game development cycles are only getting longer over time

Time between GTA V and GTA vi = 12 years

Time between elden ring and sekiro shadows die twice = 3 years (longest gap for fromsoft)

Time between death stranding 1 and 2 = 5 years

Call of Duty BO 6 development time - 4 years ( new record for a CoD game )

Time between Doom 2016 and doom eternal - 4 years

Time between Doom eternal and Doom the dark ages - 4 years

The last of us part 2 development time - 6+ years

Generally video game development time is considered to be around 3-5 years, but here we can see that for triple AAA titles it is 4-10 years of development now, with the development times likely to only get longer over time as the effort required to make a better game keeps increasing as every new game requires more features in a competitive market and budgets balloon into the hundreds of millions.

At the rate things are going, expect your favorite games sequel to come out once every 5 years.

The video game development cycle has just become too long to keep a consumer excited any longer. The technology is advancing too slow and no longer moving in leaps and bounds, with the in game technology barely catching up to graphics demos from ten years ago.

After GTA VI comes out, how many of you are ready to wait another 15 years for GTA VII to come out? A video game franchise appeal just doesn't last that long.