8 Amazing Video Games That SURVIVED Development Hell

Clearly I need more coffee. That's the problem, isn't it

Alright, 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 jewels 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 ten minutes before I started recording this episode, my girlfriend, the lovely and wonderful Carrie, informed me that a giant pigeon

flew into headfirst into a window of our next door neighbours one day and was stunned into the middle of the road

I can confirm the big pitch, what a big pitch, who now has a comical bandage over his head

is fine. You just got the wrong house. It's why you shouldn't drink and fly

Yes, you get to decide what list I dial at each and every week. And this is what we have none other to thank, Dan

Grotesky, Tefivesky, 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

Retro-action 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 ice age, especially as the first three entries in the survival horror series

were put out in half that time. But the fourth installment 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 realized 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

Yeah. Introducing an over-the-shoulder camera. Yeah. And shifting the mayhem to rural Spain

See! 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 Now South Park The Fractured But Whole proves beyond any doubt that even the most obvious slam sequel can run afoul of devastating unforeseen issues Though a sequel to Obsidian 2014 hit

RPG South Park The Stick of Truth was quickly given the green light, things fell apart after

THQ went 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

butthole 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 D.A.S. 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 Changes. You 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. This is a newspaper, by the way. It's not me just like grabbing a nearby person and shaking them, although that could also be an expression of how excited you are

Come here, love. 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. Now 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 Fish five years earlier in 2007. Five years

Soon, realizing that he needed a second pair of hands, he recruited Renoir Bedard to handle the

programming. The years that followed soared 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. But 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 Bevez wasn 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 Bez 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 strain development kind of

sends 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. Oh, that does look sore

actually. Of all times! 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 five 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 three 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 actually tempered their expectations, which was unaided by the fact that Bethesda held back review copies until release day which as we all know in the business if you get a copy on release day it gonna spink for the most part But 2016 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 FBS franchise back to serious prominence

and giving us all a chance to learn the true meaning of

Bane Slayer. Bane. Bane. And finally, let's talk about Half-Life 2. So yeah, we've got to 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. It's kind of like

you know, when the Mummy film came out, remember that? And it got leaked online and everyone was

just like, are you sure you want to release this? I mean, everyone knows everything about it now

No, no, I promise it'll be better. We'll add, we'll add more visual effects in. We'll add more lens bloom, lens flare, but just bloom and flare, bloom and flare

Uh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I guess you could, okay. Yeah, you could do that. Yeah, sure

Yeah, okay, sure, whatever. 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 five 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 RetroJay, but the O is a zero on Instagram

And Blue Skyning 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

the comments section below. And also, I hope you're treating 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 of 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've

been awesome. Never forget that. I'll speak to you soon. Bye