Developing a AAA game is a massive undertaking, and has continued to grow at a steady rate over the years, to the extent that wrapping up a new project’s development can take anywhere between 4-6 years on average. It seems, however, that there are some projects currently in the works that will take even longer.
As shared by journalist Stephen Totilo on Twitter, in recently-published court documents by Microsoft for an ongoing case regarding its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, while talking about how long it can take to developer AAA titles, the company says that one particular new instalment in a new franchise that is currently in development could even take as long as a decade to fully develop.
The names of the title and the franchise have been redacted, so it’s unclear which games is being referred here- though signs might point to The Elder Scrolls 6, which was announced in 2018 and is currently still in pre-production, and is unlikely to launch anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the likes of Fable and Perfect Dark are also examples of new instalments in Microsoft franchises that have been in the works for some time, and don’t seem to be close to releasing at this point. Alternatively, Microsoft could be referring to a game that hasn’t yet been announced- perhaps something along the lines of Gears 6.
Either way, even in spite of how long-drawn and complicated the development cycle of most AAA games tends to be in today’s day and age, a decade-long cycle does sound a bit alarming.
Most intriguing redactions from last week's amended complaint in the gamer lawsuit agains the Microsoft-Activision deal:
– A Microsoft franchise sequel on a possible 10-year dev cycle
– A presumably detailed explanation of something bad from May 2022 (Redfall/Starfield delay?) pic.twitter.com/OJETHAy8MM— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) April 20, 2023
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