I don’t think it’s presumptive to say that double-A games are back in vogue. This hasn’t been a sudden change, by any means – over the last few years, we’ve seen games at a lower price point and without the typical triple-A fixtures performing incredibly well.
There Have Been So Many Double-A Hits This Decade
Alan Wake 2($50 on Epic Games Store and $60 on consoles) was a strong GOTY contender andsold over 2 million copies by February 2025.Remedy’s last game before it,Control, sold 4.5 million copies in five years at a $60 price point, though Control Ultimate Edition launched on Steam at $40.Lies of P, likewise, launched at $60 and was successful enough to warrant its upcoming Overture DLC.
On the lower price end, we’ve seen games likeAtomfall, which, despite having a sizeable chunk of its 2 million players come from Game Pass,was “immediately profitable” upon release. The developers are now considering a sequel.Helldivers 2, the wildly popular live-service fromPlayStation(and so far the only of the conglomerate’s slate of multiplayer games to really take off), was a pleasing $40 with surprisingly light monetisation on top of that.
Split Fiction, at $50, was a smash hit,almost immediately clinching itself a movie deal. And, of course,Clair Obscur: Expedition 33is making huge waves at $50 – to my great surprise, I’ve even had friends who exclusively play Warzone ask me about it. It’s broken containment, and I’m thrilled.
The upcomingMafia: The Old Countryisconfirmed to have a $50 price point.
Triple-A Gets Pricier, And Double-A Takes The Crown
I’d be remiss to omit that this is all happening as triple-A games rise and rise in price.Mario Kart World, one of the first games for the newSwitch 2, will bea painful $80 at launch.Xboxhas announced thatits consoles will be increasing in price,yearsafter they were first launched, and games will be set at $80 from the upcoming holiday season onwards.PlayStationislikely to follow suit.Borderlands 4mightend up costing $80, and rumours abound thatGrand Theft Auto 6will be the first game to cost $100, thoughthat’s still up in the air.
As games get more and more expensive, largely as a result of budgets spiralling out of control as studios attempt to achieve higher graphical fidelity and bigger worlds, players are gravitating towards smaller, shorter, less expensive games. I understandwhyprices are going up – I’ve even argued thatperhaps pricesshouldgo up to accommodate, though I’d much prefer if CEOs stopped taking huge bonuses.
But perhaps there’s a better way. Studios known for huge triple-A, open-world affairs are likely to stick to those games, but noteverydeveloper can make a game like that, nor should they. There are only so many 100 hour games someone can play in a year before they get burnt out, and soon, there’ll only be so many the average person can afford to buy before it starts to eat into grocery money.
Double-As are going to fill the gap. They’re shorter, often more experimental (to great effect: see Clair Obscur), and are far easier to recoup development costs for. They appeal more to players who aren’t willing to shell out full price for a triple-A on day one, too. Everybody’s been saying that the double-A game has been killed by triple-A, but as these games get more expensive, they make way for smaller games to take their place. This decade might end up being the decade of the $50 game.
