Ideally, it has to be a big publisher that spends a ton of money on it.
In truth, an AAA game can be spotted by a price tag of over 60 €/USD, at least one season pass, 3+ different editions, a huge day-1 patch and a lack of anything that’s not predatory monetization of any remaining gameplay elements.
Indie games don’t have shareholders demanding extra-short term profits to please, they can afford to innovate. An AAA game needs to pay the shareholders as fast as possible, and how to do it? Well, the way they do it now; take your cod, or fifa, or whatever AAA ip you want and you’ll see how the patterns repeat in all of them.
AAA games are the fast food of videogaming.