Housemarque CEO talks Saros and growing development costs

With each passing console generation, we’ve seen the average cost of video game development balloon into upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars. In a surprising move, the next game from PlayStation Studios’ Housemarque – Saros – has a relatively modest budget for a first-party title.

In an interview conducted by the Finnish publication ‘Helsingin Sanomat’ (and translated by WCCFTECH), the CEO of Housemarque Ilari Kuittinen offered some of the first details we’ve heard regarding the upcoming arcadey rogue-like Saros since its initial announcement last month.

While little was revealed regarding the game’s narrative or mechanics, Kuittinen did claim that the title would not have been possible had the studio remained independent due to its development cost.

Interestingly, despite this, Saros looks to have one of the more modest budgets for a AAA first-party title, with the publication revealing it to be around the same as Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake 2 ($70 million).

With other first-party titles costing up to $300 million on Sony’s front (and closer to a billion for Xbox with Call of Duty), seeing a major upcoming AAA game’s budget be less than $100 million is a welcome surprise.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of Saros’ budget? Are games too costly nowadays? Which titles do you think justify their high production budgets? Let us know down below.

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