Rockstar shifts resources to the next GTA and ends major Red Dead Online updates

Rockstar Games said on July 7, 2022 that it had been moving development resources to the next Grand Theft Auto, and that Red Dead Online would no longer receive major themed content updates. Both points were in a community update on the Rockstar Newswire that covered GTA Online and Red Dead Online.

Rockstar wrote that it had been "steadily moving more development resources towards the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series" over the past few years, as VGC quoted it. It tied the change to its goals for that game, saying it understood "the need to exceed players' expectations." As in February, the studio did not give the game a name.

For anyone waiting on the next GTA, this was the plainest sign so far that it had become Rockstar's main project. For Red Dead Online players, it ended large expansions like the earlier Blood Money and Moonshiners updates, as Kotaku pointed out. Instead, VGC reported, the game would get monthly events built on what already existed, such as Specialist Roles, cooperative story missions and Showdown modes, plus seasonal events, new Telegram Missions during 2022 and improvements to its current modes. The same post promised more GTA Online updates and quality-of-life fixes, according to Kotaku.

Kotaku described the response from Red Dead Online players as largely negative, with some planning a mock funeral for the game later that month.

The update arrived two days after Kotaku reported that Rockstar had set aside its planned GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption remasters for the same reason. Rockstar's statement fits that report, but it does not confirm it.