Rockstar seemingly bids farewell to Red Dead Online as GTA 6 development ramps up

Rockstar is seemingly forcing all hands on deck with GTA 6 as development continues to ramp up, bidding farewell to Red Dead Online in the latest update.

Despite GTA 6 still potentially being years away, and nothing more than a confirmation of its development to go off in an official capacity, it appears Rockstar is beginning to ramp up production in a big way.

Last week the publisher deployed an update in GTA 5 and GTA Online to thank the 5101 developers that have contributed to the mega-hit. Immediately, fans took this ‘thank you’ note as an indication that teams are now tapering off their work on the aforementioned titles in order to focus on GTA 6.

Now one week on from this message and a similar update has been rolled out for Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online, further driving speculation.

This time around, the new Red Dead patch added an option to view the game’s credits from the pause menu. Upon accessing the credits this way, a new message appears.

“Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who has helped create Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online,” the note reads, similar to that which appeared in GTA just days prior.

This thank you message comes on the back of the viral #RedDeadFuneral trend in July, wherein, players paid their respects to the online component after a year without DLC.

While there’s no clear meaning behind these updates just yet, a common assumption is that devs are pivoting their focus to the next GTA. Well aware of extraordinary expectations, Rockstar has pledged the upcoming sequel will “set new entertainment benchmarks” upon its release. Thus, the more employees they can shift to the project, the more likely they’ll reach the lofty goals.

For now, we’re still yet to see anything from GTA 6 directly. That hasn’t stopped various leaks and insider reports from rising to the surface. Most notably, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier claimed the game will feature two protagonists, including the first playable female character in the franchise.