By Ford James Published Oct 11, 2026, 9:46 PM EDT Polygon Lists Development hell is a vicious cycle
Image: Ubisoft Sign in to your Polygon.com account Add Us Summary Generate a summary of this story Like Like follow Follow followed Followed Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap Developing a competent video game is tough. Some games are such masterpieces that it's a wonder how they ever got made at all. There are so many moving parts, especially since studio sizes are often in the triple digits, that kudos needs to go to the games that are released despite going through various trials and tribulations.
However, some games get stuck in what is referred to in the industry as "development hell." Over the years, some of these have eventually been released, such as Duke Nukem Forever , Metroid Dread , and Skull & Bones . Others get canceled when the studio heads or publisher decides it's not worth the investment for the end product anymore. Meanwhile, some remain stuck in that cycle. Here are five games that have been in development for more than 10 years and still haven't been released (though some are, finally, near on the horizon).
When you saw the headline of this article, I have little doubt that Ubisoft’s Beyond Good & Evil 2 was the first game that you thought of. These days, it's the poster child for games trapped in development hell. It started pre-production in 2007, which means that it's been in the works for a whopping 19 years. While most studios would have canceled the project by now, Ubisoft confirmed as recently as January 2026 that the game is still being worked on , as six projects were canned; Beyond Good & Evil 2 was not one of them.
Beyond Good & Evil 2 is billed as an open-world action-adventure in space, and is a prequel to the events of the first game. According to a Eurogamer report on a now-defunct Ubisoft blog post, the player can create their own character and an interview on The Verge with Michel Ancel, the ex-director of the game, revealed it's more akin to an RPG than the first game. Gameplay revolves around traveling from one planet to another, each one with its own society, quests, characters, and more.
We saw a Beyond Good & Evil 2 reveal trailer in 2008, which featured Jade and Pey'j from the first game. That was followed by a leaked trailer in 2009, showing gameplay of Jade fleeing from the authorities down a busy street. However, the most notable showing of the game came during E3 2017 , with a trailer that took the event by storm. It received one more trailer at E3 2018 , but that was the last public showing the game has had.
Image: Cloud Imperium Games Star Citizen is a story many of you reading will also be familiar with, mostly due to its incredibly expensive in-game ships that can essentially be preordered, and the fact developer Cloud Imperium Games recently hit $1 billion in funding. However, while that game is arguably in development hell, having entered pre-production in 2011, there has been a playable alpha version of the game available since 2014.
Did you know that Cloud Imperium is also working on Squadron 42 , a single-player first-person shooter set within the Star Citizen universe? You'd be forgiven for having not heard about it because it was announced very shortly after Star Citizen in 2012, but has flown even more under the radar. It was originally scheduled to…