Video game budgets have been a growing topic of discussion over the past few years, and a big reason is due to the insane amounts of money that developers are willing to invest into their projects year after year. For some games, like Red Dead Redemption 2, the massive $170 million can be seen in the graphical fidelity, beautiful world design, and unmatched level of detail that covers every inch of the landscape.
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Open-world titles have some of the highest budgets in gaming due to their scale, with these great games sporting the highest budgets of the genre.
Yet other developers have shown that they have pockets just as deep as Rockstar, spending millions of dollars on ginormous projects that keep setting the bar higher each time. Some are sequels looking to take things to the next level, while others are ambitious attempts to create a world unlike any other, aiming to give players better graphics, more immersion, and more content to explore than ever before.
These figures are based on reported development amounts and do not factor in marketing budgets. The exact figures are hard to pinpoint, but the ones here are backed by credible sources.
Battlefield 6
Big Battles Mean Big Budgets
Details:
- Large-scale modern shooter with real-time destruction
- Long time to develop, with worker burnout being common
- Estimated development cost: $400 million +
- Source
Battlefield 6 represents one of the most expensive FPS productions ever, with an enormous reported budget that matches the giant, cinematic battles the game offers. The franchise has always relied on large-scale destruction and cutting-edge tech, and this entry is no different, using an improved engine and high-fidelity sound design to bring players to the heart of the fight, no matter if they are scaling a giant building or shooting across a snowy landscape.
This technical investment obviously required a sizable financial one to match the ambition, as everything from the graphics to the gameplay needed to be top-notch to keep the franchise’s integrity intact. The higher costs are also a reflection of the complexity associated with modern live-service shooters, as with more players and higher demands, a single shooter release can quickly scale up to a full-blown blockbuster production.
Cyberpunk 2077
Long Development Time For A Massive Project
Details:
- Ambitious futuristic open-world
- Early reveal drew in hype, but required more development to fix bugs
- Estimated development cost: $174 million + $103.6 million post launch
- Source
Cyberpunk 2077 was a hugely ambitious project by CD Projekt Red that was initially teased all the way back in 2012, but the actual game would take a whole eight more years to fully release, even being broken at launch. The game sends players to a packed dystopian world full of branching narratives and breathtaking visuals, and in order to fully realize that initial vision, the developmental costs quickly rose into the 100s of millions.
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Games cost a lot to make as it is, but some RPGs took a staggering amount of financial resources to become a finished product.
However, the money didn’t stop there, as the launch wasn’t exactly smooth sailing, and the game required countless additional patches and content drops to polish out the bugs and make the game feel like a more rounded product. The game’s story illustrates perfectly how ambition and reality can often be misaligned, but thanks to the deep pockets and dedication of the devs, the game now stands as one of the best RPG experiences out there.
The Last Of Us Part 2
More Fidelity And Detail Than Ever
Details:
- Huge graphical upgrade from the original
- A large team plus internal shifts due to COVID towards the end of development
- Estimated development cost: $220 million
- Source
The Last of Us Part 2 made a big push for cinematic quality, relying heavily on advanced animations and realistic character modeling to create an immersive narrative that could live up to the first game. The long development cycle brought with it plenty of challenges, but above all else, the dedication to realism is what drove the costs as high as they reached.
The budget also reflects the studio’s investment in narrative detail and polish, as a large part of the praise for the first game came from the story and presentation of the characters. Although the sequel may have had a more mixed reception than anticipated, it still managed to be a commercial success and earned accolades across the board, including the coveted Game of the Year award.
Horizon Forbidden West
A Next-Generation Technical Masterpiece
Details:
- A larger-scale world with more technical challenges
- Growing team size and long cycle, both for dev and motion capture
- Estimated development cost: $212 million
- Source
Horizon Forbidden West carried a development cost among the highest in the industry, with the figure reflecting the scale of the vast landscapes and the intricate machine designs that give the game’s universe such a unique feel. Expanding on its predecessor with more detailed biomes and a huge variety of creatures, the game is not only visually stunning but also mechanically a step up from both the previous game and a lot of other games releasing at the time.
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These upcoming AAA games would easily rank among the most expensive video games ever made.
Guerrilla invested heavily in technological upgrades for systems like the lighting and physics engines, as well as improving its work on capturing facial expressions and dialogue with more precision than ever. This level of ambition and detail required a huge team of talented devs to work around the clock to push the game out, alongside additional projects like the DLCs.
Call Of Duty
Leading The Charge In The FPS Genre
Details:
- Fast turnaround due to yearly releases and ongoing support
- Graphical improvements and rapid innovation with each title
- Estimated development cost: BO3 $450 million, MW (2019) $640 million, BO Cold War $700 million
- Source
Call of Duty has led the charge in the FPS world for many decades now, and despite the ups and downs, the franchise continues to expand every single year. However, in order to stay at the top, the teams need to keep pushing things further and further, and as a result, the developmental costs need to go up. Games like Black Ops 3 required a huge amount of extra financial input to create a technically and visually impressive experience that covered everything from futuristic, fast-paced multiplayer to an interconnected storyline in the Zombies mode.
Later games like Black Ops Cold War and Modern Warfare (2019) continued the trend of bigger budgets, as each game looked to be a step up graphically than the last, with even less time to produce a final product. There are also other barriers for the devs to tackle, like more hardware products to program for, and an even larger player base that demands a more robust connectivity service and a higher frequency of content drops post-launch to keep consumers coming back until the next game drops.
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