Though not always the most patient lot, gamers have learned to appreciate that amongst all the major entertainment mediums, video games take a long time to make. Developing a video game, especially when building a new franchise from the ground up, is a massive, arduous undertaking, and therefore it can be many years before the finished article winds up on store shelves.

Throughout the relatively short history of gaming, however, there are a number of infamous cases where a project fell into what's known as 'development hell’, taking an inordinate amount of time to come out, with many becoming running jokes amongst the industry and its fans. Some even took so long between announcement and release that many assumed the games would never come out.

This can happen for a wide variety of reasons; the title being passed around from developer to developer, progress slowing to a halt due to new, unfamiliar technologies, or simple over-ambition getting the better of development staff. And whether these games were any good upon their eventual release is almost inconsequential, when compared the fascinating stories of how they finally surfaced…