10 Long-Awaited Games Still in Development: A Journey Through Development Hell

Introduction

Welcome to Gamix! Today, we're diving into the fascinating world of game development. The journey from concept to release can be a turbulent one, often filled with unexpected delays and challenges. Some games get stuck in "development hell" for what feels like an eternity, but against all odds, they continue to inch closer to release. In this blog, we're going to explore 10 games you won't believe are still coming. From long-awaited sequels to ambitious new IPs, these titles have endured countless obstacles but are still on the horizon. So, without further ado, let's set the tone and dive into the list with number 10: Beyond Good and Evil 2.

Beyond Good and Evil 2

Originally announced way back in the distant past of 2008. I wouldn't blame anyone for assuming this long-awaited sequel to the 2003 pretentiously named but charming action-adventure was dead. It's been 16 years of on-again, off-again development, and the last time Ubisoft showed off anything substantial, it was a trailer back in 2017. So, I mean, it's been a long time since then. If they announced it in 2017, it'd be worth putting on this list. When the game's lead, Michel Ancel, passed away unexpectedly back in 2023, I just assumed that was the final nail in the coffin for this one. But in October of 2024, it was revealed someone new was taking his place. That man is Fawzi Mesmar, who is Ubisoft's Vice President of Global Creative and used to be the Head of Design at DICE for the Battlefield games. 

So, it appears Ubisoft really just refuses to give up on this game for whatever reason. The series' original founder left Ubisoft, the project has floundered for 16 years, and somehow it's still going. The bigger danger to the game now is Ubisoft's precarious financial situation. The publisher is absolutely massive, so if something drastic were to happen, I got to assume that Beyond Good and Evil 2 would be on the chopping block, per se. It's a weird project, and we've only seen snippets of what it is, and nobody really knows what it's supposed to be at this point. Even with a new creative director, I give it about a 50/50 shot. That's being generous because games that are in development for 16 years tend not to come out. If they get bought up and are forced to close down, studios and IPs get strip-mined for parts. This one, Beyond Good and Evil 2, has got no chance.

Knights of the Old Republic Remake

The original Knights of the Old Republic is a beloved game. I remember playing it way, way back in the day and just being like, wow, the Xbox is actually good. I also really didn't like the loading times, but that was a different thing. But man, could this one use a spit shine and a new coat of paint to make it just a little more appealing to modern audiences. So, when Saber Interactive announced back in 2021 that there was going to be a remake, that was cause to get excited. Radio silence, however, has followed. It has been less exciting, and the implosion of Embracer Group made it seem like the remake wasn't happening. But Saber somehow managed to come out on the other side of the Embracer fiasco intact, and in early 2024, they confirmed they were still working on this game. 

They don't have a release date, they don't have concrete information, just a quick proof-of-life message to let everybody know it's not been canceled. At least it's not Aspyr working on it anymore. They've done a lot of Star Wars game releases, some of them good, some not so much. What they did with the Battlefront games was kind of a disgrace. It's awesome to have them without any jostling, but also, man, we kind of already had them. Saber doesn't have the best track record of all time either, but in late 2024, they got a big old investment after the success of Space Marine 2, which is great. So, I think there's a better chance we'll actually see something from this remake. For a while, people were saying it was canceled, but at least as of 2024, it's not.

Little Devil Inside

Man, oh man, remember this one from the PlayStation 5 reveal back in 2020? It was shown right up there with some pretty heavyweight PlayStation exclusives, which gave it a lot of legitimacy. It was an indie, but it was an important one. So, the original proposed date of July 2021 sounded pretty reasonable for what we were looking at. Later, a PlayStation blog post in December 2021 pushed it to Winter 2022, but that date came and went, and we didn't hear anything. We could only assume it was canceled. But back last year, in 2024, the team behind the game posted an update on their Kickstarter. Yes, it's a Kickstarter game with a history that goes back way before the 2020 PlayStation reveal. I remember talking about it; it was originally going to come out on the Wii U. That's how long this one's been in development. 

In their update, they admitted internal conflict in the studio and that the team working on it has lost a lot of people due to downsizing. It doesn't paint a rosy picture about the game's future, but at least it tells us they're still working on it. It's your classic Kickstarter project cope where the developers try to string people along, making it seem like they didn't run out of funds a long time ago. It's possible, it's likely that this game might not happen, but the line between a Kickstarter scam and an inexperienced game studio with more ideas than project planning skills is thin. They're dead set on getting this game out, they might still. Who knows? It's pure speculation, but at this moment, most PlayStation fans have given up on this one.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake

You'd think remaking Sands of Time would be an easy win. Update the graphics, make the combat a little more interesting, modernize the camera controls at least in relevant areas of the game. It's an all-time classic, should be a no-brainer. But the problem is the initial version was meant to come out back in 2021. It was being handled by one of Ubisoft's support studios, which was apparently inexperienced, stationed in Mumbai and Pune. But what they were making just wasn't coming together to Ubisoft's satisfaction, and these are the same guys who were fine with releasing that XIII remake, which was beyond awful. Actually, the reception to that may have been a large reason why Sands of Time got delayed from 2022, 2023, then to who knows how long.

