e’ve all been there; watching a trailer for a

newly-announced game, streamed live from

a major show such as Gamescom or (should

it ever return) E3, setting the mighty wheels of the

hype train turning. ‘What’s the release date?’ ask

the fans. ‘Coming soon’, teases the pre-rendered

reveal video. It’s a hotly-anticipated title and the

developers are remaining tight-lipped about their

new project. Maybe you’ll get a less-than-concrete

release window in six months’ time.

A year passes, then two, then three. Radio

silence. No second trailer, no new screenshots,

no dev diaries. If you’re lucky, you might see a

senior member of the development team pop up

on social media, assuring eager fans—without any

actual proof of life—that the game is very much

still in production. However, nothing arrives and,

a few more years down the line, the game is either

quietly canceled, repurposed into something very

different, or left in unspoken limbo forever.

This isn’t exactly a common occurrence, nor is

it unique to the games industry; plenty of films

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Why do some games get

abandoned by their developers?

Christian Guyton investigates

and TV shows stagger through early production

but never see the light of day. Likewise, plenty of

games survive a troubled development process to

produce a satisfying end result. But ‘development

hell’ has become a frequently used phrase in the

gaming sphere, with some developers seemingly

unwilling (or unable) to commit to canceling a

game outright.

Stumbling to a full release is no guarantee a

game will live on, either. Some titles manage to hit

the store shelves (both physical and digital) before

collapsing under their own weight months or even

weeks after release. In cases like this, it’s harder

for developers to escape rigorous scrutiny from

their player base, even in situations where a lack

of support for a game is understandable.

In this feature, we’ll be looking at some of the

highest-profile cases of ‘game abandonment’, like

a sort of Child Protective Services for neglected

PC games. What leads developers down a path to

dropping support for a game or choosing not to

release it at all? It’s time to find out.

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WWW

left behind

38 MAXIMU MPC JUN 2022

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