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[Blink]

Eternal Darkness, Beyond Good and Evil, Half-Life 2, Shadow of the Colossus.

All of these games had highly anticipated successors or sequels in the work, oft rumored and always known to be coming, but still have never arrived. Duke Nukem Forever proved recently that even vaporware can come out someday... but it was far from a quality product compared to any expectations.

So what is this genre? Where has it come from, why is it happening, and what can we do about it? What can be done about it? Is it good, expected, bad, limiting, empowering, even wanted? Would fans rather we just have sequels, even if they weren't good, as long as they came out?

The consensus right now seems to be that the games will be good, they are worth waiting for, and we should be alright with the wait. Halo 2, Oblivion, and Twilight Princess all had the wazoo hyped out of them - but they all fell short of expectations, even though they were fairly solid products (though not anywhere near what fans wanted). Their successors were met with more muted hype, and turned out even better for it with the much more solidly (and even well) reviewed Halo 3, Skyrim, and Skyward Sword.

But these games with eternal development times aren't chancing that. They're waiting until they're perfect, or amazing enough to warrant the hype, or the hype dies down, or *something*. That part I haven't quite figured out yet: what is required for a game with this much hype to come out? We've seen what happens when that hype isn't met: fans are lost and the fanbase is shaken. But how could the hype be fulfilled?

Portal 2 seems to have done it, although I don't know many others like that. Heck, the subject of creating a sequel is hard enough as is: Banjo-Tooie was an excellent followup to Kazooie, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 was also an excellent but unique game. Team Fortress 2 has become the excellent sequel over time and had great first impressions - but that's easy when you're coming from a mod or an unexpected title that only a few fans liked. But Galaxy 2 wasn't revolutionary, and nor was Tooie. TF2 just supercharged the product and brought it up to modern industry standards for AAA. But when Half-Life 2 and SotC redefine what games are capable of... how do you follow that up?

Eternal Darkness' sequel was more just budget issues, and Beyond Good and Evil 2 is more hardware limitations vs Ancel's vision. HL3 and SotC might be similarly limited by technology vs vision, but there seems to be more to it than that. Then again, maybe that really is all there is. This past generation has been the longest yet, after all (Half-Life 2, being on PC, was released with graphics that matched the early 360/PS3 games, and SotC was pushing the PS2 to the point of technical difficulties).

Anyways, I find the subject of a game that's regularly in development for ten years to be really interesting, and I'd love to hear if anyone else has thoughts on this process to. So far: my views are that it's mostly due to hardware limitations, and the development time is even longer now just because the hardware developments have slowed now more than before.

[Muz]

Heh, I feel it's a previous era, like film cameras, porn mags, and disney-girl-gone-bad. These days, the new trend is 'early access'. Even AAA games are doing the early access thing.

There's actually a niche market, with a lot of money, who pay premium for a game that's more technically advanced than the others. Some rich kids out there are buying an expensive gaming rig instead of sports rims or expensive deer rifle scopes. They're willing to throw as much money for anything that pushes their machine to breaking point.

That's why producers pick up an old brand name with a lot of fans (e.g. XCom or Fallout) and rebuild it with badass graphics. It appeals to nostalgia and comes with free hype. Who cares if the fanbase is shaken as long as they've paid. We could always release an expansion that fixes all the problems.

[Runefrog]

Sequels must be incredibly hard to make if they're following a successful game because it has to meet the fans' expectations. This can backfire though. If the sequel isn't terrible but doesn't live up to the hype it alienates people and gets negative attention. It makes me question if the game wasn't a sequel but was a new IP would it receive the same criticism?

As for games stuck in development hell, well I wouldn't even bother any more. Take a game like The Last Guardian (Shadow of the Colossus spiritual successor?) for example: It's been so long now that whatever they do with it no one will be satisfied because everyone will play it and ask, "what took you so long? It's just average!"

And sometimes companies should let IPs die with dignity. The trick is knowing when to quit, and I feel like games production is going down the slippery slope of Hollywood. Look how saturated the industry is becoming with superhero movies. It's not even a genre really, it's just another style of Action/Adventure.

[baconman]

Well, it's simple really. Mix up gameplay mechanics in interesting combinations, do something 'incredible-feeling' with them (like, imagine a complete MegaMan X level with no floor, that was totally doable because of a level mechanic that changes the entire perspective of the game)... and don't fuck it up or lose sight of what made the original so great.

This is the biggest problem with Sequelitis - it becomes about the graphics, the character, the attitude - always something OTHER than the fundamental design that makes it fun to begin with. RPGs become more story/cutscene. Fighting games become more moves and characters and meter tricks. Zelda becomes more item-based puzzles and thus, less action AND less adventure.