This week, in fact tomorrow marks ten years of the absolute behemoth that Grand Theft Auto V became. The first GTA game to introduce a parody of Instagram – Snapmatic, it was the first GTA game with a proper photo mode that everybody around Los Santos used to get some free social media clout on Social Club – with some filters of course. Who didn’t love corny, edgy or emo Instagram filters in 2013? So much so, that back then every Snapmatic had a forced filter on it.

Today in Snap Saturday, we go back in time an entire decade and look at one of the main locations, other than the Social Club, to posting snaps in our community – the GTAForums. Quite a technical effort to recover a lot of these because Rockstar unfortunately made all PS3/Xbox 360 gen images unavailable, I’ve managed to recover a sizeable amount for this Snap Saturday, for a wee look at what things looked like back in September 2013 in the Snapmatic universe.

Twitter was a much smaller social media network back in the day, and although there are a handful of Snaps, it does not at all represent what the community was up to back then. The forums are one such place, and I wish the Social Club still was so we could get the very first image reliably, but the latter’s images are no longer available, and searching Twitter for “Snapmatic” in 2013 proved quite risky, with, oddly, some NSFL imagery appearing…

All links in each snap will bring you to the current-era forums with broken images, however, you can use this Wayback Machine link to accompany the experience as it was back then.

Happy 10th anniversary, GTA V, and enjoy!

Post your photos on GTAForums or use the #GTAOnline / #RedDeadOnline / #RedDeadRedemption2 hashtags on Twitter and you might see your efforts highlighted in future GTANet Snap Saturdays!

The post Snap Saturday: Ten Years of GTA V – A Snapmatic Retrospective appeared first on GTANet.com.

To be brief in this introduction; it is exactly what it says on the tin – a port of the RDR everyone knows and loves from 2010, but now accessible on your PS4/5, and handheld for the first time on Switch. The game arrives packaged with the Undead Nightmare story DLC and previous pre-order/Game Of The Year (GOTY) content, but without multiplayer.

What follows isn’t a review per se, and more of an informative preview based on our hands-on, because then we’d just be reviewing RDR and everyone already knows about it! That said however, despite this not being a full remaster or remake, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t some interesting things to highlight here and there.

N.B. we haven’t played on Switch, so there’s no info about that here and we’ll leave handheld conclusions to those with access!

Before we start, let’s detail the specs of those who have previewed the game – Kirsty is on PS5, but using an older 1080p TV which means her game is being upscaled. uNi is also on PS5, but he has a native 4K monitor (or 3!) hence, visuals will be slightly different for each of them.

Now, here’s our preview and analysis of the new release. It goes without saying that we were playing a pre-release build, so additional fixes or changes may yet arrive in the form of day 1 patching.

Table of Contents

Menus

The menus look largely the same, but a few extra options have been added to some of them. From accessibility to anti-aliasing options for those not on 4K televisions/monitors, they help bring the game a bit of a step forward versus the original in terms of customisability.

The first thing that should be highlighted is one of the first things you see when you boot up the game, and a first for a Rockstar game. An easily readable, dedicated epilepsy warning before the game starts. Something that used to be shoved into game manuals or fineprints for the longest time – one of quite a few accessibility steps forward that will be talked about in this preview.

Starting out with the Display section, there is now the ability to select between AMD FSR2 and FXAA as anti-aliasing choices regardless of your TV type. This is normally something you would only see on PC, but it seems to be exposed on console.
As observed in Kirsty’s tests on an older TV, the game will upscale from your TV resolution, to 4K using the preferred upscaling/anti-aliasing method. Screenshots taken on those older or lower-resolution TV’s will still come out in 4K resolution, but upscaled, so blurrier.
If you’re on a 4K TV/monitor however, the game will be output at a native 4K and look as sharp as it should, including in screenshots. More on visuals later.

Still in the Display menu, some display accessibility options have been added, such as a motion blur toggle, subtitle scaling, objective scaling and help text scaling. Click to expand each image.

On the controls/config side, the invert camera option is now split between the Y and X axis, you can turn south paw on or off, and even flip R1/R2, and L1/L2.

All the other menus are pretty much what you already know from RDR. Difference being cheats are all unlocked from the get-go should you choose to use them, and, of course, the omission of the Multiplayer menus as it doesn’t exist in this port.

There is also no Social Club menu or integration yet, but there are trophies to unlock via PSN, so we don’t know whether this is a pre-release limitation or if the game won’t have a connection to Social Club so you can see your achievements.
The Trilogy Definitive Editions automatically connected to your Social Club account via PSN, so it might be the same deal here, and you may be able to look at your trophies on the Social Club website regardless.

Gameplay and Visuals

Gameplay is the same good old RDR. There are basically no changes here, as this is a port to more recent platforms and not really a remaster that could change the gameplay in any way, shape, or form. Be the same outlaw you were in 2010, but at higher resolution.

Speaking of resolution – as mentioned earlier, if you’re playing on a 4K TV you’ll get Red Dead Redemption as crisp as it can get, at a native 4K. If you’re on an older TV however, the presentation may be slightly softer, but this is something you may only notice in screenshots or larger but lower resolution TV’s. On those TV’s, screenshots are taken at 4K resolution, but upscaled from 1080p (an example is below) – at least in this build, you can tweak this upscaling by choosing FXAA or AMD FSR 2.

Oddly, those options are also available on 4K TV’s, but they are simply different anti-aliasing choices, there doesn’t seem to be any upscaling going on as both are equally sharp and what seems to be on par with Xbox BC’s native presentation – we’ll leave any applicable pixel counting to the folks at DigitalFoundry. Odd option for a console game, but for those who like FSR’s presentation, they can choose to use it.

You can check out more images below the following two and see for yourself, taken in native 4K – click each to expand to full resolution.

As for the controls, as expected, no major changes to report here, other than the obvious generational difference of the controller in your hands! All controls remain the same across foot and horseback, with the PS4/5 touchpad becoming the “open satchel” function. There is no haptic feedback or any of the PS5-specific features, as this is a PS4 app.

