Games That Spent The Longest Time In Development

While many fantastic games, especially in the indie sphere, can be made in impressively short amounts of time, that’s not the case with quite a lot of games. Like many good things in life, great video games might take a lot of work, sweat, love, tears, and most importantly, time to make.

Some games, however, take way longer to develop than most would expect—and some of these turn out to not be great at all. It’s time to take a look at games made by titans of the industry that still took way longer than expected to make—many of them at a time when games were expected to take a lot less time to release.

6

The Last Guardian

Over 8 years in Development

After the massive critical and commercial success of Shadow Of The Colossus, one of the greatest games in the history of the PS2, one would expect Team ICO’s follow-up on the PS3 to come out quickly, but that just wasn’t on the cards. It took so long, in fact, that The Last Guardian skipped an entire generation only to finally release on the PS4.

The Last Guardian might be Team ICO’s most divisive title, but it’s also the most gorgeous and boldest of the three. Some players had trouble dealing with Trico, an AI creature that behaves unpredictably, just like a wild creature would, but there’s much to enjoy here by both newcomers and the more mature fans of the developer.

5

Team Fortress 2

9 years in Development

Though it fell off the map due to Valve’s shifting focus, Team Fortress 2 is the biggest inspiration for massive hero shooter titles such as Overwatch, and was once one of the most popular games in the world. Team Fortress 2 began as a mod for the original Quake—even before the release of the first Half-Life—then took its time growing and ultimately scrapping most of what had been done before to eventually create the game that so many know and love.

Ironically, what ended up becoming arguably the most humorous shooter in gaming history began its life as a very serious tactical military shooter in the vein of what would become Counter-Strike. That’s what nearly one decade of development can do to a game.

4

Final Fantasy 15

10 years in Development

Final Fantasy 16 took over 7 years to develop and release, but that still wouldn’t be the crown jewel of Square Enix’s slow game-making process. Final Fantasy 15 came out in 2016, but it began life so long before then that it even had a different name. Final Fantasy 15 began life as Final Fantasy Versus 13, a game that was meant to be part of Fabula Nova Crystallis, aka. the world of Final Fantasy 13. As Final Fantasy 13(5 years in development, while we’re at it) failed to get the same love from fans as many of the previous games in the series, FF15 became its own, complicated thing.

Final Fantasy 15 got a divisive response from critics and fans alike, as it’s very clear that the game is an imperfect mix of various differing ideas, likely remnants of what scaffolding was there before combined with what it the game wound up being. FF15 is messy, but it remains a beautifully unique and sometimes incredibly immersive and emotional experience where most gamers will find at least something to like.

3

Duke Nukem Forever

Over 14 years in Development

Duke Nukem Forever infamously holds the top spot in the minds of many gaming fans and historians as the game that took the longest to be released. Over 14 years is a long time, especially when the end result isn’t great.

Though the 14-year development cycle isn’t exactly accurate, as the developers scrapped and remade the game from the ground up a few times, Duke Nukem Forever still holds the Guinness World Record for the game with the longest development period. That said, some other games that are yet to come out have already beaten that time.

2

Star Citizen

13 years in Development and Counting…

Star Citizen began development after a very successful Kickstarter campaign that started in the early 2010s. The game that promised players both sprawling space exploration, ship-to-ship battles, and even a uniquely epic single-player campaign called Squadron 42 has already released a lot of playable content, but is yet to achieve most of the things it promised, all the while still making a lot of money off of its fans.

They say time is money, so, on top of the nearly 14 years in development, Star Citizen has also raked in over $800 million from crowdfunding and in-game purchases, which—if converted into time units—would very easily make it the longest development time for a game ever. There is, however, a game that is yet to come out that has the crown when it comes strictly to time units.

1

Beyond Good & Evil 2

Over 17 years in Development

• Over 17 years in development.

The original Beyond Good & Evil might just be Ubisoft’s greatest sleeper hit. Though it failed to reach the sales heights of titles such as the Assassin’s Creed series, the original immediately captured the hearts of all critics and the relatively small number of people who played it. Still, knowing they had the potential to pull off a bigger sequel after extremely positive word of mouth, Ubisoft released a small CG teaser in 2008 for what would be Beyond Good & Evil 2.

That’s pretty much all that players got for nearly a decade, before the game resurfaced with an extremely promising gameplay trailer that showed a new protagonist free-roaming in a massive city populated by futuristic flying cars. It looked amazing—and still does today—but that would, once again, be the last players would see from Beyond Good & Evil 2 for a long while. Eeven with serious shakeups at Ubisoft that caused the original director to drop out, the game is still officially in development. Here’s hoping Beyond Good & Evil 2 ends up releasing one day, as this remains one of the most promising games in Ubisoft’s catalog.