Each few years or so I discover myself idly questioning no matter occurred to Midnight Membership, Rockstar’s arcade road racing sequence. I fairly favored Midnight Membership 2 again within the day, though I fell away from the sequence after that as a result of, in tremendous Rockstar style, subsequent video games weren’t launched on PC. The sequence as an entire floor to a halt in 2008 with Midnight Membership: Los Angeles—regardless of going over nicely with critics, the sequence was by no means heard from once more.
In a brand new interview with Kiwi Talkz on Insider Gaming, former Rockstar designer Kris Roberts, who labored on a number of Midnight Membership video games and Purple Lifeless Redemption earlier than leaving in 2010, mentioned there have been a number of components concerned within the choice to kill the sequence, together with missed deadlines and “non-trivial battle” between Rockstar New York and the San Diego studio the place Midnight Membership was developed, however the apparent elephant within the room was Grand Theft Auto.
“The notion was we by no means bought the accolades or the reception,” Roberts mentioned. “The New York perspective was, ‘You’re not GTA.’ Whenever you’re the red-headed stepchild challenge—you recognize, we’re doing an excellent job, we’re world-class, however we’re nonetheless handled lower than. It was difficult.”
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Roberts mentioned the San Diego studio was engaged on a brand new Midnight Membership when he departed, but it surely was subsequently cancelled: “It was fairly clear that there can be no extra Midnight Membership and every thing was going to be GTA and stuff shifting ahead, and that’s simply the way in which it was going to be.”
Which sucks, as a result of Midnight Membership was fairly nice (other than the entire console-exclusivity factor), but additionally is not in any respect onerous to consider. Midnight Membership: LA arrived in 2008, the identical 12 months Grand Theft Auto 4 got here out, and if there was any doubt previous to that about the place Rockstar’s future lay, GTA 4 ended it.
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The ending of Midnight Membership additionally matches with the broader strategy of Rockstar mum or dad Take-Two Interactive, which makes no bones about solely being all for main hits: When the corporate unloaded Personal Division in 2024, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick mentioned, “Our job actually is to deal with making the most important and greatest hits within the market. We’re not the lengthy tail firm. We’re top-ten hit makers round right here.” In an surroundings like that, being “good” usually simply is not going to be ok.