Bugs

As mentioned before, the build tested is a pre-release build, so there may or may not be a day 1 patch available to fix any issues. Because ports to different platforms aren’t straight-forward and can sometimes cause more issues, there can always be a few kinks.
We haven’t experienced anything major: no crashing, and no falling through the map, or any other similar issues. In this hands-on, we’ve observed:

• Minor physics glitching such as stationary horses’ front legs moving/flickering.
• Doors opening before you reach them while sprinting.
• “loot” function doesn’t consistently show over the entire zombie body in UN – have to manoeuvre multiple times to get it to appear.

We aren’t entirely sure if those or some of those were already in the original game, it’s been a while, so we can’t quite comment on that.

During the week, a 1.02 patch was released for the game, and the build we were initially playing when we received the code was already 1.01, so it’s possible some extra things were fixed that weren’t noticed.

Bugfixes

The original RDR release from 2010 was updated over the years with maintenance patches, but some of these patches introduced bugs and glitches that people have been clamouring to get fixed for the longest time. In 2014, the patch that disabled GameSpy support apparently introduced a couple of major bugs that affected especially the Undead Nightmare experience. In this release, as far as we could see, it seems like some of those are fixed.

For instance, toggling the Golden Guns status now functions properly and adds/removes the gold skin from Cattleman Revolver, and all other weapons, as it should.
On the Undead Nightmare side, one of the biggest issues reported by the community since that 2014 patch seems to have been fixed – zombies are no longer headless and you can kill them properly.

There might be more things, but it was slightly difficult to get a comprehensive list of broken things with RDR more than 10 years after the original release, other than some issues introduced in the GameSpy patch.

Conclusions

In a nutshell, Red Dead Redemption on PS4/5 offers a solid 30 FPS performance with some notable bugs from the past now fixed, plus up to 4K resolution if your screen is capable. There’s also some new accessibility options and language support.

Most notable absences, in no particular order, are no 60 FPS support, no photo mode, and no multiplayer.

All in all, this conversion delivers a stable and unproblematic experience compared to 7th generation consoles. It also benefits from the additional technical smoothing and bugfixes compared to the Xbox BC version. The lack of PC attention, and all the bells and whistles of a full remaster or remake, will be regarded as a missed opportunity by the community, but this doesn’t take the experience away from PlayStation and Switch owners with an interest in re-visiting (or playing for the first time) the conclusion of John Marston’s critically acclaimed story and beloved DLC on today’s consoles.

The post Red Dead Redemption Port Hands-On Preview appeared first on GTANet.com.

In an unprecedented move within the GTA modding scene, Rockstar Games yesterday announced that the team behind FiveM and RedM multiplayer on PC has officially joined the company.

Cfx.re, or CitizenFX Collective, is a small team behind the development of both FiveM and RedM clients, a PC multiplayer mod that connects to Grand Theft Auto V or Red Dead Redemption 2 to essentially provide a virtual playground with online play. Creators can host their own servers, or buy external hosting, via the frameworks, paving the way for an endless amount of custom content such as game modes, stories, missions, and most-notably, roleplaying.

Growth has steadily increased since the first iterations of the mod released in 2014, with GTA RP (roleplay) exploding on live-streaming services and well-known content creators still leading GTAV views on Twitch today; there are frequently over 200k players online at any given time. One of the most notable servers, NoPixel, retains a massive community with a dedicated development team of their own.

None of this would be possible without FiveM and RedM, and as of yesterday, it’s all officially part of Rockstar Games, painting a bright future for community-driven play and user-generated content.

Day-to-day operations will not change right now and support will continue to be lead by Cfx.re, according to the team and Rockstar Support, but with Rockstar’s backing, wider improvements to the platform can easily continue, and we’re sure there are lots of plans for months ahead from this incredible collaboration.

Today we are extremely excited to announce that Cfx.re, the team behind the FiveM and RedM projects – is now officially a part of Rockstar Games!
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.
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 Cfx.re team

If you’re on PC, check out FiveM and RedM for yourself! There’s lots of information on how to start within their dedicated Cfx.re Forum, and it’s also where you can keep an eye out for announcements and get support. We’ve also opened up our own section on GTAForums to spread awareness and encourage discussion within our own community.

The post Team behind FiveM joins Rockstar Games appeared first on GTANet.com.

You may have noticed that the Internet, our forums and even the games media have started reporting that GTA VI’s release window may just have been revealed based on new Take-Two future outlook information, and based on history, we can absolutely say that might very well have been the case.

Let’s begin.

A Look Back

Take-Two conference calls, despite being intended for the consumption of financial media and corporate investors, always attract large amounts of attention from the fanbase, especially in the run-up to a potential announcement of a new Rockstar game. Well, this also applies when the news drought sets in, as it happened many times during GTAV and RDR2’s pre-release, and even now with the lack of a GTA VI announcement.

In August 2011, two months prior to GTA V’s announcement, Take-Two held one of these conferences, in which they expected a large increase in their price per share for Fiscal Year 2013.

Now, for some additional context, Fiscal Years aren’t the same as Calendar Years: in corporate finance, a Fiscal Year usually goes from April, to March of the following year – meaning that Take-Two’s Fiscal Year 2025 would go from April 2024, to March 2025.

With that out of the way, in 2011, when Take-Two announced this suspicious increase in their expectations for Fiscal 2013 (April 2012 – May 2013, remember that GTA V was originally slated for Spring 2013), our own Kirsty here at GTANet made some interesting observations that can still be seen via the Web Archive.

• Take-Two had increased their net income expectations for Fiscal 2013 to values only seen with the release of GTA IV – a net income of $2 per share;
• Take-Two’s average dollar per share value at that moment was projected to reach $0.35/share (remember T2 didn’t have GTA V here yet to make this number big), with the releases of LA Noire and Duke Nukem Forever.
• Red Dead Redemption’s release in 2010 had reached $1.06/share as a comparison.

Putting all those numbers into perspective, you can imagine how the sudden increase to $2 per share was suspicious to investors (in a good way) and fans alike. And indeed Kirsty’s analysis was correct.
Two months later in October 2011, GTA V was announced. Without a date, but it seems clear that Take-Two/Rockstar already had something in mind, as is usual in game development – minus delays of course, which did happen.

Throughout the years, these kinds of increases have pretty much always matched a Rockstar release, RDR2 included.