Eventually, Ubisoft Montreal, the premier studio and the guys responsible for the original game, took over the project and started it up from scratch. On one hand, that means the remake is in good hands, but that also means the remake won't release until at least 2026. And that's under the assumption Ubisoft as we know it is still around at that point. I hope so, because for the sake of Prince of Persia, it deserves it. It's an all-time classic with some issues that could use some ironing out. So with some effort, this could easily be one of the best remakes ever, up there with stuff like Resident Evil 4 or Silent Hill 2. Ubisoft hasn't given us much to be excited about recently. Don't take this one away from us, guys. You gotta hold off any hostile takeovers until at least 2026. The world needs more Prince of Persia.

Squadron 42

While Star Citizen itself is currently playable in a pre-release state, its sister game, Squadron 42, is taking a lot longer to finally come out. This was kind of announced back during Star Citizen's original Kickstarter with a planned release date of 2014, to be a kind of cinematic and streamlined introduction to the MMO. Some casual fans could jump into it, presumably. It was meant to be less advanced and less of a big deal, you know, a thing they could get out and be like, look, we have released something. They managed to rope in an impressive cast for this thing, not just for a Kickstarter, but for a video game in general. They got Gary Oldman, Mark Hamill, Gillian Anderson, and Henry Cavill. 

I mean, it's a cavalcade of stars who recorded their performances way back in 2013, 2014 area and have been sitting on a hard drive somewhere ever since. Not the stars, the performances, obviously. Look, I don't need to get into the whole mess of Star Citizen's development; it's been going on a long time. It's not even close to prime time. Chris Roberts, the man behind the whole production, decided to go radio silent on Squadron 42 back in 2020, saying he won't talk about it until the game's nearly done. And it appears that we are finally nearly there, with Squadron 42 finally getting some gameplay footage at CitizenCon 2024. That's right, there is a convention for a game that hasn't come out formally speaking, despite a 12-year development cycle and hundreds of millions of crowdfunded dollars. But the new release date for Squadron 42 is 2026. It seems like a long time for a feature-complete game, but if you saw the demo, you know this thing needs some time in the oven. 

Even under careful curation, the game is crashing a lot, and there are noticeable bugs. For a lot of Kickstarter backers, this was actually the game they wanted, not Star Citizen, so it's good to know it'll finally come out sometime. I just hope it's a full game. Previously, they mentioned the game would be released in parts, but I can't imagine that being a good idea now. Even if the content is only for act one of their epic space narrative, they need to call it the full game or release it because the chances of getting a part two and three might as well be zero. By the time those things release, half the current cast might just be dead.

Pragmata

Another missing-in-action game from the 2020 PlayStation 5 reveal, this mysterious game was a big deal because it was something new from Capcom, a completely original IP unlike anything else in their catalog. Yeah, it looks and sounds a lot like if you cross Death Stranding and Nier Automata—you can see the influences behind this thing—but for Capcom, it looks like something unique. Originally meant to release around 2022, it was pushed back twice and then in June of that year was delayed indefinitely, which sounds alarming, but they just didn't give a firm release date. So right now, we just don't know. One saving grace of the 2024 delay was that they did release another trailer around the same time as a way of saying, yeah, we're still working on it. 

It's certainly possible the game will get canceled; maybe it'll go the way of a lot of other game reveals. Who knows? But knowing Capcom's track record recently, I'd expect this to come out at some point. What it'll look like at that point, I don't know, and when that'll happen is also absolutely impossible to say. Unlike everything else we've mentioned so far, there really isn't any recent sign of hope here. The last thing Capcom said about Pragmata is that they delayed it. If this was any other development studio, I'd assume that Pragmata is set under, but modern Capcom doesn't just give up. They've got a really solid track record, and I think they've got something to prove here. So I do believe someday we'll get this, maybe not until 2026, but eventually.

State of Decay 3

PlayStation wasn't the only one announcing games back in 2020; Xbox was also pretty desperate to show off something, anything, for their upcoming console, and one of those games was State of Decay 3. The hope is when game trailers come out that means the project is well underway and that the game will come up next year or two. But sometimes you get those trailers that are essentially nothing, and nothing's been done with the game, so they're planning it. There's no real code, just an idea, a CGI concept trailer, and that seems like what State of Decay 3 was. It got another trailer in the 2024 Xbox showcase, but surprise, it was another CGI fest that really didn't tell us anything about what the final game would be. 

Still, it was at least proof that it existed. But if you're expecting to see this thing come out in 2025, you're probably going to have to keep waiting because nothing official has been said. Rumor is the game has been delayed to 2026. So like a lot of other games that have disappeared out there, 2026—I mean, I know why—2026 is just far off enough it gives these devs a buffer to keep working, that keeps people from asking too many questions. And in fact, hopefully by the time 2026 rolls around, everyone will have forgotten about the delay in the first place. Maybe these guys are just stalling, maybe it's a really hard game to make. I don't know. Nobody's talking though. I expect this to come out at some point; it's a little too popular to disappear without comment from Microsoft, but yeah.

