Take-Two’s Unnamed Projects Revive GTA IV Remake Speculation

Take-Two Interactive dropped a number during the May 21 earnings call that every outlet buried under the Grand Theft Auto 6 headlines: six remakes, remasters, or platform extensions are planned for release across fiscal years 2028 and 2029. That two-year window also includes seven sequels, three new core IPs, five sports games and one mobile title. Across FY2027-FY2029, the wider pipeline totals 29 products, including GTA 6.

President Karl Slatoff laid out the numbers during the call. Strauss Zelnick provided the philosophical framing. None of the six remakes, remasters, and platform extensions was named. They remain a corporate line item with no titles attached.

The guessing game started immediately, especially because of the phrase "platform extension," and how we've heard rumors of a Grand Theft Auto IV remake or re-release for years now.

A remake is a ground-up rebuilding of a game on modern technology. Mafia: Definitive Edition was a remake. A remaster is an updated version with improved visuals, performance, or quality-of-life changes. A platform extension brings an existing game to another platform; the label alone does not tell us how much has changed. A PC port of a console game is a platform extension. A Switch 2 release of a PlayStation 4 game is a platform extension. Those are different propositions from rebuilding an older game.

If four of the six projects are platform extensions, the announcement is less exciting than "six remakes." It could mean GTA 6 coming to PC (which is essentially guaranteed but not confirmed), or maybe even the Nintendo Switch 2 (unlikely, but hey), Red Dead Redemption 2 getting a current-gen patch, or an existing title landing on Switch 2.

With that said, the Rockstar Australia "classic game technology" job listing from earlier this month now has additional context.

Before its acquisition and rename, the studio worked as Video Games Deluxe on the 2017 L.A. Noire releases and upgrades to Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition for mobile, Netflix and modern consoles. That makes it a plausible candidate for further work on older games, although the listing does not name a project. Zelnick's iicon comments about "looking at doing something in the future with all of our intellectual property" fit that broader interest in revisiting established franchises. The six unnamed projects make the guessing game more interesting, but neither the listing nor those comments identify which ones Rockstar is developing.

Take-Two is telling investors that the post-GTA 6 years will not be a content desert. Its pipeline covers the parent company's publishing labels, not just Rockstar: the 22 products planned for FY2028 and FY2029 are not 22 announced Rockstar games. Remakes, remasters, and platform extensions can reuse existing IP and bring familiar games to new audiences, making them attractive alongside expensive new releases. The announcement does not identify which projects belong to Rockstar North or other Rockstar subsidiaries, or how those teams will divide their work after the GTA 6 development cycle.

Take-Two's track record with remasters is mixed, and the community knows it. It doesn't help that modders have done wonders even with their hands tied. A modder in Brazil just gave San Andreas a full deferred rendering pipeline for free. Future remasters will be measured against what the community has already built.