GTA 6 Is The Costliest Game Of Them All; Check Genshin Impact, Monopoly Go!, Star Citizen and Call of Duty

GTA 6 is close enough to touch now, and the Extended Look Preview has only cranked the hype higher. The franchise needs no introduction, but the wait certainly did. More than a dozen years separates GTA 5 from its sequel, and Rockstar reportedly began building this one in 2014. Behind that long silence sits a number that makes even seasoned gamers blink. GTA 6 tops the list of the world's costliest AAA games, and it is not a close race. According to research by Statista, nothing else comes near it including Genshin Impact, Monopoly Go!, Star Citizen and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.

GTA 6: The Costliest Game, By A Mile

GTA 6 arrives on November 19, 2026, for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Its reported budget is a staggering $2 billion, double what any other game on the list cost to make.

Rockstar began work in 2014, which puts development at 12 years. For perspective, GTA 5 cost $265 million, a figure that already felt outrageous back then. So if the price tag on GTA 6 makes you wince, remember what sits behind it.

Genshin Impact, Monopoly Go!, Star Citizen and Call of Duty

GTA 6 may wear the crown, but the rest of the list isn't exactly pocket change.

Genshin Impact sits next in line. HoYoverse reportedly poured nearly $1 billion into building and marketing a game that costs nothing to download. It worked: in-game purchases brought in over $4 billion in its first two years, and development took just 3 years. That was some cash-burn rate!

Monopoly Go! reportedly cost around $1 billion with marketing alone, taking up a huge chunk of that. After 7 years of work, it launched in 2023 and has earned over $3 billion from optional in-app purchases.

Star Citizen and Squadron 42 were in the making since 2012. Cloud Imperium Games has spent some $1 billion, with about $761 million going to development and $194 million to marketing. Neither is fully released as of 2026.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War rounds out the top five with $700 million, the franchise's biggest single-title spend. Built in just under two years, it needed two versions to be developed at once, for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. They too seem to have gone through massive amounts of cash in a very short period of time unlike GTA 6, which has taken over 12 years to do so.