Will AAA Game Development Take Less Time Next Gen?

[vivftp]

It seems these days most AAA titles takes anywhere between 3 and 5 years to develop. It makes sense of course because games are getting larger and more complex, but I'm curious about potential advances we can see going into next gen that can help cut down development time. I'm only superficially aware of a couple of things that could help do so, and I'm wondering what else we can expect.

- With all the talk about SSDs in the next gen machines I've seen talk that it'll help cut down dev time because they won't have to waste a lot of time fine tuning parts of games to cater to the very slow streaming speed of spinning hard drives.

- AI seems to be all the rage and I've seen mention that AI will be a big help going forward to identify bugs far faster and more comprehensively than could be done before.

- Real time raytracing is another thing I've seen discussed that can help cut down on dev time since the devs don't have to spend a lot of time fiddling with pre-baked lighting

So what other advances are we expecting as we move into next gen that could help reduce dev time to get games out faster? Alternatively, are there things we're anticipating that could extend the amount of time it takes to make games as the ambition of developers grows with the new platforms?

Is there a realistic possibility that we could have some AAA games made in as little as 2-3 years on average next gen?

 

[Deleted member 8196]

Is there a realistic possibility that we could have some AAA games made in as little as 2-3 years on average next gen?

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That's not gonna happen when games will be even bigger and no amount of SSD and raytracing will make you develop an AAA title in 2-3 years.

Longer development is always due to scope and ambition from developers

 

[Delaney]

No, because the standard for content and visual quality will keep raising, ambition will eat up the new technology advances, projects will still need lengthy phase of pre-production and production no matter what & whenever the industry is starting to accomodate to the technology we are working with, someone will decide it's time for new hardware and thus we are back to square one.

 

[Hoot]

I don't think we'll see a lot of changes. A lot of dev time is less due to technical reasons, and more often mismanagement, synchronizing large team and asset productions. You will still have problems like projects restarting or poor communications between designers, writers and artist, or a poor assessment of the scope of a project. Those are mostly the causes of long dev times.

That and people just expect more and more for AAA and that is not really sustainable. High graphical fidelity means even more time spent on detail and general amount of work.

 

[Gay Bowser]

Nooooooooooope.

Longer development is always due to scope and ambition from developers

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This. The game-buying public keeps expecting more and more.

 

[Xando]

Not as long as you don't have AI being capable of coding or creating assets.

 

[Deleted member 8196]

Not as long as you don't have AI being capable of coding or creating assets.

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And writing

 

[Dan Thunder]

Doubt it. Some things will be quicker but other things will take longer. Devs will always look to take advantage of the hardware offered and that ambition takes time regardless of the power offered.

Look at PS3 vs PS4. The previous generation machine was notoriously difficult to develop for and yet we ended up with many games having sequels across that generation. The PS4 on the other hand is far easier to create games on and yet the AAA titles took longer to make and you often had just one title released. Look at Uncharted or GTA as examples.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

Some parts of the process will take less time. But the scope of games will also increase, which will probably keep things around the same amount of development time. It's not that stuff will take less time to create, it's that, in the same time frame, they'll be able to do more.

 

[Xando]

And writing

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Nah i think design decisions and writing will still be done by humans for a long time.

 

[texhnolyze]

Hahahahahahahahahaha...

Nope.

With all the race between studios and demand from users?

Nope.

 

[Gay Bowser]

Look at PS3 vs PS4. The previous generation machine was notoriously difficult to develop for and yet we ended up with many games having sequels across that generation. The PS4 on the other hand is far easier to create games on and yet the AAA titles took longer to make and you often had just one title released. Look at Uncharted or GTA as examples.

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Yeah, it's pretty dramatic how much Sony's first-party franchises have slowed. They released trilogies of Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, and Resistance games on the PS3, and two Killzones and God of Wars.

They're definitely bigger "event" games now, but they're fewer of them, and that's basically the story of this generation: everything has to be "AAAA" now.

 

[Sid]

I don't think so, AAA games will be even more derivative (as hard as that is to believe) than this gen and will take even longer to make.

 

[Scottoest]

Some parts of the process will take less time. But the scope of games will also increase, which will probably keep things around the same amount of development time. It's not that stuff will take less time to create, it's that, in the same time frame, they'll be able to do more.

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Same thing I was going to say. The dev tools and hardware will improve, but the games themselves will also get bigger, more complex, and more expensive in terms of assets.

Games will still take the same amount of time to make, you'll just be able to do more with that time.

 

[Chivalry]

Lol no. As long as people demand more and more detailed worlds and more content, dev time will just continue increasing.

 

[Carn]

if anything I suspect AAA games will take longer because of increase in scope / ambitions / posibilities. Now, regarding QA testing / bughunting, some trained AI might be an interesting avenue.

 

[3bada]

The saved time will simply go into other areas, and scope will get even bigger.