Rare's Everwild

The mysterious follow-up to Sea of Thieves has very few concrete details about what the game even is, but that hasn't stopped Microsoft from announcing it way ahead of when the game would be ready. Originally, it was announced back in 2019 in November, but development has apparently been a lot longer. They started working on the game in 2014, and as of 2021, the rumor was that the game had been completely rebooted and wouldn't come out until 2024. Full game reboots, at least two major designer departures, and a constantly moving release date would leave you to assume it's another Beyond Good and Evil 2 style disaster. 

And who knows, maybe behind the scenes it is. But in October 2024, Phil Spencer visited with Rare and got a hands-on look at the game, and apparently, development is going pretty smooth. Even if that's a lie and development is rough, I expect Everwild to eventually come out. I don't know what it's going to be, but it'll come out. I think Rare can take a while to make things, but for the most part, they do follow through on their promises. For a few years, it was looking bleak, but that 2024 hands-on did a lot for Microsoft's confidence in the game, and it's apparently seen as important by Microsoft, so it'll probably come out, probably not this year, but maybe sometime next year if we're lucky.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2

Work on this game goes all the way back to 2016. This long-awaited sequel to the cult classic RPG was announced in 2019 for a March 2020 release and has been delayed a lot of times since then. You'd think a game meant to come out less than a year after its announcement would be pretty far along, but apparently not. Considering all the delays and issues with the studio, high-profile developer departures like Brian Mitsoda and Chris Avellone signified a pretty troubled development, which was all but confirmed when developer Hardsuit Labs was taken off the game entirely. 

You'd think that would be a death sentence for a game, but Paradox decided not to cancel it and instead gave it to The Chinese Room, the game studio that's made, you know, I guess, walking simulators and that's about it. I'm not being facetious; they're literally the walking simulator studio. They did Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and A Machine For Pigs—games with very few gameplay systems. This one, as of writing, is supposed to come out this year. It's yet to be delayed, at least officially. My expectations are not high, but I do think it will come out in some form. Whether it's the game we all want or not, I don't know, but it'll probably come out.

The Wolf Among Us 2

One of the many properties adapted into the adventure game format by Telltale, The Wolf Among Us was by far one of the best. It's right up there with the original Telltale season of The Walking Dead as one of the best games from the studio. So, of course, there were plans to make a second season, but that was before the studio was forced to close in 2018. But in 2019, Telltale got revived by some former investors and announced The Wolf Among Us 2 at the 2019 Game Awards. You'd think after a year they'd just be able to reuse the work done by the old Telltale Games, but the sequel was made entirely from scratch on Unreal Engine 4 and then it was delayed and moved to Unreal Engine 5, and apparently all the original work done on the game has been thrown out. Originally, this was meant to come out around 2024, but that's a no. 

I mean, they said the game wasn't canceled in October 2024, so that's a good sign, but they've given no other development updates, no release date, nothing. A large portion of the staff got laid off back in 2023, so it sounds like a pretty small group is left to work on the game. And while they claim nothing's canceled, I wouldn't be surprised if sometime this year the new Telltale closes doors again. I do hope they manage to finish the game, sell a bunch of copies, and turn things around, but it's hard not to be pessimistic with the current state of the industry. The past year has not been a good time for struggling studios. Still, at least the developers have made a statement about the game fairly recently and that's firmly to say the game is not canceled, so there is hope for this one.

Bonus Games

Silksong

Originally meant to be a simple expansion on Hollow Knight, it has been transformed into something much, much more—or less, depending on who you ask. The history of Silksong's no-showing at events and steadfastly refusing to show much of anything about the actual game besides the initial trailer is a long tale. Recently, one of the devs was kind enough to inform us that yes, they are still making the game, but that's about it. With other indie studios, I'm not sure I'd believe them, but these are the Hollow Knight guys. They could keep making Silksong for decades and probably still have enough money. The current rumors are that the game will be announced sometime with the big Switch 2 games reveal, and that would make pure sense, but it's also pure copium. We have no idea; we have absolutely no evidence whatsoever. I expect the game will happen at some point, but who knows.

Metroid Prime 4

Let's end it with probably the most secure release on the list. This one's 100% happening, and it's definitely coming in 2025 for the Switch and probably cross-gen with Switch 2. That's maybe not the case; I don't know. The game got announced back in 2017, went through development hell, and wasn't even being worked on by Retro Studios—instead, it was Bandai Namco. In January 2019, Nintendo announced they restarted development with Retro Studios. They completely rebooted the entire project, and for years there has been radio silence—just nothing—until they finally dropped a full proper trailer last year. So the game's happening, it's just taken longer than expected. And with Nintendo, they tend to be pretty honest about these kinds of things. If the game was canceled, we'd probably know. Sometimes games just take a while to get done. I mean, look at Metroid Dread; that game was conceived back in 2002 and didn't come out until 2021.

Conclusion

Speaking of time, that's it for today. What do you think? Leave us a comment. We upload brand-new blogs every day of the week. And as always, thank you very much for reading this blog. I'm Zaid Ikram. We'll see you next time right here on Gamix.