- A former Rockstar Games developer has discussed the demise of Midnight Club recently.
- He says that Midnight Club 5 was cancelled due to conflicts over missed deadlines and management.
- The developer also says that the series ultimately ended up being sidelined in favor of GTA since the team felt it wasn’t big enough.
Rockstar Games is best known for GTA and Red Dead Redemption, but this wasn’t always the case. In fact, the developer previously had IPs like Bully, Manhunt, Midnight Club, and more to its name.
On the subject of Midnight Club, the series was a fan-favorite racing game IP that many fans enjoyed back in the day. Rockstar Games was working on a fifth mainline entry before completely moving away from the IP, and a former developer has explained why this happened in a recent interview.
Why it matters: Fans still feel like IPs, such as Bully and Midnight Club, deserve to come back in a grand manner, but Rockstar Games continues to focus on just two of its franchises.
As reported by Ben on Twitter, Midnight Club 5 was in the works at one point at Rockstar Games. However, that didn’t last too long, with the game being cancelled over internal conflicts between different studios.
It is said that the Rockstar San Diego team even had a prototype for the title set in London. However, between multiple missed deadlines and management troubles, Rockstar New York and San Diego came into a “non-trivial conflict.”
Another part of the cancellation, as explained by former developer Kris Roberts, was the fact that bigger IPs like GTA were prioritized over Midnight Club. For Rockstar New York, GTA took precedence over everything else the team was working on.
This is why many developers who were previously working on Midnight Club 5 at Rockstar San Diego moved over to improving the studio’s RAGE engine or Red Dead Redemption.
When they cancelled it, it was pretty clear that there would be no more Midnight Club and everything was going to be GTA and stuff moving forward.
Of course, this ultimately did end up being the case, since Rockstar Games has practically moved on from every other IP not named Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto.
With racing games being in the state that they are, now would be a good time to bring back Midnight Club. Unfortunately, Rockstar Games itself is unlikely to do anything with the series, so fans might have to look elsewhere to get their fill of street racing in the modern era.
Do you want to see the racing IP come back? Let us know your thoughts on the Tech4Gamers Forums.
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[Senior News Reporter]
Avinash is currently pursuing a Business degree in Australia. For more than 5 years, he has been working as a gaming journalist, utilizing his writing skills and love for gaming to report on the latest updates in the industry. Avinash loves to play action games like Devil May Cry and has also been mentioned on highly regarded websites, such as IGN, GamesRadar, GameRant, Dualshockers, CBR, and Gamespot.
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