A ballooned AAA budget is nothing special these days. But in the ongoing FTC lawsuit against Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, The Last of Us 2 and Horizon Forbidden West‘s costly totals were revealed — and they’re more than you may think.
The Last of Us Part II and Horizon Forbidden West cost a lot to make
In a recent tweet — which highlighted documents made available by Sony — The Verge’s Tom Warren shared a screenshot of the files. The attached excerpt outlines the development of both The Last of Us Part II, as well as Horizon Forbidden West.
Although Sony did try to redact some of the information, it did so poorly. The information reveals The Last of Us Part II cost a whopping $220 million to develop.
Horizon Forbidden West also crossed the $200 million mark in development. Both projects featured more than 100 employees working on them at their peak.
While this number is staggering — and even dwarfs some high-profile Hollywood films — it’s important to note these budget estimates don’t even include things like marketing or promotion. These jack those numbers up exponentially.
This aligns with recent comments from Microsoft’s Matt Booty. Recently, Booty said players should expect big-budget, AAA games to take four to six years to make a game, with development cycles no longer happening in just a handful of years.
