Dragon’s Crown the Most Expensive Game VanillaWare has Developed

The word “expensive” can mean many different things to many different people. When Americans think of expensive projects in the video game industry, numbers like $100 million or $200 million come to mind. When you’re competing with games like Call of Duty, the development budget begins to teeter on the absurd. However, VanillaWare’s soon-to-be-released Dragon’s Crown project is the company’s most expensive venture to date, and somehow, it only cost the studio 100 million yen.

If you’re unsure, that’s around a million U.S. dollars, which is chump change compared to some of the numbers Infinity Ward and DICE throw around on a yearly basis. If you’ve seen some of the videos for the Atlus-published Dragon’s Crown, you’ll instantly fawn over its beautiful aesthetic design and smooth framerate. Somehow, all of that was achieved for a fraction of the price of a standard blockbuster.

"Dragon's Crown is actually the first title our company has developed that has gone over the 100 million yen (around one million dollars) wall in costs," he posted through his Twitter (translated by Gematsu). "I'm very thankful to have met the release date without problems."  

VanillaWare is best known for projects like Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade, which also come equipped with that hand-drawn presentation we’ve all come to know and love. Both games have their niche audiences, but hopefully all that extra cash that’s gone into Dragon's Crown can help push it over the edge when it hits North America on Aug. 6 for PlayStation 3 and Vita.