God Of War Ragnarok Cost A Massive $ 200 Million To Make

gameranx.com:

It seems Sony Interactive Entertainment paid top dollar for us to see the end of the Viking arc of God of War.

Shuhei Yoshida, once President of SIE Worldwide Studios, and currently Head of the company’s Independent Developer Initiative, let it all out in a recent interview.

As reported in Tech 4 Gamers, Shuhei revealed that it cost $ 200 million to produce God of War Ragnarok, five times the cost of its predecessor.

While some fans will definitely be pointing at the quality of the game, its graphics and performance, and the large host of features it boasts, that cost may have more to do with something that can’t be seen in the final product.

God of War Ragnarok was released four years after the release of the 2018 God Of War. That’s a relatively short time to make a 30 + hour game of God of War Ragnarok’s caliber, but that time period also happens to encapsulate the entirety of the pandemic so far.

We have seen, of course, that Santa Monica Studio proved to be up to the challenge of making this game as they wanted it. Santa Monica did originally announce voice actor Christopher Judge’s health problems led to some initial delays, but the pandemic itself also staggered its development. For those who don’t remember, it was originally scheduled to release in 2021.

Now, that $ 200 million figure brings God of War Ragnarok up to the scale of some of the most expensive video games ever produced.  I’m going to make some comparisons below, based on verifiable figures as much as that’s possible.

Halo 2, in 2004, had a total production budget of $ 120 million including marketing. Adjusted for inflation, that goes up to $ 190 million today.

The first Destiny, released in 2014, had a total production budget of $ 140 million