this then, governor? Metroid Dread's back, what? This is a newspaper, by the way, it's not me just grabbing a nearby person and shaking them, although that could also be an expression of how excited you are. Come here, lover! Metroid Dread's on its way! Oh, what's Metroid Dread, love? I'll tell you what for! Anyway. Now the real triumph, of course, is that Metroid Dread received rave reviews for its ingenious level design and outstanding, fluid gameplay, which managed to both pay tribute to its predecessor but update the formula for modern tastes. As such, Dread went on to become the best-selling game in the entire Metroid franchise, and you know what? Rightly so. Now let's talk about Fez. Development hell isn't limited to the realms of AAA franchises. It also regularly happens to indie games created by as few as one or two people. Case in point, the iconic 2012 platformer Fez was actually announced by designer Phil Fayish five years earlier in 2007. Five years. Soon, realising that he needed a second pair of hands, he recruited Renoir Bedard to handle the programming. The years that followed saw the experienced Fish and Bedard experiment with ideas, in turn burning through a Canadian government loan provided for development, before Quebecian developer publisher Trapdoor stepped in and rescued the game from cancellation. This wasn't the end of the turmoil, though. Fish became embroiled in a legal dispute with his former business partner, causing development to further drag on and on and on, until finally it released in April 2012. But Fez wasn't merely a good or even great game, it was a generational puzzle platformer, which remains an extremely important fixture in the indie gaming revolution of the early 2010s. It's just a damn shame that Fez 2 was cancelled over a Twitter beef, of all things. What could have been, eh? What could have been? Team Fortress 2. Now, the sheer mention of Team Fortress 2's strained development kind of sent a psychic ripple of pain through the original FPS's entire fanbase, because my god was this painful. In 1998, Team Fortress Classic developers John Cook and Robin Walker were hired by Valve to develop Team Fortress 2, which was initially intended to be an expansion to the original Half-Life. Catch up. Team Fortress 2 was originally introduced in 1999 as a modern war shooter, but in the years that followed, Valve cycled through various versions of the game, and none of which really they were satisfied with. As Walker and Cook were moved on to other Valve projects, most fans believed that the game was just vaporware, with the media often derisively comparing it to the long-delayed at the time Duke Nukem Forever. Valve finally re-announced Team Fortress 2 in 2006, to the shock of many, and though its cartoonish visual style definitely ruffled some feathers, ultimately the game released in 2007 to rave reviews, and became one of the most popular multiplayer shooters, and say it with me big pitch, ooh that does look sore actually, OF ALL TIME You should probably go to the doctor mate, that bump looks bad. And it laid the groundwork for the hero shooter that we know today. Conker's Bad Fur Day Few games have changed more throughout their development history than Conker's Bad Fur Day, which started out as an almost totally different game altogether. Originally a cute family-friendly game in the vein of Banjo-Kazooie called 12 Tales Conker 64, this version was ultimately scrapped after the developers felt like it was too similar to the long line of generically colourful N64 adventure games that were being churned out at the time. The team instead took a bold pivot to reinvent Conker as an edgier, more adult-skewing title packed with dark humour, profanity and parodies of classic Hollywood films. The game was effectively rebuilt from scratch with new level design and a darker visual style, while pushing the N64 to its absolute technical limit. This all ensured that by the time that Conker's Bad Fur Day finally released in 2001, the project had been in development for 5 years and the N64 was actually nearing the end of its life. As a result Conker wasn't a commercial success, but it was one hell of a swan song for the N64. Hilarious, insanely fun to play and basically like nothing else being made at the time. Doom 2016 2016's fourth Doom game didn't arrive until 12 years after the release of Doom 3, with id Software spending many years developing different versions of Doom 4 that were all eventually scrapped. The most famous of these is the Call of Duty inspired first person shooter set on Earth, with gameplay mechanics such as regenerating health, cover shooting and scripted set pieces. Gross. By 2011, after 3 years of development, id and Bethesda decided that they'd strayed way too far from the original vision of Doom, and so just tossed this version out completely. They then set about delivering a modern day reinvention of Doom that stayed much more true to its frantic, fast paced origins. But even when Doom 2016 was revealed, many tempered their expectations, which was unaided by the fact that Bethesda held back review copies until release day. But 2016's Doom went on to receive shocking acclaim from critics and fans alike for its face melting action and gorgeous visuals, in turn bringing the classic FPS franchise back to serious prominence and giving us all a chance to learn the true meaning of Bane Slayer. And finally, let's talk about Half Life 2. So yeah, we gotta talk about a game whose hellish development is legendary in the annals of gaming lore, and that is Half Life 2. It sure didn't help that Valve's Gabe Newell tasked his development team with making a sequel that redefined the first person shooter, just like, do that again, but better lads. In addition to the inherent pressure of producing a sequel worthy of one of the most beloved games ever made, in addition to all of the new technology that had to be built to realise the game's physics defying action, Valve also suffered a catastrophic code leak, leading to an unfinished version of the game being released online. However, this was Half Life 2, so it was very different, in the sense that that was a good game. But unfortunately, this leak definitely crushed morale at the company and forced large portions of the game to be reworked, causing extensive delays until Half Life 2 was finally released in late 2004 after 5 years of work. But Valve's hard graft paid off, as the end product is basically the textbook example of an incredibly ambitious sequel that quite arguably exceeds the achievements of its predecessor. And remember, we're talking about Half Life that it had to beat. That ain't easy. And there we go, my friends. Those were 10 amazing video games that survived development hell. Hope you enjoyed that and let me know what you thought about it down in the comments section below. As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on my socials where I'm at RetroJ but the O is a zero on Instagram and BlueSky for my lovely and ever patient editor Sy over on her social medias here, my friends. But before I go, I just want to say one thing. First off, please put your suggestions for next week's episode down in the comments section below. And also, I hope you treat yourself well, my friend, because we spoke today a lot about games that were stuck in development hell. And sometimes we too can feel like that ourselves. We can feel like we're going through the motions, we're in a bit of a rut. But you know what I usually find helps me get out of that and put a bit of life back in my, well, life? It's usually just by stepping away from the things that cause me the stress and strains to get a bit of perspective, to maybe go and do something a bit different, maybe just exercise the body, just free up a bit of space for the mind or do something different, plan a trip, something that I can look forward to that helps push me forward out of the doldrums a little bit. And I hope that that advice maybe helps a few of you. But just remember above all else, just be kind to yourself. If you're stuck in a rut and going through the motions a bit like that, it's not always going to be your fault, is it? Sometimes it's just the world putting pressure on us. So don't beat yourself up and things like that. All right, be kind to yourself. Please, I implore you. It's the only thing I ever ask. Well, that, and I guess that you tune in and watch these silly videos from time to time. Deal? Deal. Okay. As always, I've been Jules. You have been awesome. Never forget that. I'll speak to you soon. Bye.