Games take longer to make. That’s what Head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty told Axios in an interview on Monday.
In his interview with the outlet, Booty said that fans need to understand that games just don’t get made at the same speed they used to.
“I think that the industry and the fans were a little behind the curve on sort of a reset to understand that games aren’t two or three years anymore,” he told Axios.
When it comes to the large-scale “big budget” games, Booty added that they are at least “four and five and six years”.
This trend has been going on for quite a while now with most AAA games, aside from annualized titles that have multiple studios working on them. The biggest example right now is Starfield’s eight-year development cycle. You can even put the in-development Fable in the same category as the game was first announced back in 2020 and appears to be nowhere near release despite its first major trailer being shown.
Booty says that the longer development time is, in large part, due to the complexity of the games being made today.
“There are higher expectations,” he said. “The level of fidelity that we’re able to deliver just goes up.
“Games continue to get more ambitious as an art form.”
What do you make of Head of Xbox Game Studios Booty’s comments on the state of large game development, and them taking longer to make because of scope?
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