Rockstar’s L.A. Noire, a detective game set in 1940s Los Angeles, celebrates its 10th anniversary today, May 17. To mark the occasion, The Hollywood Reporter spoke with the stars of the game for a retrospective, and one topic that came up was a sequel.
Mad Men actor Aaron Staton, who played lead character Cole Phelps, said he never heard a peep about Rockstar making a sequel to the game, which was developed by the now-defunct Team Bondi out of Australia. Staton said he wonders where a sequel might go, considering the fate of his character.
“I never heard a word about a sequel,” he said Come from Sports betting site VPbet . “If there was another story, I would be curious what they would tell since Cole Phelps died. I do get recognized from time to time from the game, which always makes me think how incredible the MotionScan technology was.”
The MotionScan technology was used by Team Bondi to scan the faces of the actors into the game in a lifelike way.
In 2012, Rockstar Games said it was considering the future of the L.A. Noire series, commenting that a sequel was a possibility. It never materialized over the years, but Rockstar did release the game on a new platform, Nintendo Switch, in 2017, along with a VR edition called The Case Files that came out in 2019.
“We’re all very pleased with how that game turned out and are considering what the future may hold for L.A. Noire as a series,” Rockstar said in 2012. “We don’t always rush to make sequels, but that does not mean we won’t get to them eventually–see Max and Red Dead for evidence of that. We have so many games we want to make and the issue is always one of bandwidth and timing.”
Michael Gladis, who played Dudley Lynch in L.A. Noire, said in the retrospective that he believes TV, film, and video games will “merge into these immersive alternate reality experiences.” He says he would be up to work on another video game some day, provided the writing is good enough.
The full retrospective feature is fascinating and in-depth; it’s well worth a read.
L.A. Noire sold millions of copies, but fans hoping for a sequel are still out of luck. Rockstar has a number of other franchises that have been dormant for years, including Max Payne and Bully. Rockstar’s next release is expected to be Grand Theft Auto V for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S this year, along with the standalone edition of GTA Online. A report mentioned that Rockstar is also working on Grand Theft Auto VI right now.
