From Final Fantasy to Star Citizen: Gaming's Most Legendary Development Marathons

“It has been more than 2077 days since we first revealed our intention to create Cyberpunk 2077.” That’s how CD Projekt Red opened their message to fans, tucked inside the trailer they unveiled at E3. The initial Cyberpunk trailer appeared in 2013, but the studio had disclosed their development plans even earlier. Six years (and still counting!) might seem like an eternity, yet it’s nowhere near the lengthiest wait gaming has ever seen.

From Japanese RPGs to trash-talking shooters, let’s set aside our anticipation for Cyberpunk by examining some of the most protracted development timelines in gaming history.

From Final Fantasy to Star Citizen: Gaming's Most Legendary Development Marathons

Final Fantasy XV, 2006-2016

2006 was an exhilarating period for Final Fantasy enthusiasts. Not only did Square Enix announce Final Fantasy XIII, but they also premiered a trailer for a wholly separate project, Final Fantasy XIII Versus. Versus promised a dark journey featuring real-time combat and a mysterious lead character. However, as months turned into years, Versus missed an alarming number of industry events. Square Enix insisted development continued (first as a PS3 exclusive, then not, then exclusive again...), but hope dwindled as the years dragged on.

In 2013, Square Enix dropped the act. FF XIII Versus was no more, but its essence survived; it became an entirely new installment in the series, Final Fantasy XV. Yet according to the studio, “it wouldn’t arrive anytime soon.” That prediction proved accurate. For years, sporadic updates paired with postponements kept fans on edge, desperate for solid information. Finally, seven months after our cover feature, FF XV launched in November 2016. All things considered, it weathered its decade-long development remarkably well! While we had a few criticisms, a road trip alongside Noctis and his companions provided a satisfying conclusion to a ten-year saga.

Joe chronicled the entire development history in painstaking detail, if you’re eager to explore every instance where Final Fantasy let us down.

Too Human, 1999-2008

Perhaps more famous for its setbacks than its lackluster gameplay, Too Human began development in 1999 for the original PlayStation. Pitched as a sci-fi narrative set in the far future, Too Human would deliver 90 hours of gameplay spread across four CD-ROMs. The title promised cybernetic upgrades and “60 minutes of cinematics,” but progress halted when developer Silicon Knights was acquired by Nintendo.

Though the studio announced plans to bring their sci-fi epic to GameCube, five years later we still knew nothing about Too Human. By then, Silicon Knights had worked on both Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, but it wasn’t until the studio partnered with Microsoft that fresh details about this exciting RPG emerged. In 2005, Silicon Knights stated that Too Human would not only launch on Xbox 360 but would also form a trilogy.

Nine years after its original reveal, Too Human hit shelves to largely lukewarm reviews, occasionally outright hostile. We gave it a 6.75, noting “you’ll likely never want to hear anything about Too Human again.” Even so, Silicon Knights vowed to complete their trilogy (which had shifted from sci-fi into a jumble of Norse mythology).

Ultimately, Epic Games’ lawsuit over Unreal Engine usage ended Too Human permanently. As a result of the legal battle, Silicon Knights was ordered to destroy all game code for products using the Unreal Engine, and Too Human was removed from the Xbox Live Marketplace. The studio went bankrupt in 2014, almost certainly sealing the fate of any future projects.

The Last Guardian, 2007-2016

For a team with only two prior releases, Team Ico commanded an impressive reputation. Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, both PS2 titles, achieved a prestige that endures today. When Colossus first launched, we declared it “breaks storytelling barriers none of us knew existed…this is the storytelling experience of the year.”

It follows, then, that Team Ico’s next project would attract both massive hype and intense scrutiny. We first glimpsed The Last Guardian in a trailer at E3 2009 (a trailer that looks remarkably similar to the 2016 final product), though it had been in development for two years by then. Unlike Final Fantasy or Too Human, The Last Guardian’s core concept never shifted; Fumito Ueda’s tale of cooperation between a boy and a giant cat/bird formed both the emotional heart and gameplay focus, but this dedication led to numerous technical challenges.

