AAA Games Are Increasingly Developed By Multiple Studios, Head Of Xbox Game Studios Says

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Head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty recently said that modern AAA games’ development has changed to encompass multiple studios working on the same title.

According to VGC, Booty spoke at a PAX West Q&A and fielded a query asking if COVID-19 was responsible for the many release delays. In response, Booty said that though the pandemic is indeed one factor, how AAA game development has changed is also a contributing factor in delays.

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AAA games are big and increasingly and are increasingly getting bigger. Games of such complexity require more intense QA, and according to Booty, studio partnerships. He specifically pointed to Perfect Dark as an example. It was announced in 2021 that Perfect Dark would be co-developed by The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics.

“So, we just did this big partnership with Crystal Dynamics, and I read online’ ‘Oh’ this must mean there’s a problem or something’–it’s quite the opposite, right,” Booty said. “You’ve got this veteran team at Crystal Dynamics, a big AAA team with over 100 people that becomes available. Of course we want to work with them, particularly if they’ve made a game like that before.”

Booty also cited Relic Entertainment and World’s Edge partnership on Age of Empires 4 as an example, as well as French studio Asobo’s contributions to Flight Simulator.

“That, though, also adds some complexity where if one of those studios has problems it then impacts the schedule,” Booty said. “So the days are gone when you can sort of go ‘everybody, round up the team in the cafeteria, I want to tell everybody to work harder this Wednesday.’ That’s long gone, it’s gotten a lot more complicated than that.”

Perfect Dark will still be co-developed by Crystal Dynamics after the studio’s move to Embracer ownership. For more information, you can check out everything we know about Perfect Dark.