"Not sustainable": Developers across the industry react to The Last of Us Part 2's $220 million budget
Developers across the industry are offering insight following a fresh look at just how much money it costs to make some of the biggest games.
Earlier this week, poorly redacted court documents revealed the time and budget allocated to Horizon Forbidden West and The Last of Us Part 2. Both games took more than five years and more than $200 million to develop. It took 300 employees working from 2017 to 2022 to make Horizon Forbidden West at a cost of $212 million, while Naughty Dog peaked at 200 studio employees as it spent $220 million over 70 months.
It's rare that we get this kind of detail on the cost of game development. Earlier this year, news that the poorly-received Forspoken had cost $100 million shocked players. That these two games cost more than double that is no great surprise, but the response to the exact figures has rippled across the industry, with developers helping to put some of those numbers into perspective.
On the one hand, there are the AAA developers. Former Psychonauts 2 developer Lisette Titre-Montgomery noted that Sony spent 220 million over six years to make The Last of Us Part 2 before they saw a single penny in return, claiming that "game teams this size for this long are Not. Sustainable." Former Capcom and Xbox producer Shana put that in further perspective, pointing out that that means the studio was spending $15,000 a month per employee on average – which doesn't necessarily translate to salaries but rather reflects headcount costs – at a total rate of $3 million.
That's understood to be a pretty standard rate in the US, and it highlights why games sometimes can't just simply be delayed - the cost of doing so quickly mounts up. Elsewhere, Bungie producer Nigel Davis points out that this
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