A court document filed by Call of Duty publisher Activision has revealed just how astronomically huge the budgets for the first-person shooter franchise can get, with even games from a few years ago reaching hundreds of millions of dollars.
In a report by Game File, Stephen Totilo points to a court filing in which Activision's Patrick Kelly outlines budget figures for three Call of Duty games, namely Black Ops 3, 2019's Modern Warfare reboot, and Black Ops Cold War.
According to those numbers, Black Ops 3 cost Activision more than $450 million to make across its lifespan, while Modern Warfare cost $640 million and Black Ops Cold War set the company back a staggering $700 million.
It's worth bearing in mind that Kelly's figures refer to the development costs for these games' entire life cycles, not just the initial cost to make them. Call of Duty is, after all, a live-service franchise, and money must be spent to create content after the games are initially released.
Every Call of Duty game also sells tens of millions of copies, so it's very likely Activision is recouping its development budget and then some for each game.
In fact, Kelly points to sales figures for each of the games listed; Black Ops 3 sold 43 million copies, Modern Warfare shifted 41 million, and Black Ops Cold War managed to sell 30 million units over its lifetime.
Obviously, Kelly's numbers don't include the most recent Call of Duty game, Black Ops 6, but we do know that it apparently enjoyed the franchise's biggest launch yet, so let's just say it's unlikely the budget is lower than Black Ops Cold War's was.
Most major publishers and developers don't publicly reveal their budgets to this degree, so we don't have a lot of points of comparison. However, Totilo points to what he calls a "poorly redacted court filing" from 2023, which puts The Last of Us Part 2's development cost at about $220 million.
Now, obviously, The Last of Us Part 2 isn't a live-service game, so its budget will naturally be smaller. Still, this just goes to show the insane amounts of money Activision is spending on each Call of Duty game, especially compared to other industry tentpole releases.