Although the original trailer actually ran on a PS3, Ueda confirmed it was rendered at half-speed and then accelerated to appear normal. Over the following years, The Last Guardian struggled, unable to achieve the minimum frame rates needed for playability. Though it never went completely silent, the game was clearly in trouble. Ueda teased a gameplay demo in the Team Ico collection that never materialized, then parted ways with Sony. Producers abandoned the project. The Last Guardian continued to miss virtually every major gaming event. Executives kept reassuring the industry that the game existed, hollow statements in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

In 2015, The Last Guardian resurfaced, relatively unchanged despite the leap in console generations. A trailer at E3 2015 promised a release the following year, and it delivered, eventually launching in December 2016. The game still suffered from technical issues, but it captured the magic promised in the original trailer and fulfilled Fumito Ueda’s nine-year-old vision.

Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar, 1997-2017

There’s probably a reason you haven’t heard of Grimoire. A passion project from a solo developer, the game makes virtually no concessions to modern players. Saying the game is rooted in 90s CRPGs is misleading, because “rooted” implies growth. Grimoire is a 90s CRPG; it just happened to be released twenty years later.

Created by Cleveland Mark Blakemore, the game’s development isn’t nearly as well documented as larger projects. Announced in ’97, one preview claimed it would launch later that year. It didn’t. In 1998, there was a beta testing period, then the game mostly vanished until 2013 when Grimoire launched an Indiegogo campaign. It raised about four percent of its $250,000 goal and promised a release later that year (again). Finally, with an announcement that “the greatest roleplaying game of them all is finally ready,” the game dropped on Steam in 2017.

Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar boasts 600 hours of content. It also lacks a manual. With deep character customization and an enormous variety of locations, there may be twenty years’ worth of material hidden inside. I just have no desire to find it.

Star Fox 2, 1993-2018

Started almost immediately after the 1993 original, Star Fox 2 fell victim to a relentless hardware cycle. The game’s ambitious goals, including randomized levels and real-time strategy elements, were powered by the SNES and its Super FX chip (the same type used in Yoshi’s Island). Unlike everything else on this list, Star Fox 2 was essentially finished within its stated development period.

Unfortunately, the tail end of the SNES’s lifespan coincided with the rise of true 3D graphics from consoles like the N64 and PlayStation. Fearing Star Fox simply couldn’t compete, Nintendo canceled production entirely.

That would have been the end of the story, if not for a surprise announcement from Nintendo: The SNES Classic, a re-release of the publisher’s legendary console, would include the complete Star Fox 2 in its entirety. Though the game’s ambitions may have exceeded its execution, the release of Star Fox 2 stands as an uncommon victory for anyone who values the history and preservation of classic titles.

Doom, 2008-2016

Doom 4 will look better than Rage. John Carmack promised this in 2008 when announcing the title’s development, and he wasn’t lying; the game just took eight more years to prove him right.

Doom 4 struggled with identity for much of its development. The original pitch was a cinematic, scripted, militaristic take on the franchise—a “Call of Doom,” if you will. With Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’s release the previous year, crafting an FPS with set pieces and vehicle segments seemed like a recipe for success. But years later, low morale and direction from studio heads prompted a complete reboot of the title.

The new question was what exactly this reboot would be. One studio head reportedly said that “Doom 4 can and should be as big as Skyrim.” Carmack countered that “Doom means two things: demons and shotguns.”

The earliest glimpse of what would ultimately become the final version came from a teaser in 2014. Doom’s final form was a far cry from its Call of Duty-inspired origins; the game is a true callback to the originals, abandoning story, lengthy dialogue, and even reloading for a pure first-person demon-killing experience. It kicks ass. Doom’s reboot was even successful enough to warrant a sequel, Doom: Eternal.

