Leak reveals just how little Pokémon Legends Z-A cost to develop

Despite being the highest grossing media franchise of all time, GameFreak’s Pokémon games have for the better part of a decade felt as though they have been developed on a shoestring budget. Thanks to a recent data leak, we now know this to be not too far from the truth – with the upcoming Pokémon Legends Z-A having cost just $13 million to make.

In October of 2024 GameFreak was subject to a massive data breach in which a ton of internal details were publicised, including source code, codenames and more. One year later and the second half of the documents have now been shared.

Alongside details and codenames for the next 5 years worth of Pokémon games, the data breach also included a breakdown of the budgets for upcoming entries in the series.

As shared by Stealth40k via BlueSky, the soon-to-be-released Legends Z-A was developed with a measly 2 Billion Yen budget – approximately $13 million.

Of course, $13 million is no small sum, but considering many indie games wind up costing more than this, Pokémon Z-A (which will likely push between 20-30 million units) could theoretically sell for a single Dollar and still make a profit.

The next mainline Pokémon entry however will up the budget by roughly 50% to 3 Billion yen ($20 Million). Given that it will usher in the 10th generation of Pokémon however, this still feels miniscule in comparison to other first-party AAA titles (which can cost up to $300 million).

While there is of course an argument to be made that many current AAA titles have far inflated budgets, spending $13 Million on a game which will easily make over a Billion in its first few days on the market does feel quite cheap.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of the leaked documents? Are you surprised by just how cheap Pokémon games are to make? What do you think is holding back the Pokémon games the most: Nintendo, GameFreak or the budget itself? Let us know down below.

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