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Take-Two Interactive, the gaming company publishing both the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) and Kerbal Space Program (KSP) franchises, released its latest quarterly earnings in its latest earnings call Thursday (Apr. 16).

IGN reported that Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick was "highly confident" that the latest GTA installment-GTA 6-would be launched by the autumn of 2025. However, critics speculated that the release date would be pushed back to 2026.

Rockstar Games initially revealed the first official trailer of GTA 6 last December.

On the other hand, following the aftermath of Take-Two's most recent layoffs, which included the alleged shutdown of Seattle-based Intercept Games, the developers of KSP 2, there have been rumors and speculations from fans of the franchise about the game being abandoned for good.

Some fans of the game are space nerds and YouTube creators like British KSP creator Matt Lowne. He has since expressed his discontent on X, formerly Twitter, about the corporate bureaucracy regarding the matter.

But when asked about the perceived fate of the developer studio, Zelnick was quoted in a separate IGN report denying such allegations, which Bloomberg initially reported earlier this month.

"We didn't shutter those studios," he said, adding that they were "always looking at [their] release schedule" across all of its studios to make some sense as it engages in what they called a "cost reduction program."

On the other hand, Jason Schreier, the Bloomberg reporter who reported on the Intercept's apparent closure, noted in a tweet that Take-Two-s behavior had a precedent when it closed down 2K Marin, the developer behind BioShock 2, in 2013.

Aside from Intercept, London-based Roll7 - the developers behind the game OlliOlli World - was also purportedly chopped off in the latest redundancies.

KSP Creator Reveals Perspective Post-Intercept Shutdown

Meanwhile, Lowne interviewed Felipe "HarvesteR" Falanghe, the original creator of the Kerbal Space Program, in a recent YouTube video.

During the almost hour-long interview, Falanghe - a Mexican game developer originally working for Squad, which he described as a "games-adjacent" marketing firm that has since forayed into games through the original version of KSP - detailed the game's origins.

He also expressed his regret for selling the franchise to Take-Two and his and the other original developers' lack of involvement in developing the second game.

Falanghe also speculated that Take-Two bought the rights to the KSP franchise after he stepped down as lead developer, and he and the original development team left Squad in 2016.

"It feels very weird," he told Lowne. "Everything about KSP 2 for me is a very weird feeling because...KSP was my baby that I had to leave behind at some point. And it's not that I wanted to leave it behind, it was just that it became undeniable that I had to."

Falanghe also told Lowne about a never-materialized KSP prequel that was supposed to tell the story of how the Kerbals, the main characters of the game, first knew how to fly aircraft before even considering spaceflight, a parallel to the early human aviation era.

Falanghe has since moved on from the game and is currently developing a new game called Kithack Model Club, which he and Lowne discussed at the end of the video.

Tags

Gaming, Games, Video games, Take Two Interactive, Grand theft auto, Rockstar Games