I think I speak for a large swath of gamers out there when I ask: just what in the sam hill is Rockstar working on? The rumors have been flying ever since they shipped Red Dead Redemption 2 for PC (though woefully incomplete, some might argue). A recent programming job posting by Rockstar mentioned “building animations for an upcoming open-world project.” While no project title was listed, fans were quick to speculate (and hope and dream) that the project could be the long-awaited Grand Theft Auto 6.
However, in a LinkedIn post from Pawas Saxena, a Rockstar character artist, Saxena wrote that his most recent project entailed working on environment pieces “following medieval architectural style” for a yet-to-be-announced IP. A few years back, Rockstar was reportedly working on an open-world game set in medieval times, but the project was supposedly shelved. That doesn’t mean it’s shelved permanently, though.
Let’s look at the timeline because that’s where things get interesting. At first glance, the timeline suggests that this wasn’t a Rockstar project at all. Saxena lists the medieval project as ending in July 2019, and he didn’t start work for Rockstar until a few months later in October 2019. That would mean that the project was for his former employer, the India-based (as is Saxena) Dhruva Interactive.
That being said, the LinkedIn page for Dhruva shows a post from seven months ago saying that Rockstar had acquired the company, meaning that Saxena was still working on the project for a handful of months after the Rockstar acquisition.
The only thing we know for sure is that Saxena was working on a medieval-themed game when his developer was snatched up by Rockstar, at which time his project didn’t necessarily end. One thing may have absolutely nothing to do with the other. Or Rockstar liked what they saw and are in fact incorporating it into their next big project.
Just to muddy things up even further, rumors of Bully 2 have been swirling about recently, and Grand Theft Auto 5 actor Steven Ogg said that GTA 6 will be releasing soon. How soon is soon? Is Ogg a reliable source? And if the actor behind Trevor knows something about GTA 6, does that mean that Trevor is going be in the next installment of the franchise?
There are a lot of clues leading to different conclusions and fortunately, all of the conclusions end with something good. The best possible scenario is that all of the above titles are being worked on and will eventually all see the light of day.
