Duke Nukem Forever officially holds the Guinness World Record for the longest development period for a video game, but that record has now been beaten by Beyond Good & Evil 2, as noted in a recent tweet by Brendan Sinclair, Gamesindustry.biz’s managing editor, who pointed out that it’s been 5,234 days since the first trailer for Ubisoft’s mythical prequel was first shared. That number amounts to 14 years, 4 months, and 1 day, a length of time that exceeds the 14:43 years:days that it took for Duke Nukem Forever to finally release on June 10, 2011.
Duke Nukem Forever went 5,156 days from its announcement in 1997 to its release in 2011.
— Brendan Sinclair (@BrendanSinclair) September 28, 2022
It has been 5,234 days since the first Beyond Good & Evil 2 trailer was released.
From Guinness World Records:
Officially announced on 28 April 1997 by developer 3D Realms, the FPS Duke Nukem Forever took another 14 years 44 days before it finally released on 10 June 2011. According to Venturebeat, the game’s production was “plagued with delays due to changes in the game engine and other issues”. 3D Realms eventually closed in 2009, leaving Borderlands developer Gearbox Software to be tasked with finishing the game by publisher Take-Two Interactive who acquired the title’s rights.
The most recent news article that Ubisoft published about Beyond Good & Evil 2 appears to be from July 12, 2020. “…we are currently concentrating on core development and production milestones, so rest assured that Beyond Good and Evil 2 is well underway,” a portion of the post reads, followed by recent comments from visitors who are convinced that the game is vaporware.