Grand Theft Auto Developer is Working on a New IP, Here's What We Know

The developers - uh, well, technically it would be better to refer to them as the formerly credited developers - of the most recent Grand Theft Auto title have revealed they are “working on something BIG” at the moment, and it’s set to drop in 2026.

Unfortunately for the devs in question, everyone on the internet has decided to mercilessly tear into them following the announcement.

It feels like ancient news at this point, given how relentless 2025 has been in terms of video game news and drama, but back in 2021, Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition, a remaster of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

It was, to say the least, a bit of a disaster of a release. It was buggy, featured gross, dull-looking AI-upscaled textures, ran terribly on every platform, and wouldn’t even properly launch on its release day due to issues with the Rockstar Games Launcher. The trio of remastered games were developed by a studio called Grove Street Games, who were subsequently blamed for its poor quality.

I say the games 'were' developed by Grove Street Games, because their credits were actually stripped from the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition, following a series of updates that were personally handled by Rockstar Games back in 2024.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - The Definitive Edition promo image, Rockstar Games

Grove Street Games are still alive and kicking though, and have even just revealed that they plan to release a new Unreal Engine 5 game for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X, and PC in 2026.

This news comes from Grove Street Games’ Executive Producer Jordan Kleeman, who shared the details about the “Unannounced Title” on his LinkedIn page.

This isn’t the first time they’ve teased the upcoming project however, as Grove Street Games’ CEO Thomas Williamson also stated that they’re currently “working on something BIG” on Twitter in October.

The folks over on the r/GamingLeaksAndRumours subreddit don’t exactly have high hopes for their next game, though.

“Oh well if they made the Definitive GTA trilogy im sure whatever this is will have a fantastic launch”, commented user Quinny_Binny.

“They also co-developed Ark Survival Ascended. The new version, the one that still has terrible performance on minimum settings at 1080p on a 5090, and that has even more bugs than the original (even though the original Ark was often already considered the buggiest game known to man)”, replied user ben_g0.

“So I'm sure this rumoured game is going to be great and polished and optimised!”

Now, I don’t think it’s entirely fair to blame Grove Street Games for the mess that was Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition.

At the very least, Rockstar Games and Take-Two are partially to blame for the state it released in, as they knew it was a mess and still opted to push it out the door.

Also, some people are theorising that the unannounced project may end up being a Grand Theft Auto IV remaster, but that’s clearly not the case, considering there’s a lot of bad blood between Rockstar Games and Grove Street Games. Plus, I highly doubt a “remaster” of the game would be produced using Unreal Engine 5. A remake, potentially, but not a remaster.