Crackdown 2 Makers Ruffian Games Are Now Rockstar's Newest Studio

Rockstar Games isn't a monolith. Like many teams of its size, it has multiple studios located around the world, and this year it's added another to the tally. Ruffian Games, the Scotland-based developer behind Crackdown 2 and a handful of Kinect titles, is now officially known as Rockstar Dundee.

TheGamer reports that Ruffian was rebranded as part of Rockstar last week on Oct. 6. Last year, Ruffian disclosed that it was working on a project with Rockstar as part of a hiring push, but now the team is officially part of the GTA and Red Dead behemoth.

Rockstar's website hasn't yet been updated to reflect the addition of Rockstar Dundee. Likewise, Ruffian's site is still up, having been most recently updated over a year ago with the announcement of its Oculus Rift VR title RADtv.

While the second Crackdown game was Ruffian's most notable release, the studio also worked on RADtv, twin-stick shooter Fragmental, and Microsoft Kinect projects like Kinect Star Wars. Recently, Ruffian also worked closely with 343 Industries to bring 2010's Halo: Reach into The Master Chief Collection on Xbox One and PCs.

This brings the total number of Rockstar studios to ten, with half of those now headquartered in the United Kingdom. Rockstar's international outposts include three studios in the states (New England, San Diego, and New York) plus Rockstar Toronto in Canada and Rockstar India.

At present, we don't know what the Rockstar Dundee team is working on. While still delivering updates for GTA Online and Red Dead Online, Rockstar has kept quiet about its upcoming titles. We know that next-gen versions of Grand Theft Auto 5 and GTA Online are slated for release next year, but as for Rockstar's next new title, rumors and speculation are about all there is. Having created its own desktop game launcher last year, though, it'll be interesting to see if Rockstar brings more of its back catalog to the service or if it decides to launch its next title simultaneously for consoles and PC.