There's no kick in the pants quite as painful as a vaporware game. Simply put, these are games that have been delayed indefinitely or have taken forever to come out. Gamers know the pain of either waiting a crushing number of years before their most-anticipated sequel is finally released or they have to deal with the pain of the finished product landing far off the intended mark.
Some of these games were canceled, others were released, and a few are actually still stuck in development. Without further delay, here are 10 of the most controversial vaporware games in history. Who knows - maybe that long-awaited sequel you pre-ordered back in 2003 is here. Better to get a late update than never!
10 CANCELLED - Starcraft: Ghost
While Real Time Strategy (RTS) purists might have balked at the notion of a stealth-action title based on the strategy classic that is Starcraft, many were quite excited to see the series take a turn into different territory.
Numerous setbacks eventually culminated in Blizzard abandoning the project altogether, despite fan and press enthusiasm. Story elements were incorporated into Starcraft canon, however, giving fans some more content to chew on.
9 CANCELLED - DOOM 4
DOOM 3 was a mixed bag that got a fairly warm reception, but it was a far cry from its action-oriented roots. The reboot did well, which paved the way for DOOM 4 to enter development. The game was supposed to adapt the Hell On Earth plot-line and expand on DOOM 3's combat palette.
Despite production moving forward, Id Software decided to abandon the project, citing the lack of a cohesive feel. This was a rare moment where a studio had the foresight to cancel a failed project and start over from scratch instead of forcing a subpar game out. It proved to work in Id's favor, as gamers ended up with DOOM 2016, a vibrant refresh for the franchise. The Hell On Earth storyline eventually made its way to the reboot's sequel, DOOM Eternal.
8 DELAYED - Huxley
Huxley could have been incredible, had it ever seen the release that was originally planned for it. After a fair degree of hype and some excellent looking visual teases, the game dropped off the radar almost entirely.
It did see a limited Korean release in 2009 but by the end of the following year, Huxley lost its online hosting and the game fell into the void. It was never given the opportunity to live up to its potential, much less last longer than a few moments on the gaming scene.
7 DELAYED - Daikatana
John Romero's pet project Daikatana should have blown the walls off the FPS genre, but its final release was a jumbled, broken mess - right down to the ill-fated ad campaign that became a blueprint of how not to advertise a game.
Daikatana was plagued with numerous behind-the-scenes conflicts, which eventually saw nine major team members walk out the door at the same time, signaling that the game was in serious trouble. The final release was critically panned with an average ranking below the 50% mark.
6 DELAYED - The Last Guardian
Sony's The Last Guardian remains one of the most notorious vaporware titles in gaming history. It entered development in 2007, only to drop virtually off the radar for almost a decade. By 2015, the game was re-announced at E3, with a release the following year.
Sony Computer Entertainment President Shuhei Yoshida even admitted that the development process was slow and difficult - a fact compounded by the shift from the PS3 over to the PS4, which would allow the game to be more fully realized. At the end of the day, it did see release with higher-than-average reception.
5 CANCELLED - Star Wars: 1313
The gaming world was dazzled with a 2012 gameplay demo of LucasArts' Star Wars: 1313, an action platformer putting gamers in the shoes of a bounty hunter on Coruscant. It was supposed to be a gritty, mature take on the seedier elements of the Star Wars universe, with dizzying action and electrifying set pieces to match.
Only the good die young, apparently. 1313 was axed by Disney after their acquisition of LucasArts, robbing gamers of what could have been one of the best Star Wars titles in the franchise. The location of 1313 would eventually get incorporated into the final season of the Clone Wars animated series, which debuted in 2020. As for the seedier side of that galaxy from far, far away, it saw the light of day in Disney Plus' highly praised Star Wars spin-off The Mandalorian.
4 STATUS UNKNOWN - Half-Life 2: Episode Three
Imagine being hung out to dry by one of gaming's most popular and influential franchises of all time, then hearing nothing - not even a peep - for over a decade. That's how many gamers felt when they completed Half Life 2: Episode Two, and waited with baited breath for the next installment to wrap things up. It never happened.
The final act of Episode Two was a shocker by every standard, and it left the franchise in absolute limbo with no resolution. The recent surprise release of Half-Life: Alyx has all-but confirmed that the franchise has been revived, which means fans may finally get to see the continuation of Half-Life in some form before City 17 veterans become grandparents in real life. Whether the follow-up is still called Episode Three or something else entirely is unknown.
3 DELAYED - Aliens: Colonial Marines
Few games get as much flack as Gearbox Studios' notorious Aliens: Colonial Marines. It entered production in 2007 under the wing of Demiurge Studios before Gearbox took over, then outsourced most of the production to TimeGate Studios. With SEGA in the mix, it became a hodgepodge of clashing ideas and voices which ended up throwing the development into disarray.
When Colonial Marines was finally released, it was critically panned for its bad gameplay, terrible A.I. and disappointing visuals which were a massive downgrade from the original E3 demo. Even worse, in 2017 a ModB contributor named James Dickinson discovered a relatively simple typo fix in the game's code, which explained why the enemy A.I. was so bad. It seemed incomprehensible that such a simple mistake was responsible for so much critical backlash.
2 DELAYED: Star Citizen
The most popular Kickstarter-funded video game of all time still has a long way to go before it sees a release. What began in 2012 as a vision that would eventually morph into a genre-changing behemoth has since failed to live up to expectations.
Although work continues on Star Citizen, its numerous setbacks and internal development problems have left many backers wondering if the game will ever see the light of day. The single-player campaign Squadron 42 was initially slated for a 2014 launch, only to be pushed back to a Q3 2020 release, in Beta form. With well over $250 million sunk into the project (so far), it could end up being the most expensive let-down in gaming history.
1 DELAYED: Duke Nukem Forever
This one is, without a doubt, the Granddaddy of vaporware games. Duke Nukem Forever was the stuff of myth and legend, so much so that Indiana Jones himself might have taken interest! It was originally announced in 1997, only to fall off the face of the Earth until Gearbox eventually picked up the project and cranked out a 2011 release.
Fans who waited 14 years to see the game were disappointed by its dated design and play mechanics, not to mention bottom-of-the-barrel humor which (rightfully) sparked outrage from women's groups. In the end, it was a disappointing delivery that essentially killed the Duke Nukem franchise altogether. To date, nobody has touched this property with a ten-foot pole and it may be that way for decades to come.