Rockstar North (formerly DMA Design) is a Scottish video game developer, best known for creating the Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings franchises in its earlier guise as DMA. The company is a part of Rockstar Games, owned by Take-Two Interactive. It is the primary developer of the Grand Theft Auto series, including Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which are three of the best-selling games on sixth-generation consoles, in addition to the best-selling Grand Theft Auto IV in the current generation of consoles.
History[]
In 2002, a PC version of Grand Theft Auto III was released, as well as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for the PlayStation 2, which retained the engine and core gameplay of Grand Theft Auto III while adding a number of refinements and a roster of top Hollywood voice talent. In 2003, the company released a PC port of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, as well as the Rockstar Games Double Pack, a two-pack of both Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for Microsoft's Xbox console (porting assistance provided by Rockstar Vienna).
Rockstar North's next release, Manhunt, was released for the PlayStation 2 in November 2003 amidst a media frenzy surrounding the game's extremely violent content. Rockstar North released Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the PlayStation 2 in October 2004, and ports to Xbox and PC followed in 2005. The studio completed its next title in 2008, Grand Theft Auto IV, which was released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (and later on PC), and marked the debut of the developer's wildly popular GTA franchise on the seventh-generation of video game consoles. Grand Theft Auto IV was Rockstar North's biggest success yet, receiving universally rave reviews and becoming one of the most critically acclaimed video games of all time. Grand Theft Auto IV also broke sales records amongst all types of entertainment media and is hailed as the developer's finest work to date.
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, a new installment for the PlayStation Portable, was released in October 2005. It was developed by Rockstar Leeds, under Rockstar North's supervision. It was been ported to the PlayStation 2 and features a slightly better framerate and draw distance than its PlayStation Portable counterpart. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories was also developed by Rockstar Leeds, under Rockstar North's supervision for the PlayStation Portable, and released in October 2006. It was also ported to the PlayStation 2.
Rockstar North continued work on Grand Theft Auto IV in the form of two pieces of episodic downloadable content; Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned was released on February 17, 2009, while Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony was released on October 29, 2009. Along with The Ballad of Gay Tony, Rockstar released a disc-based version of both episodes for the Xbox 360, titled Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City.
On June 2, 2009 at Sony's E3 conference, it was announced that Agent was being developed by Rockstar North for the PlayStation 3. This was later confirmed in an interview with Ben Feder, President of Take-Two Interactive. The game is set in the world of the late 1970s. According to Rockstar North, it will "take players on a paranoid journey into the world of counter-intelligence, espionage, and political assassinations".
Also in 2009, Rockstar North developed a new installment, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation Portable.
2010 would see released for macOS for Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Between 2010 and 2014, iOS. Fire OS and Android ports of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars were also released.
2013 saw the release of the latest installment in the Grand Theft Auto series, Grand Theft Auto V, and it's multi-player component, Grand Theft Auto Online. Grand Theft Auto V was released to critical acclaim, having been extensively marketed and widely anticipated; the game broke industry sales records to become the fastest-selling entertainment product in history. Originally released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the game was so popular that it has been re-released since on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|X.