Take-Two Interactive’s Recently Cancelled Titles Were Not from Any “Core Franchises”

Take-Two Interactive announced last month that it was laying off 5% of its workforce and cancelling multiple unannounced titles as part of wider cost-saving measures, and though further details on exactly which projects had been shelved weren’t share, the company has shed a little bit more light on that front.

During its recent quarterly earnings call, Take-Two Interactive’s president Karl Slatoff briefly touched on the aforementioned cancelled games, and revealed that none of the cancelled projects belonged to any “core franchises”.

“We are extremely excited about our upcoming pipeline, which includes approximately 40 titles through fiscal 2027,” Slatoff said. “Our updated release schedule reflects the actions of our recent cost reduction program, through which we canceled several titles to focus our efforts and resources on the franchises we believe represent our best opportunities to achieve significant critical and commercial success.

“These titles did not include any of our core franchises and were not expected to materially affect our net bookings growth.”

Details on exactly what projects ended up getting canned remain scarce. As part of its recent layoffs, Take-Two shuttered two studios owned by its Private Division label in Rollerdrome and OlliOlli developer Roll7 and Kerbal Space Program 2 studio Intercept Games. As per reports, a large number of Private Division staff were also laid off.

Earlier this year, Take-Two Interactive acquired Gearbox Entertainment through its label 2K from Embracer Group for $460 million. Shortly afterward, Gearbox was hit with a fresh round of layoffs.

Take-Two currently has a number of major titles in the works across its labels, including Private Division’s Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game and a survival horror game with Bloober Team, Borderlands 4 and a rumoured Mafia 4 at 2K (one of which may be announced soon), Judas at Ghost Story Games, and, of course, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 6, which launches in Fall 2025. Rockstar will also be funding and publishing Remedy Entertainment’s Max Payne 1 and 2 Remake, which doesn’t yet have a release date, but is set to enter full production very soon.