How Much did it Cost to Make Cyberpunk 2077?

Triple-A game development is a monumentally expensive undertaking. Try going down the hole in your head: writers, programmers, play-testers, management, localization, and so many more kinds of staff need to be hired on for indeterminate hours. That’s not even considering additional costs like advertising or just heating the office. Now, combine all of that with the sheer scope of a game like Cyberpunk 2077, and you’ll probably end up with a nosebleed. In lieu of giving yourself an aneurysm, here’s the bottom line on how much it cost to make Cyberpunk 2077.

All About the Benjamins

CD Projekt Red’s war chest for developing Cyberpunk 2077 came from their own internal funds, garnered from the runaway success of the Witcher series, as well as a subsidy from the Polish government. As it turns out, CDP’s games make mad bank for Poland as a country, so their government saw fit to invest in the future of their next big game to the tune of about $7 million USD, all of which went toward hiring additional staff. 

How Much did it Cost to Make Cyberpunk 2077?

Totaling all Cyberpunk-related costs together, the whole project cost approximately 1.2 billion Polish złoty. If you’d prefer that in local currency, that’s about $330 million USD, adjusted for 2020 inflation. That’s about $121 million for development costs plus about $209 million for marketing costs. I wonder how much of that went toward getting Keanu Reeves on stage at E3…

With that price tag, Cyberpunk 2077 has become the new holder of the title for the most expensive game ever made, beating out the previous record-holder, 2009’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which cost an adjusted $298 million USD. At the moment, the only other game within striking distance of this record is Cloud Imperium Games’ Star Citizen, which is estimated to have an adjusted budget of around $320 million. It’s less at the moment, but since that game isn’t out yet, that could change in the future.

Source: Barrons