Upcoming Games With Massive Budgets

It’s no secret that with each passing year, triple-A video games become increasingly expensive to bring to players. Lengthy development cycles and thousands of people involved push budgets to unsustainable levels, even before additional marketing expenses are factored in. This has led to gaming blockbusters long ago passing the threshold of $100 million budgets, making many major AAA releases these days comparable to $200 million Hollywood blockbusters.

Below, we are looking at the biggest upcoming games boasting truly massive $100+ million budgets, possibly making them some of the most expensive video games ever. While it’s uncommon for publishers to reveal exact budgets even after an anticipated game’s launch, there are cases where costs can be pinpointed with reasonable accuracy. That said, we’ll focus only on already confirmed or reliably reported data when estimating how expensive each of the titles below is, though not every figure should be considered final.

Honorable mentions:

These games deserve mentioning, as even though their budgets haven’t been disclosed or reported yet, we can safely assume they all cost over $100 million to make, based on the studios’ previous works and the high-profile brands involved:

• The Witcher 4 (Cyberpunk 2077 reportedly cost around $315 million, excluding marketing)
• The Elder Scrolls 6 (Starfield reportedly cost over $200 million)
• Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet (Leading PlayStation studio; The Last of Us Part 2 reportedly cost over $220 million)
• Mass Effect 5 (Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s estimated budget is around $150 million)
• Gears of War: E-Day (Prestige Xbox brand; Gears 5 estimated budget is over $100 million)
• Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra (High-profile collaboration between Marvel and Skydance suggests over $100 million investment)

Grand Theft Auto 6

$1 Billion

Grand Theft Auto 6‘s budget has been a hot topic for debate over the past few years, with the game described as the “biggest release in history,” nothing less. While some sources go as far as estimating the game’s cost to Take-Two at around the astronomical $2 billion mark, other, more realistic estimations place it in a much more “modest” $1 billion range, or something close to that.

Of course, “modest” is an understatement in this case, as even this figure would make GTA 6 the most expensive entertainment product ever, outshining not only every gaming release before it, but also the most expensive blockbusters like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Avengers: Endgame, each costing around $400 million. Hopefully, the game will finally arrive in May 2026, with no further delays.

Star Citizen

$850+ Million

A truly unique case, Star Citizen is entirely funded by Cloud Imperium Games’ backers, with a massive campaign that began back in 2012. Since then, Star Citizen has raised over $854 million, and the number just keeps growing while the game proportionally becomes more ambitious and continually delayed.

While there is a lot of skepticism surrounding the development of Star Citizen, fueled by constant deadline shifts, years in early access with limited features, and extremely pricey virtual ships that players can purchase in hopes of flying them in the final game one day, Star Citizen is playable in some form, and with each new showcase, like the last 2024’s CitizenCon, the game continues to impress. As of now, the single-player story campaign Squadron 42 is expected in 2026, but who really believes that?

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7

Around $500+ Million

Call of Duty has long been an annual blockbuster in a league of its own, with millions of players picking up new entries without a second thought. Naturally, such a gigantic money-making machine demands equal investment, so while there are no exact figures for the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 7‘s budget just yet, it’s safe to assume the game’s production costs are far above $100 million. After all, CoD games have been among the most expensive for the past decade.

For comparison, it was reported that 2015’s Black Ops 3 cost $450 million over its lifecycle. 2019’s Modern Warfare raised the figure to $640 million, Black Ops Cold War cost over $700 million, and who knows how much was spent on the latest entry, Black Ops 6. With dozens of studios and thousands of people involved in every new installment, Activision is reportedly confident that “Call of Duty is too big to fail.”

Battlefield 6

$400 Million

After two explosive Battlefield 6 betas bringing in millions of players, it’s safe to assume that Battlefield is truly back this year after the disaster that Battlefield 2042 turned out to be for EA. This time, the stakes are high, but so is the confidence of the developers in the upcoming game, slated to be one of the biggest releases of 2025.

Battlefield 6 reportedly ranks among the most costly games EA has ever produced, with a budget of over $400 million, and it seems that such a bet and heavy investment in the brand may pay off, potentially allowing Battlefield 6 to outshine Call of Duty this fall. Interestingly, EA still has somewhat unrealistic expectations for Battlefield 6 to reach 100 million players, but that remains to be seen starting this October.

Marvel’s Wolverine

$300 Million

Marvel’s Wolverine still seems pretty far away, given that Insomniac Games hasn’t shown anything beyond a brief 2021 teaser. Yet, due to leaks from the studio, it is known that Sony plans to invest $305 million in the project, making its total budget comparable to Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which cost a whopping $312 million.

From what we know, Insomniac Games’ recent single-player titles like Wolverine are among the priciest for Sony, reflecting the company’s trust in the Marvel brand to be closely associated with PlayStation as the home to some of the most spectacular superhero action games with broad appeal.

Borderlands 4

$200 Million

Borderlands 4 is arriving in just a month, exactly six years after Borderlands 3, and this time the game is definitely more expensive and ambitious. Developers have described the upcoming title as the “most open and free” game in the series to date, and fans can likely expect a wealth of content and new features, including some 30 billion guns.

While Borderlands 3‘s entire budget was around $95 million, Gearbox Software CEO Randy Pitchford has already revealed that Borderlands 4 has “more than twice the development budget” of its predecessor, perfectly illustrating the rising costs of game development over the years and pushing the average price tag for modern triple-A titles from established franchises into the $200 million range.

007 First Light

Around $200 Million

The highly anticipated 007 First Light made its debut with a first showcase just a couple of months ago, and excitement for the game is already building. With fans still unaware of who will play the new movie version of James Bond, 007 First Light might just find itself in the perfect position to be the “main Bond project” for some time. But how expensive is the upcoming game?

While exact figures are unsurprisingly unknown, IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak confirmed that, given the power of the brand, the investment into Bond is greater than it ever was in Hitman, as it is a more expensive and ambitious product with the possibility of numerous sequels. Abrak also mentioned that Hitman (2016) was “a $100 million game,” suggesting that 007 First Light developed today could easily be twice as costly.

Resident Evil Requiem

$120+ Million

Resident Evil Requiem is probably the least “official” entry here budget-wise, given how secretive Japanese companies are (and Capcom in particular) when it comes to project expenses. However, according to reliable insiders, the upcoming Resident Evil Requiem has Capcom’s biggest budget for any of the company’s projects so far, suggesting the game is easily in the $100+ million range.

Of course, this hardly comes as a surprise, as it is the ninth mainline installment in one of the longest-running, most recognizable, and most popular video game franchises. To draw some comparisons and better pinpoint how expensive Resident Evil 9 may be, the development cost of Resident Evil Village was reportedly around $110 million, and that game became one of the best- and fastest-selling entries in the series. With that in mind, it’s safe to assume that Resident Evil Requiem will make quite a splash this February and be worth the wait.

Marvel’s Blade

$110+ Million

Marvel’s Blade is another ambitious upcoming game that players have yet to see, with nothing more than a brief teaser shown by Arkane Studios back in 2023. However, true to the strength of the Marvel brand, the investments in the project are reportedly considerable, revealed to be “more than 94 million euros,” or at least $110 million.

Given that the game is still far from release, this figure is most likely not final, making Marvel’s Blade one of the most ambitious and expensive games by Arkane to date. With the studio’s pedigree of delivering iconic games remembered for years, the curiosity to finally get a taste of Marvel’s Blade is only stronger.