Otter said:
Some important context though. FFVII remake (2020) was in development for around 6 years (announced 2015) and restarted/shifted team at some point in late 2016/early2017. It also uses UE4 and doesn't really make use of any unique/bespoke technology like 007 does. It actually is very comparable to the development 007 whilst being a smaller scope game in some ways. Only after this did they manage to produce Rebirth so smoothly (although it has some technical weak points). The direct sequel to 007 should come sooner than rather than later provided the new publisher doesn't mess things around lol Doing new things takes time and a bit of trial and error. 007 is a whole new scope of AAA game for the team so it's Developement cycle taking time makes sense. All the meanwhile they released hitman 3 in 2020, the collection in 2022 and are working on a new IP, so the team haven't been exclusively on it for the last 6 years. Insomniac and Capcom do show development can be insanely efficient in modern era when managed well. The whole industry ought to the learn for them, I wholly agree. I'll just add that their huge size probably makes the Dev cycles look shorter than they are. After all wolverine was announced 5 years ago but the team has released many games between 2020 and now, so they're really good at managing multiple titles. Probably their games average a 3 year dev cycle of individual developement. |
But the budget being $200 million suggests it's been in full development for a long time. For a short game, it's just not a good look. But this won't matter if it keeps selling well and spawns successful sequels that take 2-4 years to develop.
Like you said FF7 Remake development semi-restarted in 2017, to be built in house with no more involvement from CyberConnect2. Though it's safe to say they reused some assets from the previous work.
Rebirth and Revelation use assets and systems from previous games for efficiency, but Rebirth had a massive scale and so much content. It's honestly incredible what Hamaguchi's team achieved for a budget likely half or less as big as games like 007 First Light or TLoU Part 2 or God of War Ragnarok.