The Now

Take-Two is a much bigger beast than it was in 2011. It has bigger IP, more studios on their roster, and GTA Online exists, which brought their numbers hundreds if not thousands of times up.

Despite this, it’s still very easy to analyse when something is “off”. To this day, Rockstar releases are still the only ones that drive up revenue for Take-Two the most. Sure, they have other games and IP that do well, but not over 2 billion in net revenue well.

Indeed, in today’s earnings press release, Take-Two says it expects net bookings in the range of $5.45 to $5.55 billion for Fiscal 2024 (Apr 2023 – Mar 2024)… and a whopping eight billion for Fiscal 2025 (again, Apr 2024 – Mar 2025). Their net bookings for Fiscal 2023 (ended this March) were of $5.28 billion, much more comparable to their forecast for Fiscal 2024.

Now, that is a major increase of $2.7 billion in just one fiscal year, something that hasn’t been happening even with the ongoing success of GTA Online. Take-Two currently has Judas in the pipeline from the makers of Bioshock, alongside potentially a new Mafia game, but neither of those two games can pump up the numbers that much – they may sell well and may be anticipated IP, but we’re talking a difference of multiple billions in net revenue here.

I’m sure by now you can draw the parallels. This looks incredibly similar to what happened in 2011. Not even releases like Red Dead Redemption drove revenue up as much as, for example, GTA IV did, and GTA V was expected to. Now Take-Two, for the first time in a long time, are expecting a major increase in their net revenue for Fiscal 2025, something that historically only Rockstar releases have done. This is most likely, almost without a doubt, Grand Theft Auto VI.

They expect to sustain the big Fiscal 2025 forecasts all the way to Fiscal 2026, which would imply one of those “groundbreaking titles that (…) will set new standards of quality and success” is expected to continue to sell like hotcakes. Again, most likely GTA VI and/or it’s online component.

Let’s look at the wording as well, this is the same kind of wording Take-Two used to describe Rockstar’s next GTA game, which can be seen in this PCGamer article, which I’ll quote below.

“With development of the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series well underway, the Rockstar Games team is determined to once again set creative benchmarks for the series, our industry, and for all entertainment, just as the label has done with every one of their frontline releases,” said Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick during [September 2022’s] financial update.”

Investors know this just as well, and have noticed it, as Take-Two’s stock skyrocketed after-hours.

Remarks on Delays

Now, of course you might be saying “pfft, it’ll probably be delayed”. Maybe, of course. These are just forecasts, but they are a bigger piece of bread in a world of breadcrumbs – after all, GTA V was delayed too, and the big numbers did mean it was coming.
Many high-profile games have gotten delayed recently, Rockstar does delay most of their game releases, but we don’t know if they’re not going to attempt to go for a different strategy here – announcing when the game is further into development, avoiding delays as much as possible, so on and so forth, in a much different gaming industry landscape than the one in 2012/2013.

We’ll have to wait, but I think there is a lot of fodder here to say… we might be closer than we think to the big announcement if Fiscal 2025 truly is their target, and if it’s potentially coming out in, say… Autumn 2024. Rockstar likes marketing their games, and if this one is as big as it seems to be… they’ll want to talk about it quite a lot, maybe sooner rather than later!

If you’ve skipped to here because you find this too chonky, find a tl;dr by our GTAForums moderator Jason, included in our hype-filled GTA VI speculation thread.

The post Take-Two expecting large Net Bookings increase for Fiscal 2025 appeared first on GTANet.com.

But you know what December usually means in Rockstar world, and that is a new GTA Online update. After weeks of waiting and expecting, the info drop many were waiting for has finally arrived – although Rockstar begins by teasing some more very tasty quality of life changes coming to GTA Online, as a follow up to The Criminal Enterprises’, alongside references to some content from the next DLC – which will likely be fully detailed sooner rather than later.

For those who prefer this stuff in long-form, buckle up, let’s summarise the deets.

Table of Contents

• The Heist Challenge
• Current-Gen Visual Improvements
• Quality of Life! (additions and changes)
• Rockstar’s Closing Notes
• (Community) Speculation, Speculation, Speculation!

The Heist Challenge!

Much like in 2020, Rockstar hosted a new Heists Challenge this year, teasing that players would receive a “special reward” from the next GTA Online update if players cumulatively reached GTA$1 trillion in heist money.

This was expectedly obliterated, with players accruing a massive GTA$4 trillion and getting access to this reward, which was announced to be the brand-new Declasse Tahoma Coupé, pictured above.

Because dedicated heisters reached (and breached) the goal, every GTA Online player will have access to this car for free for a limited amount of time when the update drops. Looking like a really smexy car if I do say so myself.

Our petrolheads over on the GTAForums have already opened an appreciation and discussion topic for it as well, so check it out.

Current-Gen Visual Improvements

Do you see that sheen over there on that puddle, just look at it! It’s like it wants to bring the car with itself.

Well, players on the Xbox Series X and PS5 are in for a treat, as Rockstar is finally adding ray traced reflections to the mix of ray traced shadows and ambient occlusion you can find in the respective consoles’ Fidelity modes.

No more details were announced about this and how it affects the other modes, or if there’s going to be an update to AMD’s FSR (included in the game) technology to help with any resolution changes to support this new feature, but I imagine we’ll know soon.

Unfortunately for PC players such as myself, there’s no details on any of these improvements on that platform just yet, but we shall wait and see what happens with that.

Quality of Life!

The quality of life updates introduced to the GTA Online experience with The Criminal Enterprises were extraordinarily well received by the community, so it would only make sense that there would be more to come. We’ll be keeping it short and to the point, at least in regards to the ones that Rockstar have announced.

Much like The Criminal Enterprises, these improvements will most likely be split across multiple posts and the final patch notes, so don’t expect the following to be all of them!

