This one turned into a patience test the moment it was revealed, because fans were asked to wait… and then wait again. It was announced back in 2017, but Nintendo publicly restarted development in 2019 and handed the project to Retro Studios, basically admitting the first version wasn’t where it needed to be. That kind of reset doesn’t just delay a release date – it rewrites the entire production calendar, from tools to direction to basic content. When it finally landed on December 4, it wasn’t just “another sequel,” it was the end of an unusually public development saga that stretched across two console eras. | © Retro Studios
Sequels don’t usually spend most of a decade in the oven, but this one basically did. Work on the script dates back to the early 2000s, with early production ramping up soon after – then the project had to jump console generations midstream, which is never a clean swap. The team also ended up changing engines during development, a kind of behind-the-scenes reboot that quietly eats years because everything touches everything. By the time it finally shipped, the long timeline was baked into the game’s DNA: ambitious scope, lots of moving parts, and a schedule that stretched far past the original target. | © 2K Czech
You know a project has had a rough ride when it feels like it changed passports every few years. It was originally unveiled in 2014 with a 2015 window in mind, then vanished into that special purgatory where trailers age and studios rotate behind the curtain. Over the years it changed hands multiple times, and the eventual finishing team at Dambuster reportedly restarted a lot of the work from scratch rather than patching together old builds. That’s why the final release felt like a “miracle it exists” moment – less a straight line to launch, more a long detour that somehow ended at a destination. | © Dambuster Studios
The gap between “announced” and “actually built” is where this story gets interesting. CD Projekt Red formally announced the project in 2012, but multiple reports later pointed to full development not truly kicking into gear until 2016, after the studio wrapped its major Witcher 3 work. That split helps explain why the wait felt endless: years of expectations grew while the real production clock was still warming up. Then came the final stretch – huge ambition, a famously messy launch, and the kind of post-release rescue effort that became part of the game’s legacy as much as Night City itself. | © CD PROJEKT RED
Blizzard didn’t take seven years because it forgot how to make an RTS – it took seven years because the studio’s priorities shifted, and the tech kept evolving underneath it. Development is widely reported to have begun in 2003, but resources were temporarily pulled toward World of Warcraft, which slowed everything down. Even close to the finish line, the release was pushed to align with a revamped Battle.net rollout, turning “almost ready” into “see you next year.” The end result was polished and massive, but the path there was a classic case of big ambitions meeting scheduling reality. | © Blizzard Entertainment
Announced back in 1999, this one spent so long bouncing between plans that its original reveal belonged to a completely different gaming era. Early versions were tied to different platforms before the project migrated, reoriented, and effectively rebuilt itself more than once as hardware targets and expectations changed. Every major shift came with hidden costs: new tools, new pipelines, new design compromises, and years spent redoing work that “already existed” in some earlier form. By launch, it carried that history on its shoulders – big mythology-infused ambition, but also the awkwardness of a game that had been restarted so many times it couldn’t help feeling stitched together. It’s the kind of development story that reads like a warning label for scope creep and platform whiplash. | © Silicon Knights
A cult classic doesn’t automatically earn itself a sequel budget, and that’s the quiet reason this follow-up took so long to materialize. The project only became feasible once Remedy secured a publishing deal that could actually bankroll it, with production starting in 2019 after Epic signed on. From there, the goal wasn’t “Alan Wake again,” but a heavier pivot into straight survival horror – new structure, new pacing, and a presentation style that’s expensive to pull off when you’re mixing cinematic storytelling with game systems. The long wait ends up feeling less like delay for delay’s sake and more like a sequel that had to be unlocked by the right partner, tech base, and creative angle lining up at the same time. | © Remedy Entertainment
For years, this RPG existed as a phantom: trailers, fan theories, and a title that kept changing shape without ever landing in your console tray. It began life in 2006 as Final Fantasy Versus XIII, then got dragged through shifting priorities, HD-era growing pains, and a major identity reboot when it transitioned into Final Fantasy XV and moved to new hardware. That pivot wasn’t cosmetic – it meant retooling production around a different scope and different realities, with leadership and direction evolving along the way. By the time it finally released, the decade-long journey was part of the experience, because you could feel how ambition kept colliding with the simple need to ship something coherent. | © Square Enix
