The folks who make 'Grand Theft Auto' are teasing a big new game
When Rockstar Games isn't busy making new entries in the outrageously popular "Grand Theft Auto" game series, it's got a few other blockbusters up its sleeves.
Perhaps you remember 2012's "Max Payne 3," which took players on a booze-fueled, bullet-riddled, pulp action-adventure journey through Brazil? Or maybe, like millions of other people, you helped John Marston deliver frontier justice in 2010's Western epic "Red Dead Redemption"?
Point is: Rockstar Games, with few exceptions, only makes bangers - huge, blockbuster hits. And Rockstar Games just started teasing its next big game.
The image above appeared on Sunday morning at 9 a.m. ET on Rockstar's blog and the company's social media channels. But what could it mean?
Well, it almost certainly teases an imminent game announcement, and we're betting that game announcement is a (long-awaited) sequel to "Red Dead Redemption." Beyond the red Rockstar logo and slightly faded outline around it - it's red! and it's faded/worn, just like the old west! - Rockstar's not giving us much to go on.
But we do have a working knowledge of recent leaks and historical precedent to helps us out.
First and most prominently, an image of a map made the rounds back in April that was supposedly from "Red Dead Redemption 2"; TechRadar says it confirmed the map as tied to a "Red Dead" sequel. Based on information in that leak, it looks like the sequel to "Red Dead Redemption" may be a prequel story.
So, what else is pointing to a new "Red Dead" game being in the works? The sales history of "Red Dead Redemption" certainly doesn't hurt: over 14 million copies sold as of August 2015.
And that's before taking into account Rockstar's more recent history with the game - it just recently got added to the Xbox One through backwards compatibility. That's no small feat: work has to be done by both Rockstar and Microsoft to get that game up and running on the Xbox One. It's almost like, I don't know, Rockstar is trying to prime fans of the first game to get excited for a sequel. Imagine that!
Rockstar Games hasn't responded to a request for comment on the tease. It's not clear when we'll learn more, but we'd expect to hear something sooner than later.