Dragon Age: The Veilguard consultant and former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah has published a Youtube video addressing the question: "why do AAA games take so long?" It's a tidy 25 minutes or so, and gets a fair way into the weeds of a variety of topics, from the current enthusiasm for live service "forever games" over 'finite', narrative-led affairs, to the "misleading" announcement of highly-demanded sequels years before they enter full production, in order to pump up a publisher's brand during a dry spell.
One thing I wanted to fish out and drop on your plate is Darrah's discussion of what he terms "the fidelity death cult" - that is, the desire for ever greater levels of lifelike visual detail and "intricacy".