• You will now be able to hide Contacts in your iFruit phone via your Interaction Menu. All you need is Lester right? Right?
• The Terrorbyte, previously considered bugged because it didn’t support the new changes to being able to do Sell Missions in private sessions, will be fixed and players will be able to do Business Sell Missions in private.
• All Casino Story Missions (call Agatha for some) will be soloable.
• New vehicle purchases will now arrive at your properties faster.
• Select (unclear which) Custom Weaponised Vehicles will be able to be used in Races where weapons are enabled, such as GTA Races.
• Don’t worry about your bicycle rack rusting over in your 2013-era Garage, you can now call Johnny to bring your bikes to you! I suppose he considered he was needing some exercise…
• Players on current-gen consoles can now access Hao’s Special Works features without completing the tutorial race.
• Completing Vehicle Cargo Sell (Import/Export) missions in Public sessions will now also award you a High Demand Bonus, depending on the amount of players in the session.
• Payouts for Smuggler’s Sell Missions will be permanently tripled! This was a point of criticism by some of the community as this activity was considered “forgotten” with the Criminal Enterprises economy tweaks.
• All Shark Card GTA$ values have been adjusted, you can read more in an official Support article here. This only refers to GTA$ amounts and not real life currency prices. The Red card has also been removed.

Rockstar’s Closing Notes

This was just a very small taste of things to come, as Rockstar clarifies these improvements “and more” will “arrive alongside the next GTA Online update“.

Rockstar teases what seems to be an update set in the “wild-side of Blaine County, in the first instalment of a massive, multipart update taking [us] all across the expanse of Southern San Andreas“. This bit definitely dropped like a bomb, as it implies that there is a lot more to this update story-wise as well, and although there’s been massive amounts of speculation as to what this really means, it certainly makes it sound special!
Will it be an update where the story is split in different parts much like your favourite TV show, and we’ll get more frequent content updates around this story, perhaps even other stories? More details will probably drop within the next few hours to days, as per usual with these announcements.

For those who like to go on a different kind of non-automobile or motorbike trip, Rockstar also teases that we’ll be going on “a mission to expand the minds of the citizens of Los Santos, one trip at a time” with “a new troupe of entrepreneurial misfits” and that “some familiar faces” will be back – we’ll get back to this ourselves in the next bit…

As per usual, R* also teases a fleet of new vehicles, world events, new Contact Missions, and more.

Speculation, Speculation, Speculation!

There’s no new GTA Online update article without some speculation. Although this one doesn’t (yet) have much to go on in regards to the update’s premise, other than some new quality of life changes and a view of what’s to come, both visually and in text, the community’s already done their own research.

Firstly it’s seen what seems to be Blaine County’s Juggalo gang hanging out by the Liquor Ace, where new vehicles such as a new Classique Taxi vehicle, a Custom Brickade and what seems to be a custom Journey can be seen.

Some speculate that the new Taxi could even be connected to a new fast-travel system, based on a new GTA+ member survey that circulated a couple of weeks back.

Secondly, it looks like one of the announced returning faces could very well be Ron Jakowski, as quickly pointed out by hawk-eyed community members on both the forums and Twitter. Considering the plural in “faces“, there is a chance we could even see the return of Wade, our favourite Juggalo from the Story Mode portion of the game.

The name of the update still remains a mystery as well, adding more petrol to the speculation fire – some say it might be Juggalo related, others say it may have nothing to do with it, we won’t know until more info drops, which, again is likely not far now!

The release date is obviously an even bigger mystery as not much has been announced yet, but the community speculates the day after the GTA+ benefits end is a candidate – and it sure is, as R* usually release updates on Tuesdays.

All this said, we also know that we have a new GTA Online event week on Thursday, which is relatively out of the norm right before an update (usually two weeks of the same event), so that could also bring us more details about the update as a whole.

There has also been some commentary in parts of the community about the quality of life updates being presented before any update premise details, but do remember that R* likes to do their info dumps about GTA Online updates the week before them, including sometimes making a post every day about them.

Plenty of opportunities and many days remaining for Rockstar to reveal more about the update – the hype machine and the rumour mill are fully running starting now, as R* teases “much more, very soon”…

Links

• Discussion Topic on GTAForums
• GTAForums GTA Online Section
• Rockstar Newswire
• GTANet on Twitter

The post Rockstar Teases Next GTA Online Update and More Quality of Life Improvements appeared first on GTANet.com.

Welcome to GTANet’s Chatterbox, our interview series where hosts uNi, Spider-Vice, and Kirsty sit down and get personal with notable people from the GTANet and Rockstar Games community, or even Rockstar Games themselves! From the well-loved to the unknown, Chatterbox is all-inclusive.

Today we bring you an exciting interview with the one and only DJ Pooh! With a background in hip hop music production, writing, and directing, DJ Pooh’s creative influence on the Grand Theft Auto series spans almost two decades now. First collaborating with Rockstar Games to write for GTA San Andreas back in the day, he’s since made his mark with further writing contributions for GTA V and GTA Online, as well as hosting in-game radio station West Coast Classics and playing a major part in The Contract DLC with Dr Dre last year. He can also be thanked for encouraging his friends Young Maylay and Shawn Fonteno (CJ and Franklin) to audition for their roles as protagonists.

DJ Pooh’s enthusiasm for the series as both a fan and a long-time friend of the company is something to be admired, so much respect to him for everything he has and continues to bring to GTA. Now, let’s hear from the man himself!

GTANet: You have worked with some of the biggest names in the music industry and on one of GTANet’s most beloved games in the franchise: Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. How important was the relationship between music and the series, helping it grow to be the giant Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto: Online are today?

Man, the music is 50% of that game, I feel like. It’s hard to say that because the game is just so massive and so amazing and it’s just everything. But then the music – nobody in gaming does music like Grand Theft Auto. I’ve always been a huge fan of how music goes in the game, but also how good it is.
People out here love the radio stations.  Some people say GTA radio is better than real life radio. It’s so crazy, you notice like you want to make everybody happy with such a broad game and that’s a hard thing to do, something nobody can accomplish. But I feel like GTA does that better than anybody, you always gonna have your hip hop guys but then the hard rock guys came in hard, man saying, “hey, hold on, man where’s our rock shit,” but it all comes around full circle all the time and everybody loves it, man. There’s something for everybody in there and it’s not just the songs that you knew were the singles off of albums and shit, it’s also those cuts that you don’t even think of, that people don’t even notice like, “oh, wow was that on that album?” You find gems in there, man. It’s like getting an education at the same time, because you get the samples and stuff like that in some of the newer records and then you can go flick over to some of the old school, lowrider stuff, and hear some of the original songs that came from that is too cool. When you go from there to there, you’re really doing something major in music. I feel like nobody else is doing music like that today, even music isn’t doing music like we doing music today.