Some games feel delayed; this one felt missing, the kind of project people bring up as a “remember when?” story because the silence lasted that long. Work began in 2007 for PlayStation 3, and the core idea – an unpredictable creature companion you bond with through physics-heavy interaction – was exactly the kind of ambition that can break schedules. As the tech strain piled up, the project drifted, and the eventual move to PlayStation 4 meant rebuilding major parts so the AI and world interaction could behave the way the design demanded. Team changes across that long stretch didn’t make things smoother, either, because maintaining a singular creative vision over nearly a decade is its own battle. When it finally arrived, it felt like a rescued artifact: stubbornly unique, emotionally specific, and shaped by every hard constraint it fought through. | © Japan Studio / genDESIGN
The Zone was supposed to return in 2012, until the sequel was cancelled and effectively vanished – already a full stop that most projects don’t survive. When development restarted years later, it wasn’t a simple continuation; it was a modern rebuild with a new engine, a new production ramp, and the weight of expectations from a franchise that had become legendary in the meantime. Then real life hit harder than any design challenge, as the war in Ukraine disrupted normal studio operations and forced the team to adapt just to keep the project alive. Multiple delays followed, and the long timeline stopped being a meme and became a matter of endurance. However you feel about the final product, the fact that it crossed the finish line at all is tied directly to everything it had to outlast. | © GSC Game World
The wild part is how early this was on the calendar: the first incarnation was announced in the mid-’90s, back when “portals in shooters” sounded like sci-fi even for sci-fi. Multiple false starts followed, with designs and tech plans changing hands and changing shape as 3D Realms chased the next big engine leap. The version that finally released only came together once the project was effectively rebuilt, with Human Head Studios brought in and the game’s signature tricks – gravity shifts, portal puzzles, and that alien-abduction vibe – locked into place. The end result still feels distinctive, but it’s also a reminder of how many years can disappear when a concept depends on tech that isn’t quite ready yet. | © Human Head Studios
Valve was talking about a proper Team Fortress sequel before most people even knew what “live-service shooter” meant, and the earliest version was originally positioned as a Half-Life expansion. The vision kept mutating over the years – at one point it leaned into a modern military look, complete with big feature ambitions that didn’t survive contact with reality. The long silence wasn’t just polishing; it was reinvention, including a famously dramatic shift to the stylized, class-silhouette art direction everyone now associates with TF2. By the time it shipped, it felt less like “finally, the sequel” and more like a studio taking as long as it needed to make the format make sense. | © Valve
The phrase “when it’s done” became a punchline largely because of this project, and it earned that status the hard way. Development started in the late ’90s and then spiraled into an endless cycle of reboots, shifting tech targets, and years of updates that sounded like progress but didn’t produce a finish line. Engine changes piled up, expectations ballooned, and the gap between what was promised and what could realistically ship kept widening. The turning point came when the original team effectively collapsed, and a new group stepped in to salvage, stitch together, and finally push it out the door. It released as the most famous example of a game that took so long to make that the development story became bigger than the game itself. | © Gearbox Software
The longest part of this story happened before the announcement ever hit the stage. Work began years earlier under Blizzard North, then the project’s path changed when that studio shut down and development shifted internally, forcing big creative and structural decisions to be revisited. Even after the formal reveal, the team kept iterating on fundamentals – tone, art direction, and what “modern Diablo” should feel like – because the wrong answer would’ve haunted the franchise for a decade. The finishing stretch added its own complications, including major online infrastructure and design choices that sparked debate the moment players got their hands on it. When it finally arrived, it wasn’t just a sequel release; it was the end of a very long internal argument that had been going on for years. | © Blizzard Entertainment
You can trace the wait in real milestones: early groundwork started long before Rockstar ever confirmed anything publicly, then momentum picked up after the studio finished its previous mega-release cycle. The scale is the obvious culprit – new setting, new systems, new everything – and Rockstar’s reputation for obsessing over detail makes “close enough” a non-starter. Leaks didn’t help either, turning the project into a public spectacle before it was ready to be one. Officially, it’s now on a later date than originally promised, and that delay fits the familiar Rockstar pattern: silence, then a hard reset of expectations, then a long stretch of “we’ll talk when it’s done.” | © Rockstar Games
Some releases aren’t remembered for a reveal trailer – they’re remembered for the waiting. Years of silence, sudden reboots, shifting release windows, and the kind of development rumors that turn into industry folklore.
This one’s about the marathon projects: games stretched by ambition, tech swaps, studio shakeups, or plain chaos behind the scenes. A few arrived and justified the delay; others landed with that awkward “so… that’s what we waited for?” feeling.
