Having 2k+ People Working on One Game is Apparently Normal

The world of triple-A game development is not only massive, it’s terribly complex. This lesson was underlined recently in a report put out by VG247, which claimed that 2,332 people across 14 studios worked on The Last of Us 2. It certainly sounds like a lot, and it certainly runs counter to the romanticized notion of a small team of dedicated artists working together to make some magic happen.

But not long after this report game out, a number of devs from around the industry started filing in via social media to say that those extraordinary numbers aren’t actually that extraordinary at all.

For example, Sam Sharma, an executive Producer at EA who’s worked on Killzone and FIFA, had this to say:

If you're surprised at this, boy do I have stories for you about AAA game dev. It take a monumental effort to ship these blockbusters and the business and budgets are astounding. (no "is this sustainable" discourse in my menchies)

And Ellie Joy Panic, a Ubisoft developer, added this:

Most Ubisoft games have 10-15 studios and literally thousands of people working on them. Most of your favourite AAA titles have large amounts of outscourcing, along with heavy lifting shared by other studios within a company/publisher.

Is this useful information? No. But it’s kinda interesting, if you’re the kind of person who likes to see how the sausage gets made.

And I guess I’m one of those.