GTANet: The West Coast Classics radio station in GTA Online received a couple of changes for The Contract DLC, how well was that received? Did it get the reaction from the fan base you were hoping for?

 People absolutely love the changes and it made me feel like we can start changing the music now and doing more and that, because the way people reacted to it. And the way Rockstar Games does all these cool-ass updates and stuff is phenomenal, especially when the music is able to update with it too. That means everything because the music is such an intricate part of the game. Yes, people definitely loved the Dre songs and the integration, not just being the music playing in the background somewhere but as Easter eggs, and the integration and the whole storyline, and they really having a vibe and feeling something of reality is – man I love it.

GTANet: You appeared physically in the GTA Online: The Contract DLC, with cutscenes and voice, can you talk about your experience? How was it seeing yourself immortalised as a character in GTA? (Plus the mythical DJ Pooh tee!)

 Oh my God. Being such a fan, I’ve been playing this all the way back when it was just 2D [Grand Theft Auto], like Pac-Man where you walk the player from above and you’re kinda going around the shrubs and stuff. And that was just the coolest thing. I used to play that back in my studio, Snoop and us would be in there, they’d be playing the basketball and the football, and I’ll be playing that too, but then I go straight back to [GTA], it was just my thing. I was a big fan of it and to see it just grow into what you know it is, it’s just amazing, man.

And to imagine being able to be in it and be a part of it was a dream come true, man. I’m a real fan of the game as you can hear in the passion of my voice, I’m a huge fan of GTA. First I play’em all, I love ‘em all. I was like, this is gonna be the future. Being a filmmaker, it makes me go, “oh shit,” I was jealous because this is better than films. This shit’s double, I’m in the movie right now, and so to be playing the game and then to see myself in the game was like a double, “what the fuck” like that is the coolest thing ever.

(On the DJ Pooh Tee) I love that shit so much being in the game, cause that [DJ Pooh] t-shirt goes back 35 years and it hasn’t changed at all, it’s the same shirt from back in the day and people that didn’t know it or remember it, they know it, but people are just getting introduced to it. They like the shirt. People send me pictures on Instagram and on Twitter and all the social media stuff, and when they have that shirt on, bro the way that make me feel, I just go, “oh, wow!” It’s the same shirt I’ve been rocking man from way back in the day, man. Same exact shirt, orange shirt.

GTANet: How was your experience with working with Dr. Dre again, but in a completely new industry? 

Dre is the person that put the first drum machine in my hand and showed me how to work it. Dre got me into producing music and is just a great friend of mine, man. My whole entire music career, Dre and I have been connected in some way. Dre’s never put out a record without playing that whole record for me before he put it out and got my opinion and I value that so much. He sends me music, I’m trusted with it. I love Dre, he is my brother.

I’ve been working with Rockstar for almost 20 years and to be able to bring these two together, this is the best of the best, the best shit in music, the best shit in games, it’s like pulling two of the homies together. Oh my God, it was just dope.

I’d been trying to do it for so long, Dre’s not a gamer, so he really didn’t get it. But when I took that PlayStation to his house and he saw us playing, he couldn’t believe all the stuff you could do. He was just like, “holy shit, this is the real deal.” And then when he heard all the music, I really started flossing with the stations going between this, that FlyLo here and that stuff, he just lost it when he hears me and Big Boy, he said, “I want my own station!” He was all in because he got it, he saw it was really cool, really fun, and he said, “man, I had no idea. ” From that point with Dre saying, “I wanted to do it,” it was just like, wait a minute this might really happen. Seeing it come together and being a part of it with Dre mocapping inside of a studio that was built in a mocap room, like a full studio, like who does this?

GTANet: Do you think his experience will help other people change their minds about working with games?

I think so. And I think people will see the potential in music. The marriage between music and games is just as good, if not better, than the marriage between music and film or any other medium out there. The more you look at it, music doesn’t stand in the place it once did for many reasons, it’s not the same, it’s smaller, but it’s bigger – it’s strange. Coming from music, to see something that still has that traditional thing where, you know, it’s not to just throw everything at you, but it’s curated in a way as if someone cared, I like that.

It feels special, man. It feels special. I know a lot of the artists whose music make it into the game, I know these artists and they’re so happy. And so that integration has always just been one of the best natural things I feel between music and gaming, but then being able to actually be in the game with Franklin, Lamar, me, Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, all on a golf course and doing all this, plus we built Dr. Dre’s studio in the game. Like you can go in there and just be chilling in Dr. Dre’s actual studio. This is something that I dreamed about, thinking like one day this will be happening. And man, that day is now!

GTANet: Do you have a favorite game in the GTA series? Which one is it and why?

 You really gonna make me do this, I feel trapped! It’s really hard because it’s three of them really. it’s hard to decide between the three, but if I had to decide, first of would be GTA V of course, then Vice City, I fucking love Vice City, and then San Andreas. There’s something so special about that game. All of them are special, but it’s kind of like your first, that’s right when I linked up with Rockstar and got opportunity to work with them. San Andreas was just so ahead of its time before everybody started trying to rip Rockstar off, and it just set the tone – the future is big. That game just means so much and to have had one of the little homies that that I grew up with be able to come in and play CJ in the game, that was just a special thing, too.

And just being a fan of the game and all the cool music that went into it – it was so west coast. The guys from Rockstar came out and we did everything – we flew choppers around so we could really map out everything with attention to detail. They met all these wonderful, cool people in all these different neighborhoods and communities and stuff and they wasn’t afraid to do it, they came out and they did it right. I really just love the way that whole experience unfolded for the first time.

Plus, to have a lead black character in something so big and anticipated and cool, and the way it was done with Samuel Jackson as Officer Tenpenny it was phenomenal. It’s better than any movie that came out at that time, and it’s still a lot of people’s favorite game. I still play it! And so to be able to play that, it’s just the best nostalgia and just the coolest thing. I’m out there with the Ballas and Grove Streets, I’m having a good time. I freaking love that game. 

