Former Rockstar Games Developer Revealed Why Studio Cancelled Midnight Club 5

Over the past few years, Rockstar Games—currently deep into work on Grand Theft Auto VI—has canceled a number of projects, including the once-planned PlayStation 3 exclusive Agent, a sequel to Bully, and much more. It turns out that one of those games was also a fifth Midnight Club entry, a franchise that once enjoyed huge popularity and was even seen as a Need for Speed rival for a time.

In a new interview with Insider Gaming, former Rockstar Games senior designer Kris Roberts—who worked on the Midnight Club series as well as the multiplayer for the original Red Dead Redemption—spoke about this. Roberts revealed that after he left the studio, the team began developing a concept for Midnight Club 5 and even considered London as its setting. However, the project never made it to full-scale development. According to Roberts, the main reason came down to a conflict between Rockstar San Diego, the franchise's developer, and Rockstar New York's management. You can check out more details below:

“When I left, the core Midnight Club team continued to develop. I think they had even had some prototype cities; I kind of recall London was the one they were doing map development and stuff for. There was effort, and they were starting, and they were starting Midnight Club 5, or whatever they were going to call it, but it didn’t last, and it was canceled.

I think that might have been the core of it, but it was also creative control. The team in San Diego kind of…we felt, in any other studio environment, Midnight Club was a solid game. The perception was we never got the accolades or the reception. The New York perspective was, ‘You’re not GTA’. When you’re the red-headed stepchild project—you know, we’re doing a good job, we’re world-class, but we’re still treated less than. It was challenging. When they cancelled it, it was pretty clear that there would be no more Midnight Club and everything was going to be GTA and stuff moving forward, and that’s just the way it was going to be.”

The last entry in the franchise, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, came out in 2008 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, followed by a Complete Edition a year later. It’s unlikely that Rockstar Games will return to the series anytime soon, though plenty of fans would love to see it happen. Despite the lack of new games, some elements of Midnight Club have made their way into GTA 5 and GTA Online—such as detailed car customization, a variety of street races, car physics, and much more.