Midnight Club 5 was in development and possibly set in London

Rockstar Games is best known for the GTA series, with the monolithic Grand Theft Auto VI set to release in November. However, there was a time when the studio consistently released multiple IPs, including the long-dormant underground street racing series Midnight Club, which hasn’t seen a new release since 2008. 

However, in an interview with Insider Gaming, former Rockstar senior designer Kris Roberts revealed that a fifth entry was in development but subsequently cancelled.

Roberts worked at Rockstar San Diego between 2001 and 2010, most notably as a Senior Designer and Vehicle Specialist for Midnight Club: Los Angeles and a Game Designer for Midnight Club Dub Edition.

While it’s unclear when work began on the project or what it was called, Roberts confirmed that a fifth Midnight Club game had started development with London as a possible location. The UK capital was also one of several open-world cities in the original 2000 Midnight Club game alongside New York.

 “When I [left], the core Midnight Club team continued to develop,” he said. “I think they had even had some prototype cities; I kind of recall London was the one they were doing map development and stuff for. There was effort, and they were starting, and they were starting Midnight Club 5, or whatever they were going to call it, but it didn’t last, and it was cancelled.”

As for why it was cancelled, Roberts cited a “non-trivial conflict” between Rockstar New York and San Diego over missed deadlines during the development of Midnight Club: Los Angeles.

Ultimately, however, the ex-Rockstar developer believes that Midnight Club was deprioritised due to the popularity of GTA, despite Roberts claiming the series had better player retention than games like Need for Speed and Burnout.  

“The perception was we never got the accolades or the reception,” he said. “The New York perspective was, ‘You’re not GTA’. When you’re the red-headed stepchild project—you know, we’re doing a good job, we’re world-class, but we’re still treated less than. It was challenging.”

“When they cancelled it, it was pretty clear that there would be no more Midnight Club and everything was going to be GTA and stuff moving forward, and that’s just the way it was going to be.”

Aside from 2018’s Red Dead Redemption 2. Rockstar has primarily focused on GTA since then, with regular Grand Theft Auto Online updates and developing Grand Theft Auto 6.

The studio released four mainline Midnight Club entries between 2000 and 2008, culminating with Midnight Club: Los Angeles. In 2022, Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two Interactive sparked hopes of a revival when it listed the series as one of its “franchises with individual titles that have sold-in over five million units,” but the series remains dormant.