Most AAA games don’t take very long to develop before being released. However, there are also games with the longest development times that cause cancer.
In this content Games with longest development time and we’ll take a look at their stories. They pushed our patience to the limit until almost all of them were released.
Games with the Longest Development Times in the Video Game World
In just 50 years, video games have grown from a small hobby industry to one of the most profitable entertainment industries in the world. While many smaller games, especially early in the medium’s history, were developed in just a few months, most modern games take at least two or three years to create.
Unfortunately for fans waiting for new games and developers stuck on the same project for years, some games get stuck in developmental purgatory. Many problematic games are canceled to transfer resources to more promising work, while others allow developers to finish what they started.
Darkfall Online (8 years)
Due to the amount of content required to keep an MMO afloat, any game that plans to host a massively multiplayer gaming experience will likely take several years longer to develop than most. Even so, Darkfall Online took an incredible amount of time to launch.
Games with the Longest Development Times in the Video Game World
For some reason, despite such a long development cycle, Darkfall Online failed to deliver on most of its promises upon launch. Despite its buggy release in 2009, the MMO has remained a moderately popular title among fans of the genre.
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Spore (8 years)
If you’ve ever wanted to control the entire evolutionary and industrial process of a species, 2008’s Spore might scratch that itch. While many games like The Sims give you complete control over entire civilizations, Spore gave players almost unparalleled control.
Although Spore, like almost all the games on this list, didn’t launch when its developers planned, the game did launch to strong reviews. Although it received a Metacritic score of 84 from critics, fans on the review aggregation site gave the game a disappointing score of 5.4, disdaining its simplified mechanics and restrictive DRM settings.
The Last Guardian (9 years)
Development of The Last Guardian began shortly after the launch of the PS3 console. Although Sony showed the game as early as 2009, the game was delayed so many times that it wasn’t released until midway through the PS4’s lifecycle in 2016.
Games with the Longest Development Times in the Video Game World
Fortunately for the studio, the action-adventure game was released to critical acclaim. Metacritic lists an impressive thirteen critic reviews that gave the game a 100, a testament to the long-awaited game’s artistic merit. Even fans on Metacritic, which is notorious for giving low scores, were generous enough to give the game a score as high as 8.0 on the site.
Too Human (9 years)
Halo: Combat Evolved’s abandonment of Mac or Mighty No. While there have been other games announced for a system before withdrawing support, such as 9 dropping handhelds from their platforms, few games have experienced the roller coaster that Too Human has seen.
Although Too Human initially set its sights on the original PlayStation console, its developer soon partnered with Nintendo. The game remained in development hell for several years until Silicon Knights began collaborating with Microsoft. The Xbox 360 exclusive was panned by critics, achieved mediocre sales, and planned sequels were never developed.
Team Fortress 2 (9 years)
Following the popularity of the fan-made Quake mod Team Fortress, Valve recruited the mod’s creators to begin developing a full-fledged game. Team Fortress 2 was shown to the public as early as 1999, just a year after the developer duo joined Valve.
Games with the Longest Development Times in the Video Game World
However, after a delay in 2000, it received little mention until another release in 2006; the two leaders worked on other projects, slowing down the release of the long-awaited game. When TF2 finally emerged from the vaporware phase upon its release in 2007, the game proved to have staying power; thirteen years later, Valve’s hit remains one of the most popular games on Steam.
Final Fantasy XV (10 years)
The Final Fantasy series has had as much staying power in the gaming world as almost any other franchise since the first game in 1987. With fifteen main titles plus countless spin-offs, it would take countless hours to complete the entire series.
Development for Final Fantasy XV began in 2006 as Final Fantasy Versus XIII. The game was delayed multiple times until it made its way to its target platforms: PS4 and Xbox One. Eventually, the title evolved into Final Fantasy XV as the project was rebooted. Surprisingly, the decade it took for this game wouldn’t be the longest in the series; The FF7 remake was released as a tech demo in 2005 and won’t begin its episodic release until later this year.
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Prey (11 years)
Released in 2006, survival horror game Prey was subject to numerous problems, delays, and revisions after it began development in 1995. The game was eventually released after eleven years of struggle, partly due to problems arising from the nature of the portals used to traverse the game world.
In addition to its long development time and some innovative first-person shooter mechanics, Prey is also notable for having a Native American hero. Although there were concerns about stereotypical portrayals prior to release, the game was praised for its representation; Tommy Tawodi is considered one of the best Native American heroes in video games.
Diablo III (11 years)
The popular RPG Diablo III began development in 2001 under the Blizzard North studio. After the success of the first two games in the series, Blizzard had high expectations for the next sequel. Unfortunately, the game was doing so poorly that Blizzard decided to shut down the studio.
Despite some issues at launch, the 2012 version received high praise from critics. Eventually ported to PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Switch, Diablo III had one of the highest ratings and highest sales of all the games on this list.
Mother 3 (12 years)
Mother 3, the sequel to the Japan-only Mother and the worldwide Mother 2 (better known to international audiences as EarthBound), is officially available only in Japan. While the developers initially hoped to release the game for the Super Famicom, technical limitations shifted the target towards the Nintendo 64, the 64DD peripheral only in Japan, and the Gamecube.
After years of problems, the developers shifted their attention to releasing for the Game Boy Advance, and the game would eventually be released in 2006 after the team decided to return to 2D graphics.
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Duke Nukem Forever (15 years)
The saga of the ’90s action hero has three claims to fame. Duke Nukem Forever is not only the game with the longest development time, but also the most aptly named. The game, which took a decade and a half to finally be released, included the word “forever” in its name.
Perhaps the most unfortunate of Duke Nukem Forever’s “accolades” is that it took so long for such a poorly rated game. Its Metacritic score for PC is just 54. Unfortunately, PS3 and Xbox 360 scored even more pitifully.