Rockstar Games announced their acquisition of the Sydney, Australia-based studio Video Games Deluxe who helped work on the L.A. Noire games.
Another acquisition took place today. Rockstar Games proudly announced their acquisition of the development studio, Video Games Deluxe, extending a branch down under. The two worked alongside each other for years on the L.A. Noire universe games. With the upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto 6, Rockstar Games may benefit from additional manpower.
The Sydney, Australia-based studio will be renamed to Rockstar Australia, adding another branch to the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption franchise developer’s belt. Video Games Deluxe was founded by Brendan McNamara, who directed The Getaway for Sony before forming the L.A. Noire studio, Team Bondi. As mentioned before, the two then-separate teams worked together for the re-releases of L.A. Noire, L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files, and Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy —The Definitive Edition.
To be clear, this is not Grove Street Games who released the 2021 Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy —The Definitive Edition. That one was not met with great critical reception. Our own review by CGMagazine’s David Walters rated it a 2/10 experience, noting how its “one redeeming quality to this collection” was “the soundtrack in Vice City.” Video Games Deluxe should do right with GTA 6, as they had success with all their re-releases.
The acquisition was amicably met, with representatives from Rockstar and Video Games Deluxe sharing their thoughts on the deal. “After working together closely over many years, we are excited to have Video Games Deluxe join the team as Rockstar Australia,” said Rockstar Games head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe. “It’s been an honor to work closely with Rockstar Games this past decade,” said McNamara. “We are thrilled to be a part of Rockstar Games and to continue our efforts to make the best games possible.”
There are countless memes about the release of Grand Theft Auto 6, more about whether it will ever be released. Supposedly, it will be coming out for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Last month, the parent company Take-Two Interactive stated that GTA 6’s release window is still on track for a fall 2025 release. Regardless, it is encouraging to hear that a strong team will be joining the dev team on one of the year’s most anticipated games.