So I’d have to say between that one and GTA V, but I don’t wanna lose Vice City, it was so Miami. It was so cold, bro.

A massive thanks to DJ Pooh for taking the time to answer our questions, and again to Rockstar Games for their continuous support in arranging these interviews!

Follow DJ Pooh on Twitter and Instagram!

Previously on Chatterbox
Roger Clark, Razed, TezFunz, Zoobz, Vinewood_Motors

The post Chatterbox: GTANet Interview with DJ Pooh appeared first on GTANet.com.

Right off the heels of The Attention Deficit Track and subsequent EP by legendary British producer Skream, this time CircoLoco is reuniting with an OG name – DJ Tennis – alongside production partner Ashee and pan-African alternative R&B, hip-hop and Afrobeat star Lady Donli on vocals.

Tracklist is as follows, with an edited “radio-friendly” mix and a special acid dub.

1. On My Own Now (Edit)
2. On My Own Now (Extended)
3. On My Own Now (Acid Dub)

As usual, I’ll be going through the new tracks below.

Spider Speaks – The “Reviews”

As mentioned, I’ll be once again dropping a few words about each track. My music tastes go from absolutely dark indie or punk rock to electronic music such as techno or trance, so I’d be hard pressed *not* to say something about this one. Although I haven’t been a fan of every single release (but most tracks!), CircoLoco Records has released a lot of promising tracks from a few big artists, and I personally can’t wait to see where the label is going in the future.

• On My Own Now (original Edit and Extended mixes)
  Beginning with the Extended mix, as that is the full track (edits are usually more radio friendly and exclude longer intro and outro parts that might be used by DJ’s for mixing), it starts out with a deep, very housey bassline along with a deep kick, which makes it very good for headphone listening, or in the club with a good sound system and sound stage.
  Not long after, Lady Donli’s very fitting introductory vocals kick in alongside some extra effects, eventually evolving into a subtle but effective acid line (which I really like, long live the Roland TB-303) alongside the rest of the percussion.
  It’s a highly progressive deeper House track, with very fitting vocals and an accompanying melody, introducing many new kinds of percussion and miscellaneous effects as it goes on. It becomes very catchy, very quickly, as the combination of all of the above factors, including the rest of the lyrics make you find yourself bopping your head at it.
  At about the 3:40 minute mark, the lead pad in the melody changes key, which is common in a lot of classic House tracks (like some of those featured in SF-UR if you have played GTA San Andreas) and adds flavour to this already very progressive track.
  It’s definitely one to bop to, and it must sound pretty great in the club for some calmer, more guarded dancing, alongside sounding great at home as well!
  
  —–
• On My Own Now (Acid Dub)
  The Acid Dub takes a heavier, tougher approach to things. Starting out with with a heavier kick and a variation of hi-hats, alongside a darker version parts of the vocal, chopped and reverbed at random points to add effect, evolving into the actual unfiltered vocals.
  A more pronounced, higher energy bassline is introduced, along with higher energy percussion with snare rolls, crash cymbals, and much more. Right after the breakdown a new acid line is introduced, one that has a much higher pitch than the one from the original track, and one that is also much more friendly for higher energy club enjoyment. It’s a more “repetitive”, more techno-like track, that is most likely better at the club than at home. Regardless, one that still makes your head bop and adds to the previous original mix experience.

In short, it’s a pretty solid short EP, with the original mix (and its versions) taking the crown for me as a deeper, more minimal and more progressive House experience, and the Acid Dub being a tougher club version for higher energy moments that is sure to destroy some subwoofers as well. I’ve always had a thing for some genres of acid house, and the subtle line in the first track definitely satisfies that itch.

Although the first track in the previous EP with Skream didn’t resonate as much with me (loved “Floral” though, my favourite CLR release alongside Butch & Kemelion – Raindrops!) CircoLoco is showing they can go places with several genres of club music, and I can’t wait to see what they do next – they can both release very progressive deeper tracks and heavier techno club-hitters. This release is a very decent one, both tracks are solid and different enough that different kinds of people who like the genre and different levels of energy can enjoy it. One thing I do wish Rockstar had done is put the new Skream tracks into the new GTA Online: The Criminal Enterprises update, but oh well! Listening to “Floral” while sourcing Cargo crates in GTA Online, speeding though Los Santos would’ve been pretty cool.

Where can I find it?

You can find the brand-new release on all streaming channels, such as Beatport, Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube and more.

Rockstar Newswire

The post Circoloco Records Releases “On My Own Now” with DJ Tennis, Ashee & Lady Donli appeared first on GTANet.com.

Welcome to GTANet’s Chatterbox, our interview series where hosts uNi, Spider-Vice and Kirsty sit down and get personal with notable people from the GTANet and Rockstar Games community. From the well-loved to the unknown, Chatterbox is all-inclusive.

It has been a while, but we’ve cooked up something a little extra special for our return; we had the absolute pleasure of talking to the legendary Roger Clark, a.k.a. everyone’s favourite boah Arthur Morgan, about his experience with Red Dead Redemption 2, his thoughts about the industry, and his next video game project Fort Solis. ICYMI, last year Kirsty had a chance to meet up with Roger and got us an amazing GTAForums shoutout!

With no further introductions needed, let’s get started cowpokes!

GTANet: Hi Roger! Thank you for chatting with us! Tell us a bit about yourself, have you ever tried other industries or have you set your mind on acting early on?

Roger: I was born in New Jersey and grew up in Ireland. I went to university in Wales. Started out with an HND in Computing Studies. Really blew chunks at it so decided to bite the bullet and pursue an acting degree. You only live once.

GTANet: This was your first foray into video game performance capture, correct? How did it feel to hear your voice immortalised in a virtual character for the first time, especially in such a big franchise as Red Dead?

Roger: I had done performance capture before sometime ago. My first foray into the medium was for another video game called Shellshock II. I was nervous being the protagonist of a Red Dead game after John Marston. I was a huge fan of him and realized quickly that I was going to have to do my own thing. Trying to recreate what Rob Wiethoff had done would’ve been foolish, I think.

GTANet: What was your first reaction to seeing all the GTAForums users finding out you were Arthur Morgan just from a voice in the trailer? Surely this must have been a huge surprise, did you expect the community to find you as quick as they did?

