If You Thought Silksong’s Wait Was Long, This Indie Game Has Kept Fans Waiting for 11 Years

by

With the release of Hollow Knight: Silksong, it’s easy to forget the incredibly long wait fans endured for Team Cherry’s sequel. For seven years, players enthusiastically shared updates and pleaded for news, but very little was revealed until a launch date was announced just a few months before the game finally came out. Though that wait felt endless, some indie games have been in development even longer – one has been anticipated for over a decade!

The last year has seen incredible games released by small independent studios, like Blue Prince, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and the award-winning Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. However, these teams are often quite small, so developing a game can take a significant amount of time. Beyond the sheer amount of work involved, many indie games face challenges that make simply finishing and releasing them a remarkable achievement.

Little Devil Inside Was First Announced In 2015 Through A Kickstarter

In Spring 2015, Neostream Interactive announced Little Devil Inside, a promising indie game. Set in a strange, Steampunk-inspired world reminiscent of 19th-century Victorian England, the action-adventure RPG showcased exciting features in early gameplay footage, including interesting characters and the possibility of cooperative multiplayer.

This independent game quickly gained a lot of support when its Kickstarter campaign launched alongside the initial announcement. Originally intended for release in Fall 2016, the game’s plans expanded significantly after a successful Kickstarter campaign with nearly 5,000 backers. The campaign raised over $300,000 in a month, allowing the developers of Little Devil Inside to add more content. However, development then went quiet for a period as the team continued working on the game.

You’d expect financial support for an independent game to help developers create everything they originally planned, and maybe even more. But in the case of Little Devil Inside, that wasn’t the case. Instead, it marked the start of years of very slow progress and limited updates.

Multiple Missed Release Windows And Delays Placed This Little Devil Inside In Development Hell

After a long silence, fans got another glimpse of Little Devil Inside in December 2017 with a trailer promising a release around late 2018. Unfortunately, that date passed without the game appearing. For years afterward, news was scarce. The only update came at a 2021 trade show where Sony announced a July 2021 release window, but once again, the game didn’t launch as planned.

Sony followed up with another presentation in 2022, a State of Play, offering a detailed look at Little Devil Inside and showcasing new game features. While initially planned for Winter 2022, the game faced another delay. Updates ceased until a mysterious trailer, titled “Despite all,” appeared on YouTube in February 2024. The trailer offered a glimpse of more gameplay, but still didn’t reveal a new release date.

There haven’t been any updates about Little Devil Inside since last year’s announcement. Originally, the game was only planned for release on Steam, but the developers kept adding support for more platforms, including PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and even Wii U when they first launched their Kickstarter campaign. However, recent gameplay footage from 2024 indicates the game is now being built with Unreal Engine 5, which likely means it will be released on more powerful consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Multiple Team Changes And COVID Woes May Have Contributed To Little Devil Inside’s Current State

As a big fan of Little Devil Inside, I’ve been following all the drama around its development, and it’s been… rough, to say the least! It seems like the team at Neostream Interactive has been dealing with a lot of internal issues. They even hinted at this themselves in an apology they posted on the original Kickstarter page back in February 2024 – it was part of that strange update everyone was talking about. It’s just sad to hear they’ve been struggling with conflict behind the scenes.

The recent reduction in staff at Neostream Interactive was probably caused by difficulties experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, which likely disrupted the team’s work for several years. Switching to Unreal Engine 5 to rebuild the game appears to be a positive move, and could finally allow them to fulfill the commitments made to their Kickstarter supporters almost ten years ago.

Developers report the team working on Little Devil Inside is more capable than ever, though this doesn’t guarantee a release date is near. This time, however, they’re avoiding setting any specific expectations for when the game might launch. The gameplay footage shown this year looks polished thanks to the game’s new engine. Still, it’s been another year with few updates on the project, bringing the total development time to 11 years – a frustrating wait that Hollow Knight: Silksong fans recently experienced themselves.

Wondering when Little Devil Inside will finally be released? Share your thoughts in the comments or discuss it with other fans in the ComicBook Forum!

Read More

2026-01-08 23:12