Why do some games get abandoned by their developers? Christian Guyton investigates

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W 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 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.

Let’s start with the big one, a game that has endured a lengthy saga of players versus publishers, complete with heroes, villains, and a rollercoaster of events that left passionate fans with emotional whiplash. We’re referring to Titanfall 2, the celebrated sequel to a successful Xbox One launch title, from developer Respawn Entertainment and monolithic publisher EA.

Titanfall 2’s release was hotly anticipated, with fans excited to see the game developing on the fast-paced action-shooter gameplay of the original and expanding across to other platforms. The first game sold over ten million copies in two years, a respectable sum for a new IP, and the second game was projected by EA to perform even better.

Early reviews confirmed EA’s suspicions that they were onto a winner; the game received high praise for both its stellar single-player campaign— something that was absent from the multiplayerfocused original—and variety of online game modes. However, at first, sales were poor. Despite being a multiplatform release, Titanfall 2 initially failed to sell as much as its predecessor, something that analysts blamed on EA’s decision to launch the game in a crowded release window, between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.

Despite this underwhelming start, EA claimed to be happy with Titanfall 2’s retail performance and review scores, although Respawn Entertainment head Vince Zampella noted that it could have sold better. Still, it wasn’t long before the game achieved a level of cult popularity, with a loyal player base that remained active enough for Respawn to continue releasing free content updates throughout the year following its release. These included a new cooperative game mode, multiple maps and weapons, and a massive heap of cosmetic items.