Mark Darrah, best known as the creator of the Dragon Age series and currently consulting on the new Dragon Age: The Veilguard, has hinted at why AAA games take so long to make. His views were expressed in a video published on Tuesday, June 25, 2024.
Darrah blamed the delay between AAA games on factors like the size of the game, what he called the fidelity death cult, the size of the team, the number of iterations made to the game, changing culture, and personal in-studio decisions.
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During his speech, he also hinted at why it seems the gap between AAA games releases is getting wider. In addition to that, the gap between AAA game announcements and actual releases is also getting wider.
Recently, some AAA games have been released 2 to 3 years (sometimes more) after their initial announcement. Darrah opined that the reason why some AAA games are announced early is to avoid the cancelation of the game by the publisher.
“There might be reasons why it’s important for the studio or the publisher to have that game in the public consciousness,” said Darrah.
“It might be because the publisher’s slate is a little weak, and they want the public to remember it still has important games in its back pocket. It might be because the studio wants the game announced because they’re worried the publisher might kill it otherwise.”
Darrah also mentioned that most studios are more serial than parallel, meaning that they usually work on one or a little more than one game at a time. So, sometimes they announce a game while still working on another one and will only move to the new game when they are done with the previous one.
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“Studios can kind of be misleading on this front because they’ll say things like ‘we’ve started work on Elder Scrolls 6’, or they might even a trailer for the game even though the current team size is under 10 people,” he said.
“So, they’re giving the impression that this is parallel development, that the team is working on this game, when in fact it’s a few people having a few meetings, and not much is being done.”
Darrah addresses the ‘fidelity death cult’ in AAA games
What Darrah terms ‘fidelity Death Cult’ is the obsession by studios to make games more realistic which he also blamed for causing a longer development cycle. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 was specifically marketed on the grounds of being lifelike.
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“We are also in a period of something I’ve called the Fidelity death cult where a lot of games are trying for hyper-realistic art style, hyper high fidelity, hyper customization, hyper intricacy,” Darrah said.
“These things, while they don’t contribute to a larger size, while they don’t help you make a forever game, they still take a lot more time.”
Darrah mentioned that players are pushing back on the reuse of systems and assets which means that developers have to create new assets—even for a sequel—to gain the acceptance of the audience. This also stretches the development time of games.
Concluding his over 24-minute analysis, Darrah said the large gaps between AAA game releases present an opportunity for AA and indie developers to create something and try to disrupt the market.
“All of this does mean that AAA games in a lot of cases do come out pretty far apart,” said Darrah. “It’s one of the reasons why we do see the ability for AA or triple-I indie games to seemingly come out of nowhere and be disruptors.”
Do you pay attention to visual fidelity during gaming or your attention is sold on mechanics? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.
