Thanks for Nothing, Videogames: The 2016 Vaporware Awards

From Zelda to Kingdom Hearts, honoring the best games that didn't come out this year.
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Over the past month, two of the videogame industry's Longest Development Time award contenders were actually released within days of each other: Final Fantasy XV and The Last Guardian, originally announced in 2006 and 2009 respectively. And to decent reviews, too! But that doesn't mean our vaporware journey is over. Indeed, it may be just beginning.

Wwhile the triple-A game industry seems to be having less of a problem with vaporware, we the consumers have gladly inflicted it upon ourselves via crowdfunding. Take Broken Age, the physical edition of which I just received on December 1—nearly five years after my Kickstarter pledge. But it's not all Kickstarters! There are plenty of traditionally-funded blockbuster games that have been talked up for years but just can't seem to ship (or even commit to a date). We're not gonna talk about The Last of Us Part II because that was only just announced, but come on—you know they're already writing the Very Special Update for the PlayStation Blog explaining that the game's going to miss the 2019 holiday season and come out in March 2020.

  • __Announced: 2008__ __Purported Release Date: TBD__ Ubisoft loves cranking out sequels, just not *this* sequel. This follow-up to its critically acclaimed adventure game about a photojournalist and her pig friend keeps getting teased, but never seems to get a firm grip on its existence. Since the game's first trailer in 2008, Ubisoft has continued to say that the game remains in development. This year, creator Michel Ancel showed off a new piece of [concept art](https://www.hyzs518.com/2016/09/beyond-good-and-evil-2/) from the game, and Ubisoft again confirmed that it's happening. Okay, but *when*?
  • __Announced: January 2013__ __Purported Release Date: 2017__ Ah, those carefree days of January 2013. Obama just beginning his second term, millennials huddling around the television to watch the finale of *30 Rock*, Nintendo announcing a new *Legend of Zelda* for its then-new Wii U. Later, it said it wouldn't be out until 2015. Sure, we've got time. Then it was 2016. Then 2017. More importantly, it's likely that you, the reader of this listicle, won't even bother to play the Wii U version, since the open-world adventure game is also coming out for Nintendo's new platform, the Switch. Prediction: the Switch version ships first, and the Wii U version comes out later, in limited quantities. Let's see if we're right.
  • __Announced: May 2012__ __Purported Release Date: TBD__ 2012 was an exciting year for fans of classic point-and-click adventure games. Well, exciting until we realized how long we'd have to wait for the games we Kickstarted to show up. Compared to this game, inspired by and from the makers of Sierra's classic *Space Quest* series, *Broken Age*'s development was done in a jiffy. The latest update to *SpaceVenture* says that the game is "close," but also notes that the game's voiceover lines can't be recorded until the SAG-AFTRA strike against videogame makers is over. In space, no one can hear your exasperated sighs.
  • __Announced: January 2014, August 2013__ __Purported Release Dates: TBD__ I lumped these two games together because I keep getting them confused. They're both Japanese role-playing games that raised a lot of money on Kickstarter. They both promised work by big-name JRPG talent: *Unsung Story* is created by *Final Fantasy XII* director Yasumi Matsuno, and *Project Phoenix* was to feature music from legendary *Final Fantasy* composer Nobuo Uematsu. Both were supposed to be available sometime in 2015. Both are in development hell. Every now and again, someone involved in one of these ill-fated projects pops their head out from their secret bunker to announce that the games are still being developed, sees their shadow, then disappears again.
  • __Announced: June 2014__ __Purported Release Date: Mid-2017__ This run-and-gun action game inspired in equal parts by *Contra* and *Betty Boop* won over many a crusty, jaded heart when it was unveiled for Xbox One at E3 2014. We finally got to play it at E3 2015. And E3 2016. And it's entirely possible we'll play it again at E3 2017. I'm beginning to think maybe *we* made *Cuphead* into vaporware. Had fans' reaction not been so strong to this weird combo of hardcore shooting and Max Fleischer cartoons, maybe its developers wouldn't feel such pressure to deliver a perfect experience. Hope it lives up to the wait!
  • __Announced: June 2014__ __Purported Release Date: TBD__ Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto loves to play with weird experimental projects, and sometimes those even get shown in playable form at E3. Announced alongside *Star Fox Zero*, this Wii U game let you use the GamePad's motion control feature to control a gangly, awkward robot in a city-destroying giant-monster battle. Earlier this year, Miyamoto told *Time* that Nintendo "\[had not\] yet decided to turn that into a full game," but the weird thing is that it's still on Nintendo's official product release schedule and hasn't been officially cancelled. We suspect it's all over but the crying, at this point.
  • __Announced: June 2013__ __Purported Release Date: TBD__ In 2013, Square Enix [announced](http://na.square-enix.com/us/blog/kingdom-hearts-iii) that "the waiting" was "ALL OVER." What it meant, it turned out, was the waiting for Square Enix to *say the words* "Kingdom Hearts III." Not so much the waiting for it to actually ship it, which was apparently just beginning. This long-awaited third installment of the crossover between the *Final Fantasy* and Disney universes still hasn't had many updates as of late. Maybe there's a Law of Preservation of Vaporware in play, and now that *Final Fantasy XV* is finally out, Square Enix needs another game to sit on its roster for a decade?
  • __Announced: February 2013__ __Purported Release Date: TBD__ Announced alongside the PlayStation 4 hardware, this gorgeous-looking Capcom game was an action RPG for four cooperative players; something of a *Monster Hunter* for the *Dark Souls* set. A public beta was supposed to go live for the Japanese launch of PlayStation 4, but it didn't. In 2015, Capcom said the game was still in development and would be free-to-play... but that's the last we ever heard of it. Should be titled *Deep Down, You Know It's Never Coming Out*.
  • __Announced: September 2012__ __Purported Release Date: January 2017 (for Act I)__ Another big cash windfall winner of the 2012 Kickstarter explosion (it got more funding than the Oculus Rift!), this adventure based on the popular *Homestuck* web comic has gone through a total overhaul in the five years since: Originally planned as a 3-D polygonal game, it's now rendered with 2-D art instead; development also shifted from an external studio to in-house. In October, the creator announced that "Act I" of the game should be available in January 2017, but stopped short of saying exactly how much game would be in said act. Hopefully whatever's in it can placate anxious backers.
  • __Announced: October 2012__ __Purported Release Date: TBD__ It's reasonable to imagine that *Wing Commander* creator Chris Roberts' grand vision of an all-encompassing multiplayer virtual universe may never be truly completed. With over $130 million in crowdfunding cash, and more rolling in by the day, Roberts and his team have more resources than virtually any other game creator to fulfill their grand vision of interstellar travel, spaceship combat, first-person shooting, and probably five more game genres. The developer has been continually releasing alpha versions allowing fans (some of whom have paid thousands of dollars to "own" virtual ships) to knock around with what it's done so far, but when will the full game actually be released? Heck if we know.
Chris Kohler started writing for WIRED in 2002, and founded WIRED.com's Game|Life channel in 2005. He is the author of the books Power-Up and Retro Gaming Hacks, and co-hosts the Stitcher Award-winning podcast Good Job, Brain! ... Read more
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