These 20 Games Were Delayed, But Still Came Out Awesome

In 2014, it was announced that the Uncharted series’ writer Amy Hennig, and its creative director Justin Richmond were leaving Naughty Dog. Uncharted 4 was then taken up by the game directors of The Last of Us, Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley. From there the game received a 2015 release window at E3 2014. In August of 2015, we were given an exact date of March 18, 2016. Then the game got a slight delay into April, and once 2016 rolled around it was delayed once again into May. Luckly, when Uncharted 4 finally released it was everything we’d hoped it would be for Nathan Drake’s last adventure.

The reason for Half-Life 2’s delay is a bit different from other games. The game was originally supposed to release in late 2003, but during that ye/ar Valve’s network was hacked resulting in a substantial leak of the the title’s source code. While the company dealt with the hacking, Half-Life 2 would now be released in 2004 on PC. A year later in 2005 it would hit the Xbox, and then go to multiple systems years after that.

Multiple games in the BioShock series have been delayed, including the very first first one. BioShock was originally slated for a release in June of 2007. Just a few months before that release however, Irrational Games delayed BioShock to August of that year. We may not know what exactly what the delay did for the game, but BioShock became one of the most beloved shooters of all time.

The Witcher 3 was an enormous step up for CD Projekt Red, with a world 30 times larger than the Witcher 2. As such, there were times that the development team wanted to ensure the highest quality, resulting in delays. Witcher 3 was originally supposed to launch Autumn 2014, but was pushed back to February 2015. In order to improve the experience even more, CD Projekt pushed the game back once again to May 2015. All that hard work paid off however, with the game garnering tons of Game of the Year awards.

Grand Theft Auto V had a fairly lengthy development cycle, first starting in 2009. However, the game wasn’t officially announced until 2011, with a projected release date of Q2 2013. It missed that mark just slightly by getting delayed early in 2013 until September. GTA V has since become one of the best selling games of all time.

Inquisition is an absolutely massive game that Bioware just needed a tad bit more time to work on. The game was set to release in October 2014, but earlier that year Bioware announced they’d be moving the date back one month into November to do a little more work. Inquisition featured a massive single player story, and for the first time in the series, four player co-op.

Although Grand Theft Auto may be Rockstar’s best know series, Red Dead Redemption just might be their most beloved game. Development on the title actually began back in 2005, and Rockstar showed a tech demo off of the game, even though it wasn’t formally announced until 2009. Redemption also missed its final release date, getting pushed back from April 2010 to May 2010 for polishing.

Fans had been waiting a long time for a sequel to Blizzard’s popular real-time strategy title, with the first Starcraft releasing in 1998. Starcraft II would eventually release in three parts, but development of the game was first announced in 2007. Development was delayed a year however, as Blizzard devoted assets and resources to World of Warcraft. After various rounds of beta testing and development, the game was finally released in July of 2010.