The team behind the biggest Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 role-playing communities, Cfx.re, is officially becoming part of Rockstar Games. The new partnership comes ahead of the possible launch of GTA VI in 2024, and will lead to an updated policy that officially allows the addition of mods created in the FiveM and RedM communities to the hit open-world games.
“Over the past few years, we’ve watched with excitement as Rockstar’s creative community have found new ways to expand the possibilities of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2, particularly through the creation of dedicated roleplay servers,” Rockstar wrote in an August 11 blog post on its website. “As a way to further support those efforts, we recently expanded our policy on mods to officially include those made by the roleplay creative community.”
In addition to allowing users to make all sorts of mods for GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2, the Cfx.re team’s FiveM and RedM clients are also the nexus for massive role-playing communities around the games who use dedicated servers to make elaborate worlds where individual players take on various roles from criminal and civilian to create a more authentic online open world experience.
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“This is a huge step forward in the growth of our community, and an opportunity for us to work with Rockstar Games to advance the FiveM platform and the creative community surrounding it,” Cfx.re wrote in a statement. “While our day-to-day operations won’t have any noticeable changes, with Rockstar’s support, we are going to continue to improve our platform and we are truly excited for what this means for our users, community, and creators!”
It’s a massive change for a company like Rockstar that has historically treated modding communities like renegade outlaws. “The FiveM project is an unauthorized alternate multiplayer service that contains code designed to facilitate piracy,” the company stated back in 2015. “Our policy on such violations of our terms of service are clear, and the individuals involved in its creation have had their Social Club accounts suspended.” One FiveM modder even claimed at the time that GTA publisher Take-Two sent private investigators to their house to shut their work down.
While the Cfx.re team’s efforts are currently based on GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2, it’s not hard to imagine this new partnerhsip becoming an important basis for jumpstarting the player community around GTA VI whenever it launches. Take-Two has previously hinted that the game could arrive as early as next year, just over a decade after the previous game’s release. During that time, GTA V has remained a monthly best-seller on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and GTA Online’s in-game microtransactions continue to line the company’s pockets.