Duke Nukem Forever, 1997-2011

Perhaps the most infamous delayed game of them all, Duke Nukem Forever is a showcase of the perils of lengthy development cycles. Duke Nukem 3D, released for PC in 1996, was a massive hit. Almost immediately afterward, 3D Realms announced work on a sequel, intended to be finished by 1998 at the latest. They decided to use the Quake II engine but didn’t even receive the code before they started mocking up potential screenshots.

Already having missed their 1998 projection, they switched to the Unreal engine and continued making slow progress. Videos and screens were still shown and received well, but no end date was in sight. In 2004, seven years after the initial announcement, Duke Nukem Forever reportedly switched engines again, landing on Doom 3’s impressive technology (though the studio later denied the rumor). 3D Realms continued to lose staff; even after the team’s heads spent millions of their own money, Forever made little visible progress.

In 2009, publisher Take-Two sued the studio for failing to deliver the game, and although it was settled in a way that preserved the progress made, Duke seemed in his death throes. Salvation came from Gearbox Software, which added a multiplayer mode and gave it the final push out the door in 2011.

Forever is not a success story, however. The world had moved on during the game’s 14-year development, and Duke had not. From dated gameplay systems to the character’s trademark misogyny, Forever can’t hide the weight of its bloated development.

Of course, long delays aren’t a thing of the past. Cyberpunk’s development cycle is at least seven years long at this point, but there are other games—several of which were seen this E3—that we’ve been waiting just as long for.

Beyond Good And Evil 2, 2008-???

Before Beyond Good and Evil became a way for Joseph Gordon-Levitt to get you to do free art for Ubisoft, it was a 2008 trailer without a release date. Ubisoft claimed the entire trailer—a two-minute look at Jade and her piggy friend sitting in a desert—was rendered in-engine. And then, nine years later, we saw it again.

We don’t know what caused the development holdup. Director Michel Ancel spent years away from the project, working on Rayman’s platforming reboots, but whether this was his choice or Ubisoft’s is anyone’s guess. When Beyond Good and Evil 2 re-emerged at last E3 as a pre-rendered trailer, Ancel said it was effectively an entirely new and different game from the E3 trailer almost a decade earlier.

Among other things, this probably means Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still a long way off. This E3 brought another pre-rendered trailer, a reportedly impressive behind-closed-doors demo, and a beta promised for sometime next year. The game’s scope looks impressive, but that only hinders development time.

Kingdom Hearts III, 2013-2019

Technically, we’ve only known about Kingdom Hearts III since its teaser trailer in 2013. However, given that the previous mainline entry came out in 2005, it feels like we’ve been waiting much longer.

Series director Tetsuya Nomura hinted early on that he wouldn’t be able to focus on Kingdom Hearts until his current project was complete. That project? Final Fantasy XIII Versus, and it didn’t reach completion quickly. Nomura actually left before Versus-turned-XV was finished. Now he’s continuing to direct Kingdom Hearts III while also working on another title: a remake of Final Fantasy VII. A remake we’ve heard essentially nothing about since its announcement in 2015.

Kingdom Hearts III will release early next year. Probably.

Star Citizen, 2012-?

Recently in the news for offering a pack of virtual spaceships for $27,000, Star Citizen is quickly becoming a lesson in the perils of crowdfunding. Rising to fame through a wildly successful 2012 Kickstarter, Star Citizen was originally pitched as a space-faring adventure featuring dogfighting and trading. This description has ballooned to include first-person shooting, procedurally generated planets, and a single-player campaign with Mark Hamill.

Throughout development, Star Citizen has missed essentially every deadline it set for itself. It switched from CryEngine to Amazon’s Lumberyard Engine, which resulted in a lawsuit from Crytek. The game has released several betas, modules, and demos of its various systems (all of which are admittedly impressive). It’s also released constant ways to continue spending money on it. Not only can players buy various models of spaceships with real money, they can also purchase tracts of land on non-existent planets, or presumably just mail briefcases of cash to Chris Roberts.

Star Citizen has raised $188,000,000 thus far, with no signs of slowing down. Maybe it doesn’t even matter if it ever comes out.

gameinformer.com

by Jacob Geller first posted on Jul 01, 2018