Rockstar has made the surprise announcement that it’s now officially working with the modding team behind the wildly popular Grand Theft Auto 5 roleplay servers FiveM and RedM.
Cfx.re, the team behind the biggest Rockstar roleplay and creator communities FiveM and RedM, are now officially part of Rockstar Games.
FiveM is the main host for some of the biggest GTA RP servers, and enjoys thousands of players even eight years after GTA5 came out on PC.
“Over the past few years, we've watched with excitement as Rockstar’s creative community have found new ways to expand the possibilities of Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, particularly through the creation of dedicated roleplay servers,” Rockstar said in a statement.
“As a way to further support those efforts, we recently expanded our policy on mods to officially include those made by the roleplay creative community.
“By partnering with the Cfx.re team, we will help them find new ways to support this incredible community and improve the services they provide to their developers and players.
“We look forward to sharing more in the weeks and months ahead.”
The news has surprised and delighted Rockstar fans, given the company’s combative relationship with modders in the past. In 2015, Rockstar banned the team behind the FiveM mod, calling the project “an unauthorised alternate multiplayer service that contains code designed to facilitate piracy”.
The founder of the mod later alleged Rockstar parent company Take-Two sent private investigators to their home to intimidate them into shutting down the project.
The news comes ahead of the unveiling of Grand Theft Auto 6, and the prospect Rockstar plans to launch the game with its own online roleplaying features.
Cfx.re, for its part, downplayed this suggestion, telling fans: “please, do not ask us about the next GTA!”
“This is a huge step forward in the growth of our community, and an opportunity for us to work with Rockstar Games to advance the FiveM platform and the creative community surrounding it,” the Cfx.re team said in a statement.
“While our day-to-day operations won’t have any noticeable changes, with Rockstar’s support, we are going to continue to improve our platform and we are truly excited for what this means for our users, community, and creators!
“And for those curious about what else Rockstar is working on, please understand that our partnership with Rockstar Games is focused on our FiveM and RedM platforms. So please, do not ask us about the next GTA!
“Thank you all for your support. We can’t wait to see what the future brings!”
The reaction to the news is overwhelmingly positive. Here’s a snippet:
this was NOT in my bingo cards for this year. WOW!
— JA DIAZ (@jadiaz_official) August 11, 2023
ROCKSTAR ACTUALLY WORKING WITH MODDERS INSTEAD OF TAKING THEM DOWN, IT'S A NEW ERA
— Synth Potato (Ameer) ? (@SynthPotato) August 11, 2023
So GTA VI will have official RolePlay servers. Cool.
— Onur Demirλy (@baycosinus) August 11, 2023
GTA 6 is going to be nuts
— Call of Duty: Warzone News (@WarzoneTFN) August 11, 2023
GTA 5 has consistently sold roughly five million units per quarter for the last several years, and GTA Online continues to be a major revenue driver for Take-Two. Developer Rockstar confirmed that GTA 6 was in active development last year, but has otherwise officially kept quiet on its progress. A massive leak late last year showed off some of the incomplete game, but Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick told IGN a few months later that while this was an "emotional matter" for developers, it hadn't impacted the business.
GTA 6 is expected to launch in either fiscal year 2025 or 2026. Fiscal 2025 begins April 2024.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
