SUMMARY
- A recent leak of files from Rockstar Games showcases several titles that were canceled by the GTA Developer.
- The titles canceled include Bully 2, Midnight Club 5, GTA Tokyo among single player DLC for GTA 5.
Rockstar Games has established and made a name for itself in the gaming industry with a wide catalog of games over the years. Most notably the developer is known for its celebrated Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption series.
Likewise, over the years the company has also been a victim of several hacking attacks and leaks. Recently Rockstar Games received a massive blow when the GTA 5 source codes were leaked and published online. The leak revealed a lot of internal company information and plans.
Which titles were canceled by Rockstar Games?
Reports suggest as many as ten titles that the developer was working on were scrapped by the studio. These include the following:
- Bully 2
- Agent
- Z
- We Are The Mods
- Spec Ops
- Tony Hawk Skateboarding Game
- LA Noire: Bunko And Burglary
- Grand Theft Auto 5: Single-Player Story DLC
- Midnight Club 5
- GTA Tokyo
Everyone is talking about Agent, Bully 2 and even GTA Tokyo’s Development
but I have seen no one mentioning that Midnight Club 5 was also in development for a while pic.twitter.com/X7SkFefFn8— mnm345 (@mnm345x) December 25, 2023
It is indeed disappointing for fans and the community to miss out on such an impressive number of titles from Rockstar Games. Notably, Rockstar Games has not yet addressed the recent issue of its source code leak. Thus fans are eagerly waiting to hear from the developer as to what they have to say about the reported cancellation of these titles.
Did Rockstar Games cancel titles for GTA Online?
It still isn’t officially announced why Rockstar Games decided to cancel these titles. However, after the source code leaked and the news broke out, the community is at work trying to join the dots and understand the rationale behind Rockstar’s decision.
Some sources note that until 2013 Rockstar’s portfolio was quite varied. Rockstar released a variety of game series, such as Bully, GTA, Table Tennis, Manhunt, L.A. Noire, Red Dead, Midnight Club, and Max Payne prior to 2013. However, post-2013, Rockstar has only released titles in the GTA and Red Dead series, abandoning the other famous IPs. Notably, 2013 was the year GTA 5 and GTA Online were released.
Earlier this year the studio announced that it would be responsible only for publishing and financing Remedy’s Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne remakes. Their focus as a developer would solely be on GTA 6.
In an earlier interview, the developers had stated that the massive success and profitability of GTA Online was significantly responsible for the cancellation of GTA 5’s DLC. It is reported that as many as eight DLCs originally planned for GTA 5 were scrapped to concentrate on GTA Online.
The leaked list of games was found in GTA 5 source code, however, none of them were released or even announced in the last 10 years. This has led the community to speculate that they may have been canceled to support the current Grand Theft Auto Online.
Besides, reports are certain that GTA Online was the reason for the cancellation of GTA 5 DLCs. However, the same cannot be said with assurance for the other titles, but several incidents and leaked data hint at GTA Online as the possible reason.
However, a reliable source and expert brushed off any doubts about GTA Online having to do anything with the cancellation of the titles and DLC. “GTA 5’s Story DLCs, Bully 2 and Midnight Club 5 weren’t canceled in favour of GTA Online according to devs speaking anonymously,” they said.
The source claims that in 2014, one of the important producers at Rockstar, Leslie Benzies got into a disagreement with the Housers, following which Leslie stepped out of the company. He was followed by several other developers who were actively working on GTA 5’s Expansions. This led to an indefinite pause to the DLC, and Rockstar started hiring new devs and training them to work with RAGE.
Meanwhile, amidst all this, the GTA Online team was making progress and seeing huge success thus Rockstar decided to lend them more resources to build out GTA Online which eventually paid off massively.