Former Rockstar Employee Explains Why GTA 5 DLC Was Cancelled

It’s been almost 11 years since the debut GTA 5but the game hasn’t lost any of its popularity. It’s true that fans are eagerly awaiting the release GTA 6which, if all goes well, will happen next year, but the reality is also that Rockstar Games’ offering, which hit the market in 2013, continues to attract the attention of millions of players around the world. This is due, of course, to the brutal success of GTA Online.

There have been rumors for years that Rockstar worked on developing several DLCs for GTA 5 it never came to light. This was confirmed last December, after the video game’s source code was leaked. The incident revealed that the studio was planning at least 8 expansions, including one called Agent Trevor what the character would presumably put Trevor Phillips as a spy or undercover agent – but he cancelled them all.

The reasons for this decision were never made public. However, it didn’t take long to speculate that Rockstar may have been leaning towards GTA Online instead of releasing DLC GTA 5 because It would be much more profitable.. Something that has now been confirmed by a former studio employee.

Joe Rubinowho worked at Rockstar Games for 6 years as an artist and cameraman, explained in an interview with the publication SanInPlay who took part in the development of at least one of the extensions GTA 5 cancelled. While he didn’t go into detail about its content, he did say that while the DLC is an “incredible” story, it has no chance of making money off the money it could bring in. GTA Online.

“Some members of the team went to Red Dead Redemption 2 and I took on another project which was an independent DLC for GTA “That was never released, but it was amazing. I don’t know if I can talk about it; maybe. I really don’t know,” Rubino said, adding, “That DLC was ‘mine’ for me. I was one of the lead editors and the camera operator, and I did a lot of the second unit work on set. Then our crew split in two, and I stayed home. GTA Online and in this expansion, in which Steven Ogg played a very important role.

The mention of Ogg is no coincidence, given that he played Trevor Phillips in GTA 5. While Rubino doesn’t elaborate on this, he seems to imply that the DLC in question was Agent Trevorwhich we mentioned at the beginning of the article.

Income GTA Online they sprayed the development of the DLC GTA 5

As Rubino explains, decision to abandon extensions GTA 5 in favor GTA Online It was purely and exclusively economic.. “Do you know what happened? When GTA Online launched, it became a profitable gold mine, and people loved it so much that it was very difficult to push the idea that an independent DLC could compete with and surpass it. [financieramente]Looking back, I think they could have done both, but it was a business decision they made. [por Rockstar] “They took it,” he said.

The above explained that its expansion to GTA 5 was halfway through development when Rockstar Games cancelled it. And while he said a lot of money was spent on the unfinished project, not all of it was thrown away. “I think some of the stuff we created was used in later versions GTA Onlineso it doesn’t mean it was wasted,” he said.

Of course, the DLC is cancelled GTA 5 was not well received by those in charge“That really bothered me and was one of the reasons I was a little bitter at the time. I was like, ‘Hey, what the hell is going on? This is cool, let’s go ahead and finish it,'” he noted. But the studio’s decision was final, and the move literally paid off in spades.

Since its launch in October 2013, GTA Online Not only did this offer become extremely popular, it also became money making machine for Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive thanks to the microtransaction system.