Rockstar Answers Your Burning Questions, Apologizes for Long Game Development Cycles

Rockstar's Max Payne and Grand Theft Auto series are typically a blast to play, provided you're into the developer's brand of gritty violence. As a result, both franchises are also huge successes, but that doesn't mean their respective fans are always happy, In fact, some of them are downright angry that it takes Rockstar so long to develop sequels. Why does it sometimes take years for Rockstar to come out with a sequel when its games rake in so much cash?

It just happens that's one of the many questions Rockstar answered on its website as part of its 'Asked & Answered' series, in which it tackles sometimes tough questions extracted from Social Club member Newswire comments, tweets, and Mouthoff emails. Short and to the point, Rockstar is sorry that it takes such a long time to develop games, but would haven't it any other way.


"We are sorry that it sometimes seems to take a long time, but the massive amount of work it takes to imagine, design, build, and populate a digital world is simply staggering, and we are constantly striving to make sure each game surpasses the last one. The games are made up of millions of assorted assets, and built by hundreds of highly talented, highly specialized people, working incredibly hard," Rockstar explains. "We try to work as fast as possible, but given the combinations of cutting edge technology, high resolution graphics and animation, and hundreds of thousands of sound files, all of which have to work perfectly, and be fun and enjoyable to play, it is not surprising the games take a while to make. Even with sequels to existing games, it is important to us that they have a lot of new elements and feel fresh and exciting. We feel it is our duty to make sure the games are as good as we can make them and as innovative as we can make them."

Rockstar also talked briefly about Grand Theft Auto V, saying that it's "very busy working on the game" and that all is going smoothly so far. It's a "huge project," Rockstar says, but promises to have more information and assets to share in the not-too-distant future.