Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, the duo declined to share a specific number but noted they’ve seen “a lot of budget estimations that are all higher than the real budget,” adding that they “would guarantee if you got 10 people to guess, all 10 wouldn’t guess the actual figure.” Most notably, Handrahan eventually remarked that he’s confident Mirror’s Edge and Vanquish – games released in 2008 and 2010, respectively – cost more, highlighting just how small Expedition 33’s budget truly was.
Although there’s no concrete information on the production budgets of Mirror’s Edge and Vanquish either, a study from 15 years ago estimated the average cost of developing a game at the time to be around $18 to $28 million, and given Meurisse’s comment about most budget estimates being too high, it’s reasonable to assume that Clair Obscur’s total production cost – development and marketing both – falls somewhere in that range and could very well be under $30 million.
For comparison, 2024’s worst game Concord was reported to have a budget as enormous as $400 million, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was said to have a budget comparable to those of Hollywood blockbusters, Skull and Bones, a AAAA game no one remembers, was rumored to have cost Ubisoft between $650 and $850 million, and the upcoming GTA VI’s busget is allegedly somewhere in the $2 billion ballpark.
With three out of those four being either reputational, financial, or both reputational and financial disappointments, Expedition 33 seems proof like no other that one of AAA’s biggest issues nowadays – one of the biggest, at least – is overblown spending that simply doesn’t have to be overblown.
This, in turn, causes publishers to hike prices, which drives many players as they choose not to buy the games or access them for $12 on Game Pass, which – for better or worse – accelerates the demise of the AAA gaming industry. Whether big-league studios will see Clair Obscur as an example and cut their spending or continue raising video game prices remains to be seen.
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