Rockstar Games has announced they have acquired Australian studio Video Games Deluxe. Founded by LA Noire game director Brendan McNamara, the studio has now become Rockstar Australia.
Video Games Deluxe had been working closely with Rockstar for the past decade before the acquisition. The studio helped fix the many issues plaguing the GTA Trilogy, which launched in a disastrous state in 2021.
Deluxe also helped with the re-release of LA Noire in 2017, as well as the VR Case Files. The team then set out to work on a massively ambitious AAA open-world VR title for Rockstar, later revealed to be a virtual reality version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The project has been put temporarily on hold since August 2024.
Now fully working under the Rockstar umbrella as Rockstar Australia, fans are wondering what's next for the studio. Some are hopeful this means a potential LA Noire sequel could be, at the very least, a real albeit distant possibility.
More realistically, and thinking about short-term plans, McNamara and the rest of Rockstar Australia will likely help in the final development process of Grand Theft Auto 6. On top of that, the studio could function as one of the developers working on content for the inevitable GTA 6 Online.
Beyond re-releases of Bully for mobile devices and LA Noire for VR, Rockstar Games has not developed a game outside the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead IPs in almost 13 years, with Max Payne 3 being the last one in 2012.
McNamara was known for fostering a toxic workplace with crunch draining Team Bondi considerably during the development of LA Noire. So if a sequel does end up happening one day, fans are expecting the development to be much smoother this time around.
As for other Rockstar IPs, the company has partnered with Remedy Studios to remake Max Payne 1 and 2. The news broke in 2022, with little to no news about the project since then.