Video game sequels like Kingdom Hearts 3, Kid Icarus Uprising, and others took quite a long time to come out, leaving players waiting a decade or more for new entries. Whether due to company disinterest, the dev team being pushed onto other projects, or the first game not being that successful when it first released, some sequels to beloved game series take several years to come out. Some, however, took much longer than others.
There are many factors that go into a sequel taking a long time, many of them completely out of a dev team's control. Everything from scheduling to simple disinterest on the part of the studio or the developers in making a sequel can halt development for years, or even decades. While Kingdom Hearts 4 already has its story trailer a few years after KH3's release, this is far from the norm for that particular franchise.
It isn't just Kingdom Hearts that has had this problem, however, as memetic as Kingdom Hearts 3 was for over a decade. There are other game series out there that have had more than just a few years between entries. These franchises span multiple genres and decades, with the wait for sequels sometimes more protracted than some fans may have initially thought.
Psychonauts 2 Took 16 Years To Release
The original Psychonauts was not a big success. Developer Double Fine has gotten a reputation for not being the most expedient developer out there, even barring how long it took to make the colorful, comedic Psychonauts 2. A whole console generation came and was well on the way out by the time Double Fine completed the first Psychonauts, which impacted it in a negative fashion. With that being said, it's no wonder it took 16 years for the next chapter to come out.
Fast forward over a decade later, and Double Fine received aid from the last person it would expect help from - Microsoft, who had famously pulled funding during development of the first Psychonauts. This led to Psychonauts 2 finally coming out on August 25, 2021 - 16 years after the release of the original game - to both critical and commercial success. Psychonauts 2 proved that great sequels are never too late.
Kingdom Hearts 3 Took 14 Years And A Lot Of Spinoff Games To Release
No discussion of sequels that took a long time to release is complete without mentioning the game that many fans had resigned themselves to believing would never come out: Kingdom Hearts 3. There were many factors that led to the game taking so long, but one of the biggest contributing factors, according to the game's director in an interview with Newsweek, was the decision to change game engines to better mesh with modern hardware. As much as this resulted in the game taking even longer to come out, the results speak for themselves, as Kingdom Hearts 3 is the first game in the franchise to have graphics that have caught up with the 3D animation of modern Disney films.
Though a portion of the fandom was inevitably, vocally disappointed with the end result of 14 years and almost a dozen spinoff games of waiting, that didn't stop Kingdom Hearts 3 from receiving positive reviews and being a huge success like its predecessors. Fortunately for fans of the series, the wait for the next game won't be nearly as long.
Persona 5 Took 8 Years And Four Persona 4 Spinoff Games
In contrast to Psychonauts and Kingdom Hearts, the wait for Persona 5 wasn't actually that long in the grand scheme of things. Persona 5 is a big complex JRPG, and those tend to take a long time to complete. However, the wait was filled with constant spinoffs for the then most popular game in Atlus' library, Persona 4.
Atlus found success in spinoff material for Persona 4, starting with teaming up with Arc System Works to produce a pair of fighting games, Persona 4 Arena and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. After that was Persona Q, and after that was Persona 4: Dancing All Night. This trend has continued with Persona 5, with its own dancing game and the musou style Persona 5 Strikers. However, there has been no news of Persona 6, whereas fans had a single promo image of Persona 5 to tease them for years, while Atlus released Persona 4 spinoff after spinoff. Persona 5's development was hindered mostly by unfortunate circumstance, so the next game shouldn't take nearly as long to come out. However, while the wait wasn't as long as the other entries featured here, the constant focusing on the then current Persona generation made the wait feel that much longer.
Kid Icarus Was A Sequel 25 Years In The Making
If there was one Nintendo game that fans never expected to see or hear from again, it was Kid Icarus. However, in 2012, Nintendo fans were treated to a sequel 25 years in the making, with Kid Icarus Uprising. Though another Kid Icarus game anytime soon is unlikely - with some considering it a dead Nintendo franchise - the fact that even a single sequel to the original Kid Icarus happened at all was mind-blowing on its own.
As discussed in an interview with Super Smash Bros Wii U/3DS and the ever-updating Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, so Iwata felt it was too soon to make another entry in the series. Thus Project Sora was created and Kid Icarus: Uprising was released to the public in 2012, 25 years after the original, making it one of the longest stretches of time between two games in a series in gaming history.
As long as the IP remains even relatively well known, one should never completely count out a series from making a comeback. As Kid Icarus: Uprising demonstrates, a video game series can crop back up in the mainstream even decades after its apparent death. There are many factors that can lead to a game sequel taking longer than usual to come out, such as a previous unsuccessful attempt, or bad management from the studio. However, as games like Kingdom Hearts 3 demonstrate, that doesn't mean the game will never come out.
