Open-World Games With The Longest Development Time

Open-world games are incredibly complex to create, requiring huge environments, realistic interactions, compelling stories, and cutting-edge technology. While most games take several years to finish, some especially ambitious projects can take a decade or even longer to complete.

Longer development times usually mean a project is facing internal challenges or its scope is changing, making it hard to set a firm release date.

Sometimes, games take a long time to make, and it’s not always obvious why. However, many open-world games ultimately prove that the extra development time was worthwhile, even if it took several years.

Dying Light 2

Restart After Restart

Building on the popularity of the first game, Techland wanted to make a bigger, more dynamic open world for Dying Light 2. They envisioned a game with choices that truly mattered, improved parkour movement, and a world that reacted to the player’s actions. However, this ambitious vision, along with changes within the company, significantly increased the game’s development time.

The project’s extended timeline enabled important technical improvements and a broader range of features. While managing these additions proved difficult, the extra time ultimately allowed the team to create an impressive and well-received urban playground that satisfied both longtime fans and new players.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance

A True Medieval Fantasy

As a huge fan, I always admired how ambitious *Kingdom Come: Deliverance* was! They really wanted to make an open-world RPG that felt genuinely like 15th-century Bohemia. But honestly, it was a massive undertaking, and the development hit some snags. Getting the funding through crowdfunding, building the game engine, and trying to make the combat and characters feel truly realistic in such a big, open world? That all took a lot longer than anyone expected, and I can totally understand why it faced delays.

Man, this game took a long time to make, but it *really* paid off. They built this incredibly deep and believable medieval world – the quests feel meaningful, the way people interact feels real, and just wandering around is amazing. Seriously, they spent years polishing everything, and it shows. It’s honestly one of the most authentic open-world RPGs I’ve played from the 2010s – the details are just incredible.

Starfield

Bethesda’s Next Long-Term Vision

Starfield is Bethesda’s first completely new game world in many years, and it aimed to deliver a massive experience – including countless planets created by the game itself, and the memorable character interactions fans loved in previous Bethesda titles. Achieving this ambitious scope, and taking the time to refine and polish the game, meant development took a considerable amount of time.

Given the difficulties of building a new game engine and the pressure on the development team, some delays were inevitable. This extra time ultimately allowed the game to launch as a polished, complete experience – a sprawling space exploration RPG that lived up to its potential, rather than a quickly released and flawed product.

Final Fantasy 15

Reworking A Previously Announced Sequel

Originally planned as something different, the game now known as Final Fantasy XV went through several changes and redesigns before becoming the large-scale, open-world action RPG it is today, as part of the popular Final Fantasy series. The development process took longer than expected because the team greatly expanded the game’s features and content.

Ultimately, dedicated fans were pleased with the game’s vast open world, movie-like story, and detailed design, even though it took a while to fully come together.

L.A. Noire

Historical Reconstruction That Demanded Care Beyond The Norm

L.A. Noire is a standout thriller with a neo-noir style, set in a beautifully recreated 1940s Los Angeles. Its development took a long time because the developers were committed to realism and pushed the boundaries of technology, particularly with facial motion capture and gameplay. What started as a typical project timeline stretched into several years due to these ambitious goals.

This iterative process significantly improved the game’s realism and gave it a cinematic quality, creating an immersive open-world experience that fully delivers on – and even exceeds – the promise of a believable detective story.

Cyberpunk 2077

A New Futuristic Epic Years In The Making

CD Projekt Red started planning Cyberpunk 2077 shortly after beginning work on The Witcher 3, with full development kicking off around 2012. Creating such a detailed futuristic city, along with necessary changes to the game engine, keeping up with evolving technology, and internal team changes all caused significant delays. This worried both the developers and fans who were eagerly awaiting the game.

Creating a detailed open-world game with lots of quests, interconnected systems, and a branching storyline turned out to be more difficult than expected. Although the game initially had performance problems at launch, the extra development time allowed for an incredibly detailed world, which was continually improved and expanded with updates after release.

Skull And Bones

Almost Dropping Below Sea Level

Initially planned as a continuation of the world of *Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag*, *Skull and Bones* went through many changes during development. It evolved from a game primarily about online naval battles into a larger, open-world pirate adventure. Several complete restarts, shifts in leadership, and adjustments to the game’s size all led to a very long development process, causing many to doubt whether it would ever be released.

Okay, so the game had a rocky start. A lot of us had been waiting *years* for it, and the initial release wasn’t quite what we hoped for. But honestly, the developers have been amazing with updates and support. They’re really putting in the work, and now I’m actually feeling really optimistic about where this game is headed. You can tell a lot of love and effort went into it, and it’s starting to show!

Kenshi

An RPG Evolution Over 10 Years In The Making

Kenshi is a large, open-world role-playing game largely created by one developer at the beginning of its development. It took a long time to create because the game has very complex systems and a detailed world, requiring more work than the small team could initially manage.

Initially, the game grew naturally, and we listened to what players wanted. This allowed the gameplay to develop in a way that prioritized their experience – something we couldn’t have achieved with tighter restrictions. The final result shows how carefully improving a game over time can create a truly captivating world that players can enjoy for hundreds of hours.

2025-09-28 10:35