Roger: A lot of you figured it out before the trailer as I recall. Someone was clever enough to cross reference who some of the original Red Dead Redemption cast members had recently started following on social media and put two and two together. You found out about five of the new cast that way. You did not know for certain until release but it was extremely smart. It was a reminder that we were working on something big and as a Red Dead fan I really didn’t want to let you down. Without any audience feedback while we were working though, it was a double edged sword. We were able to focus and work without distraction, but had no idea how it would be received.

GTANet: You and all the other great actors that worked on the game brought an amazing performance to all of us. How different is acting in a video game? Most people just think of it as voice acting but it is so much more than that.

Roger: Voice acting is an amazing medium and about 10% of my work on Red Dead comprised of it. The rest was performance capture which is a separate, different medium. They are both amazing ways to act/work and one is not better than the other. A lot of our audience do not understand how performances in gaming is done nowadays but all appreciation is appreciated.

GTANet: You do enjoy your fair bit of gaming, which games have a special place in your heart? Are you playing anything right now?

Roger: I tried Elden Ring. I am useless. I just do not have the time to ‘git gud’ at stuff like that anymore. I have to admit that as a middle aged gamer, I do not have the hours necessary to know what I am doing with a Soulsborne game. I love them though, love watching someone who knows what they are doing on Twitch. I’m still returning to the new Horizon from time to time. Enjoying WWE 2022 and I have returned to some Shadowrun games that I used to enjoy. Looking forward to TLOU1 remake and GOW Ragnarok.

GTANet: Tell us a bit of your experience in your first playthrough of Red Dead Redemption 2. Did you get distracted with all the details, like “Oh I know that voice!”?

Roger: Yes, I saw versions of the game as we were working on it. But I never had unfettered access until about twelve hours before the rest of the world did. My wife let me have three days uninterrupted. I barely got to chapter three in that time. I was blown away. We were focused on the performance aspect of the game, we were not privy to what all the other departments were working on until we all got to sit down and play it. It is an unique way to watch your work, I was able to play it with a special nostalgia, “Oh, I remember that day” etc. One of these days I may have to do my own playthrough on Twitch…

GTANet: You must have millions of fans all over the world, was there a particular person that surprised you as being a fan?

Roger: Ice-T kind of blew my mind. Jack Black. Jack Quaid from The Boys was very kind to me once about how much he enjoyed the work. Having the kind of audience that we got with Red Dead Redemption 2 is an artist’s dream. That kind of exposure is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

GTANet: One of your next video game projects, Fort Solis, was recently revealed. It was really fun to see you in the spotlight alongside Troy Baker. Is this your first venture into the sci-fi horror genre? What is it like to prepare for this kind of role compared to the western setting of Red Dead Redemption 2?

Roger: I always prepare for different roles differently. Some things remain the same. I always focus on the script first and then try and find the voice and physicality from the clues the script gives me. What kind of animal would they be? Where is their center of gravity when they walk? What are their strengths and weaknesses. Public and private faces etc. I have never done a sci-fi thriller before and it is a joy to work on. A lot of research of Mars was done. Trying to familiarize myself with the world’s technology so that it appears second nature to Jack Leary. Games offer so much more immersion to its audience than film or TV does in my opinion and believable immersion is achieved with attention to detail, real environments and valuable research. You need to come up with authentic details that the player will take for granted that underline the truth and authenticity for whatever world you are trying to introduce audience to. Invisible little nuances that can often go unnoticed will still resonate on a subconscious level, I find.

We hope you enjoyed this fun little insightful read from Roger himself. Once again, a massive thank you to him for taking the time to chat; he is a true gentleman and we’ll forever be grateful for how supportive he is of the Red Dead community. Outlaws for life!

If you don’t follow Roger on socials yet… what are you waiting for?

Follow Roger Clark on Twitter and Instagram!

Previously on Chatterbox
Razed
TezFunz2
Zoobz
Vinewood_Motors

The post Chatterbox: GTANet Interview with Roger Clark appeared first on GTANet.com.

Let’s start with the less good news.

Red Dead Online

It’s been about a year since the last Red Dead Online update, Blood Money, was released, and ever since there hasn’t been much in the way of actual news about future updates, other than minor patching and weekly bonus events becoming monthly – likely due to an obvious ramping down on the development of the Western’s online portion. Parts of the community were/are even planning a “funeral”.

In the Community Update, Rockstar explains that “in the past few years, [they] have been steadily moving more development resources towards the next entry in the GTA series” and that as such, knowing the need to exceed players’ expectations with the new entry, changes would be done to the way Red Dead Online is supported – let’s make it easy to read:

• Monthly showcases and bonuses will continue for the foreseeable, along with special seasonal content.
• Experience improvements, plus other changes to enhance and maintain a healthy RDO environment were announced – the scope of those remains to be seen.
• Rockstar plans to build upon existing modes and adding new Telegram Missions later this year, instead of delivering major updates like in previous years.

Some of this has come as a relief for parts of the community, as we finally got some communication about what’s going on; but has come as a bigger shock for others – who protest that the game is now “completely dead”, among other such reactions.

Personally, I’m just glad that we’ve had some sort of acknowledgement about the big elephant in the room, one that clearly needed to be addressed, for the better or for the worse. As much as it might be disappointing for a lot of the community who focused on RDO, at least we now know what’s going on.

GTA Online

Moving on to current-era Los Santos, ever since the GTA+ page the other week revealed that benefits were ending on the 18th July instead of the end of the month, that community has been buzzing with the prospect of a new update releasing the following day. And they’re most likely right.

In this Community Update, Rockstar teased this Summer’s update for the first time, along with a range of significant quality of life and balancing changes that have gotten the community excited for what’s to come (with some being more cautious).

As a side-note, Rockstar has mentioned that “more players than ever [have taken] to the streets of Los Santos thanks to the recent launches on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S“, which I suppose isn’t surprising especially given GTA Online was free on PS5 for a few months.

