LA Noire boss Brendan McNamara is back within GTA developer Rockstar, as the head of the newly-acquired and retitled studio Rockstar Australia.
Rockstar announced today it had bought McNamara’s Sydney-based developer Video Games Deluxe, following a decade of close collaboration on various Rockstar re-releases.
It was Video Games Deluxe – now re-named Rockstar Australia – that swooped in to update the recent GTA Trilogy port, following earlier work by another studio that was widely-criticised for its poor performance.
Video Games Deluxe also worked with Rockstar on the 2017 re-release of LA Noire, as well as the game’s VR Case Files version.
Of course, McNamara was responsible for the original version of LA Noire – he was its director, and the founder of its developer Team Bondi.
LA Noire was a commercial success and its technical ambition was praised, but Team Bondi closed less than a year after the game shipped following allegations of a toxic workplace and crunch culture during its seven-year development, and a furore over more than 100 people who worked on the project deliberately being left out of its credits.