 

[elenarie]

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[Gay Bowser]

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Pretty much.

 

[Patryn]

I expect games to take longer and longer. I bet most major franchises are going to begin following the one entry every other console generation pattern of things like GTA and Elder Scrolls.

 

[MysticGon]

I wish that were so. But with any industry tools that are there to makes things easier and efficient just open the door for piling even more things onto the plates of the people working.

 

[Gay Bowser]

I expect games to take longer and longer. I bet most major franchises are going to begin following the one entry every other console generation pattern of things like GTA and Elder Scrolls.

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The problem with this is, is the public going to still be willing to buy consoles that get one entry from half of the major franchises, and nothing from the other half that is skipping that generation? I don't think so.

At a certain point, making a project longer gets impractical, just due to the challenge of keeping key staff on it. Pixar films have a pretty consistent four-year development cycle; that's pretty much the max for them from a practical perspective even with an essentially limitless budget.

GTA and Elder Scrolls "skipped a generation" because their studios were working on other games, not because GTA/ES VI is in active development for a decade+. Fallout 4 came out four years after Skyrim, and Fallout 76 came out three years after that.

 

[eXistor]

As long as people keep demanding visual upgrades constantly it's not gonna shorten, if anything it's gonna take longer as demands grow.

 

[Jawmuncher]

I don't think we'll ever get shorter AAA dev unless we stay in a gen for ages & even then it'll be minimal. Does make me wonder if next-gen will be a longer one though like the 360-era.

 

[Deleted member 543]

Only if the scope of games change. I could see some publishers trying to make a few games in the Capcom mould (highly polished, but smaller scope) to supplement the massive open world ones.

But I imagine most will continue to produce bigger and bigger games, which will drive dev time up.

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

New efficiencies will be generally used to make things even bigger, even more complex, even more graphically impressive etc. Rather than "we can do 4 years work in 3!" they'll be thinking "We can do 5 years work in 4!"

 

[____]

Probz not

 

[elenarie]

The problem with this is, is the public going to still be willing to buy consoles that get one entry from half of the major franchises, and nothing from the other half that is skipping that generation? I don't think so.

GTA and Elder Scrolls "skipped a generation" because their studios were working on other games, not because ES VI is in active development for a decade+.

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Yeah, Elder Scrolls is a weird measure for anything, since BGS primarily only has one dev team. They move people between projects, depending on that project's needs, but the overwhelming majority of the team work on the currently-shipping game.

Todd himself said that they tried multiple teams before and that didn't work well, so they only have one team mentality now.

To put this in perspective, when Skyrim was in full production, there was a very, very small group of people setting up the scene for FO4. When Skyrim was done, most moved to FO4, with a similarly very small group kick-starting the next project.

(sourced from an interview last year, things may have changed by now)

 

[Praglik]

Depends. Will people's enthusiasm for AAAA games with long-term longevity fade?

 

[Asbsand]

It will requite bigger teams, bigger budgets, bigger publishers, and it will creatively go to shit for good next gen.

 

[Spork4000]

I'd say yes. The tools used for development have matured significantly. Expect much quicker dev times from any studio not fucking around with their own engine.

 

[dgrdsv]

New tech will help to cut some parts of production time but the amount of time needed for content creation will likely grow again or at least stay the same as this gen.

 

[Akai]

Lol no. As long as people demand more and more detailed worlds and more content, dev time will just continue increasing.

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Pretty much this. Peoples expectations can't be met. They will always ask for more.

 

[Ramsay]

Nope. Demands for graphical quality has to stop improving in order for development times to stop growing.

 

[Deleted member 8196]

Yeah, Elder Scrolls is a weird measure for anything, since BGS primarily only has one dev team. They move people between projects, depending on that project's needs, but the overwhelming majority of the team work on the currently-shipping game.

Todd himself said that they tried multiple teams before and that didn't work well, so they only have one team mentality now.

To put this in perspective, when Skyrim was in full production, there was a very, very small group of people setting up the scene for FO4. When Skyrim was done, most moved to FO4, with a similarly very small group kick-starting the next project.

(sourced from an interview last year, things may have changed by now)

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They actually have four studios; BGS Maryland, BGS Austin (ex-BattleCry devs), BGS Montreal and BGS Dallas (ex-Escalation devs)

Montreal was funded in 2015, Battle Cry was rebranded in 2018 and Escalation was acquired and turned into a BGS studio in 2018 too.

Fallout76 was mainly developed by BGS Austin while the rest assisted and were working on Starfield and TES 6.

 

[Deleted member 1627]

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Nailed it.

 

[vivftp]

Lol thanks for the replies everyone, especially the feedback from the devs. I was hoping we could see a scenario where more games could be released in the gen. Ah well, still can't wait to see how games change and evolve with next gen hardware 😃