Let’s get to the nitty-gritty of things, there’s quite a bit to take in:

• This Summer update will expand upon the roles/Criminal Careers of Executive, Biker, Gunrunner and Nightclub Owner – in what way, remains to be seen.
• Brand-new Contact Missions that swear the player in as a special IAA field operative to investigate a budding criminal conspiracy… based on one of the screenshots, once again involving the Duggan family.
• A slew of quality of life and balancing changes that have gotten a good part of the community going, examples given being:
  • Reduction to the effectiveness of homing missiles and countermeasures on the Oppressor Mk II.
  • A more convenient way to access snacks and armour.
  • Ability to launch Sell Missions in Invite Only sessions (hell yeah!).
  • Increase to GTA$ payouts throughout the game to reward players more for their time – e.g. Bodyguards/Associates/MC Members will see increased payouts, and so will Races, Adversary Modes and some select Heist Finales.
  • Potentially more.

Rockstar have also teased especially curated seasonal events (please more events like the Halloween event!), additional bonuses and gifts, community challenges (e.g. the Heist Challenge) and “other surprises”.

Back in March, Rockstar had already announced there were balancing changes incoming to the game, and an oopsie in the GTA+ launch page revealed a new update was coming soon, so personally, I can’t wait to see what’s coming and we should get more news next week, as per usual – title, trailer, more details, and so on.

The Next GTA

Once again, Rockstar have mentioned the existence of the next GTA game and how they have been allocating resources for it for “the past few years”, a personally interesting phrase especially given the spreading of Internet rumours about the next entry “starting development recently” and being “constantly rebooted”, among other things. Folks, never blindly believe Interwebz rumours!

Some people have seen this new mention as just a way of “damage control”, but personally I don’t think there is any need to use the new GTA game as any sort of damage control, as the same article that announces Red Dead Online support slowing down already has a GTA Online update that has a good part of the community excited. Rockstar has always liked throwing everything they have got at their largest, highest priority project to make it the best it can be, so it’s personally no shock to see it mentioned alongside Red Dead Online’s waning support – perhaps it’s a sign that something about GTA VI is coming this year.

We’ll all be eagerly waiting for more information on this one, hopefully this year.

You can discuss the Red Dead Online changes, the GTA Online update and speculate on the next GTA entry, all on GTAForums.

The post Rockstar Reveals New Community Update for GTA Online and Red Dead Online appeared first on GTANet.com.

With the track also comes a cheeky pre-order on Beatport for The Attention Deficit EP, releasing on 15th July, which features two more tracks, one by Skream and another one by Skream and Jansons, whose tracklist can be seen below (first two are available today):

1. Skream & Jackmaster – The Attention Deficit Track (Edit)
2. Skream & Jackmaster – The Attention Deficit Track (Terrace Mix)
3. Skream – Floral
4. Skream & Jansons – Track 3

Spider Speaks – The “Reviews”

As per usual, I’ll be dropping a few words about each track, as the muncher of both electronic and non-electronic music that I am on my day-to-day. I’m not really a clubber, used to do it a bit more in my uni years, but bopping your head with club tracks at home has nothing wrong with it. I’m going to include preliminary reviews of the Beatport previews of the 2 tracks releasing on 15th July – the previews are only one minute long.

• Skream & Jackmaster – The Attention Deficit Track
  First off, seeing Skream on a label like CircoLoco was completely unexpected, given I knew him from other places, and even from a remix he made for Anjunadeep.
  That said, this track is obviously a late-night techno/tech house club banger and not as much of a home listener, depending on your tastes. It starts out with a simple 909 kickdrum which then soars into a full-on 909 percussion pattern which is absolutely catchy to the ears – from open and closed hi-hats, to pitch-varying toms, claps, snares and so on.
  The vocal loop is not really my cup of tea, but it seals the deal about it not being a track that is to be listened at home necessarily, as the entire feeling of the track would change in a club. I feel like it is a little too repetitive, but, it laced with snare rolls, claps, and other 909 pattern shenanigans, along with a few changes in progression makes it a bit more tolerable.
  All-in-all the percussion is extremely good, but the vocal loop might be more jarring to listen to at home, depending on your tastes, or if you’re dancing to the heavens at a home-made club, of course. It’s a bopper, but more of a club bopper, if anything.
  
  —-
  
• Skream – Floral
  To me, this is where it gets extremely good. A very familiar breakbeat sound coming from Skream, once again featuring incredible 909 and 909-inspired percussion patterns and a background moody melody, along with a breakdown whose structure makes it reminiscent of old Trance tracks of the 2000’s, “exploding” right back into the breakbeat pattern after it.
  In this case, the vocals themselves are ethereal and fit the mood and melody of the track perfectly, it’s my favourite of the bunch and I can see myself listening to it quite a lot. It’s reminiscent of the releases by Belfast’s Trance Wax on Anjunabeats (and even outside it), and I hope this makes it to GTA Online in one way or another.
  
  —-
  
• Skream & Jansons – Track 3
  This track introduces the influence of Jansons, another UK producer I honestly didn’t know about. Some familiar percussion comes back in this one, except it’s definitely more Disco influenced with its repeating effects, small melodies, disco-ey bouncy bassline and so on. It reminds you of something you’d listen to in a club a couple of decades ago, but modernised, and it’s pretty catchy and definitely more friendly for both club and home enjoyment. I’d say it’s my second favourite of the bunch, I think?

All-in-all, the new track and the associated EP (releasing later) shows how eclectic CircoLoco is willing to get even within the genres it’s focusing on.
The hip hop release with Nez was a little more unexpected, and less my cup of tea as, as eclectic as I might be with my music tastes myself, it’s just not the style of music I usually listen to. I look forward to seeing more known artists signed to the label, and more tracks like Floral, honestly, but that is me being biased towards breakbeat!
The EP isn’t bad, but is indeed a mix of more club-friendly tracks and a couple of home-friendly ones. The first one, unless you really like techno, might not be for you, especially due to the repeating vocal which definitely does seem to imply you’ll be uncontrollably dancing in a club of this sort – after all it is The Attention Deficit Track!

Where can I get it?

This only refers to today’s release of the first track, The Attention Deficit Track and not the entire EP just yet.

Beatport

Spotify

Bandcamp

Apple Music

JunoDownload

The post CircoLoco Records Releases The Attention Deficit Track, Announces EP with Skream appeared first on GTANet.com.