Citi, the investment bank and financial services company, has released a note about GTA 6 and Rockstar, and included in the brief is a line about what Rockstar could release next--a new Red Dead game.
The company said in its memo that, if Rockstar is telling the truth that GTA 6 did not in fact cost $1.5 billion to make, then the studio may be able to get a new Red Dead game out sooner than anyone might have imagined.
Citi said a new Red Dead game releasing in 2027 or 2028 "may not be unreasonable," according to Yahoo Finance.
The bank might be saying this, but it would be incredibly shocking, for a number of reasons, if a new Red Dead game releases as soon as next year.
There are historically years between major Rockstar releases, and even longer gaps between entries in the same series. For example, Red Dead Redemption launched in 2010, followed by GTA 5 in 2013, then Red Dead Redemption II in 2018, and now GTA 6 in 2026.
Another notable element to consider is how Rockstar makes games today. The company tried to develop GTA 6 and Red Dead Redemption II concurrently, and if it was able to pull it off, Rockstar claimed it would have been able to release GTA 6 years earlier. However, Rockstar deemed this too ambitious, with studio head Rob Nelson opting to reassign staff from GTA 6 to Red Dead Redemption II to help get it out the door.
At one point in time, developed multiple games concurrently across offices, but now, Rockstar’s network of teams work on one project together before moving on to the next.
GTA 6 may be coming out soon, but Rockstar no doubt has committed extensive resources to post-launch support, and that's not even mentioning the next evolution of GTA Online. Although Rockstar has announced no plans for online support whatsoever for GTA 6, it's expected that GTA 6 will have some kind of extensive online experience that is supported for years to come.
At the same time, a company like Rockstar is no doubt planning for the future already, and a new Red Dead game would seem like an extremely safe bet. After all, Red Dead Redemption II has sold a breathtaking 87 million copies, making it one of the best-selling games of all time.
Faster development
While Rockstar getting a new Red Dead out in 2027 or 2028 might be extremely ambitious and wishful thinking on the part of Citi, Rockstar and parent company Take-Two have indicated that new structures are in place to help make games faster.
CEO Strauss Zelnick told The Game Business that people should not "confuse long development cycles with a lackadaisical approach to development cycles."
Some games are "so complex and so challenging to build" that they simply take a long time to make. However, Zelnick said "recent development in technology" may be able to help Take-Two's studio's "compress some development timelines without compromising quality."
Zelnick may be referring to Take-Two's embrace of AI here, but it's unclear. Rockstar's Phil Hooker, meanwhile, said the company's hiring spree and updates to its technology stack should help Rockstar make games faster in the future.
Something else to consider here is that Zelnick and Hooker might be talking more to analysts and investors with their comments about making games faster. Only time will tell if it's actually another eight years before Rockstar releases another game after GTA 6; for now, it's just talk.