- Primary Subject: Hideki Kamiya
- Key Update: Kamiya says he would rather see a game cancelled than released in a state that fails to meet expectations
- Status: Confirmed
- Last Verified: May 25, 2026
- Quick Answer: Hideki Kamiya argued that cancelling a troubled project can be better than releasing a disappointing game simply because too much time or money has already been invested. The discussion has also reignited debate about whether modern gaming relies too heavily on post-launch fixes instead of ensuring games are ready before release.
During a recent panel discussion at G-CON 2025, Devil May Cry and Bayonetta creator Hideki Kamiya was asked about cancelled projects and whether seeing years of work disappear before release leaves him with regrets.
Taking a notably practical view, Kamiya suggested that cancellation can sometimes be the healthier outcome when a project is unlikely to reach the level of quality players expect.
From his perspective, cancelling a project that is not working can be more sensible than seeing it through solely because of the time and money committed to it.
The more I thought about his comments, the harder they became to disagree with. Whenever a game gets cancelled, the reaction is usually predictable, with players imagining what might have been as concept art resurfaces, early footage circulates online, and discussions emerge about wasted potential and missed opportunities.
Before long, the cancelled project develops a kind of mythology around it because nobody ever gets the chance to see its flaws. The game exists permanently in the realm of possibilities, which is often a far more flattering place than reality.
At the same time, I think we sometimes overlook a simple truth that releasing a bad game isn't some noble alternative to cancellation. In many cases, it's considerably worse.
Are We Too Quick To Treat Every Cancellation As A Failure?
Part of the reason cancellations generate such strong reactions is because players only see the ending of the story.
We hear that a project was shelved, but we rarely see the years of internal discussions, technical setbacks, design revisions, budget concerns, and creative disagreements that led to that decision.
Long before a cancellation reaches the public, developers have usually spent considerable time evaluating whether the project can realistically fulfill its original vision.
That's what makes Kamiya's perspective so interesting. Throughout gaming history, some of the industry's most successful projects emerged only because developers were willing to abandon ideas that weren't working.
The original version of Resident Evil 2 was famously scrapped and rebuilt. The game that eventually became Devil May Cry started as a Resident Evil concept before evolving into something entirely different.
Looking back, those decisions seem obvious because we know how successful the final products became.
At the time, however, they involved throwing away enormous amounts of work in pursuit of something better.
The games industry often celebrates persistence, and rightly so. Great games are rarely easy to make. But persistence isn't always the same thing as quality control.
Sometimes the more difficult decision is recognizing that a project isn't reaching the standard it needs to reach and having the discipline to stop before disappointment becomes public.
That may sound harsh, but creative industries are filled with examples of projects that benefited from being reconsidered, delayed, reworked, or even abandoned altogether. Not every concept develops into a great game simply because enough resources are poured into it.
Has Modern Gaming Become Too Obsessed With Redemption Stories?
One reason I find this topic interesting is that the industry increasingly loves comeback stories.
Whenever a troubled game recovers after launch, it becomes evidence that anything can be fixed with enough patches, updates, and developer commitment.
The obvious example is Cyberpunk 2077. The game's launch was undeniably messy, but years of improvements transformed public perception and eventually turned it into one of gaming's most notable redemption stories.
Credit where it's due: the amount of work invested by CD Projekt Red was remarkable.
However, I think that success story sometimes creates unrealistic expectations. Cyberpunk worked because there was already a compelling foundation beneath the technical problems.
Even many critics of the launch version praised elements such as its world-building, characters, atmosphere, and quest design.
The game needed refinement, optimization, and additional development time, but the underlying strengths were already there.
Not every struggling project is in that position. Some games suffer from deeper issues that patches cannot easily solve.
Others spend years searching for a clear creative identity without ever finding one. Some become trapped in development cycles where every solution creates a new set of problems.
In those situations, releasing the game anyway and hoping for a future turnaround can become an expensive gamble rather than a realistic strategy.
That's why I hesitate whenever people argue that every cancelled project should have been released and fixed later.
While that approach occasionally succeeds, there are plenty of cases where it simply prolongs a problem instead of solving it.
More development time is valuable when a project has strong foundations. It is far less effective when those foundations remain uncertain.
What If Cancellation Is Actually A Sign Of Higher Standards?
This is where Kamiya's comments feel especially relevant, given that players have spent years criticizing publishers for releasing unfinished games, leaning on day-one patches, and treating post-launch updates as a replacement for proper preparation.
Those complaints are understandable because nobody enjoys paying for a product that feels incomplete.
Yet if we genuinely believe games should release in a polished state, then we also have to accept the possibility that some projects won't survive the journey to release.
The two ideas are connected. Higher standards inevitably mean some games fail to meet them. That doesn't mean publishers always make the correct decision.
Gaming history contains plenty of examples where executives misjudged projects that later found success elsewhere.
Creative decisions are messy, and nobody has a perfect track record when it comes to predicting what players will ultimately enjoy.
Nevertheless, the broader principle still makes sense to me. Cancellation isn't automatically evidence of incompetence or failure.
Sometimes it reflects a willingness to acknowledge problems before players are asked to spend money on them.
Looking at it that way, cancelling a game may demonstrate good judgment rather than failure.
It can be an admission that the current version of a project isn't delivering on its promise, and that releasing it purely because development has already consumed years of work would ultimately serve nobody.
Is A Cancelled Game Better Than A Bad One?
For me, the answer is usually yes. Not because cancelled games aren't disappointing. They absolutely are.
Every cancellation represents years of effort from artists, designers, programmers, writers, and countless other developers whose work may never be experienced by the public.
It's natural to wonder what those projects could have become under different circumstances. Even so, I find Kamiya's reasoning persuasive.
Once a disappointing game launches, players judge the product that exists rather than the ambition behind it. Technical problems, unfinished ideas, weak mechanics, and missed opportunities become part of its legacy.
Recovering from that first impression is possible, but it often requires years of additional work and resources that many studios simply don't have.
A cancelled project, on the other hand, at least leaves open the possibility that its ideas can return in another form.
Gaming history is filled with mechanics, concepts, and prototypes that eventually resurfaced in sequels, spiritual successors, or entirely different franchises.
As Kamiya's own career demonstrates, abandoning one path doesn't necessarily mean abandoning the idea itself.
That's ultimately why I agree with him. The goal shouldn't be releasing every game at all costs.
The goal should be releasing games that justify the time, money, and expectations invested in them.
If developers reach a point where they genuinely believe a project cannot meet that standard, cancellation may not be the happy ending anyone wanted—but it can still be the right one.
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