Duration

Question

How long does it take, to make popular games, such as Fortnite,FC25 and others.

Answer 1

Under which conditions?

Answer 2

20 - 100 developers a year or more.

Graphic arts alone takes countless hours.

You can made 3D games using existing graphics. Then you, as a single dev, can do something playable in a few weeks at a minimum.

I used Unity to make a game where you fly a 3D space ship through mountains with trees and rocks. I used terrain builders and available assets. It was basically playable in a week, but not nearly extensive enough to release.

You have to build levels, upgrades, construction features, upgrade features, create missions, etc. You could spend weeks just planning all the parts you need. If it's a combat system, you need to consider different weapons, different enchantments, different resistances, all the game stats, etc. Each of these can take quite some time. Then you have all the release and support considerations.

Indy game devs usually work their butts off for a year or more before you see their game on Steam. Big house games made by Epic, Valve, etc., have potentially hundreds of people working on music, voice, models, graphics, cinematics, etc.

Best to start with a few game tutorials and see what you can accomplish and build from there.

I recommend looking at Godot (easiest) or Unity (popular). But don't worry so much about creating a release-ready game. Just learn how it all works, how to get assets, etc.

Next time you play a game, try to imagine how many items are in the game. In the environment. On the screen. Available as skins, items, laying on the ground, whatever. Consider where you would get all these things. Then imagine all the elements of the user interface from setting options to inventory, weapon slots, tool, etc. All special effects. All sounds and music. All cinematics (movies). All animations. Many of the games you enjoy are actually quite massive and have many gigabytes of content. Some of these game studios employ thousands of game devs full time to get all this done.

Answer 3

You question ask how much it takes to make POPULAR games?

One thing you should know is that popularity is directly proportional to a whole lots of thing. 2048 is one of the most popular game till now and OP take less than 48hours to get it done in javascript and it blew up github earning him fortunes.

Now let's talk about fortnight, you need a whole team for that. Physicists, programmers, sound engineers, graphics designers etc.

Depending on how rich you are and ability to employ people who can work under strict condition, it'll take a minimum of 2 months.

The first month is basically for planning! then implementation is very easy