Media: Midnight Club 5 canceled due to internal conflict within Rockstar Games
In the Midnight Club racing series, four games were released in their time, but there could have been more. In an interview with Insider Gaming, former senior game designer at Rockstar San Diego, Kris Roberts, revealed that the company shelved the fifth installment after initially trying to develop it.
Midnight Club: Los Angeles
According to Roberts, the production of Midnight Club 5 was underway at least until his departure from Rockstar Games in 2010. As far as he recalls, the company was working on prototypes for several cities for the game, including London, but the entire project was soon decided to be canceled.
Roberts cited disagreements between Rockstar New York management and the development team at Rockstar San Diego as the reason for the cancellation of Midnight Club 5. He acknowledged that some of the top management's criticisms were justified. The issue was that Rockstar San Diego had repeatedly missed deadlines during the creation of Midnight Club: Los Angeles, and headquarters feared a repeat scenario that promised serious financial consequences.
Nevertheless, Roberts claims that the company’s management was generally biased against Midnight Club.
“We never got any recognition or positive feedback. In New York, it was as if they were saying, ‘You’re not GTA.’ It's like our project was seen as the poor relative. Even though we made great world-class games, we were still treated as something secondary. It wasn’t easy,” Roberts explained.
The specialist recalls that after the cancellation of Midnight Club 5, the game team was disbanded. Some employees were sent to work on the RAGE engine, others were transferred to develop Red Dead Redemption, and the rest were laid off.