Every couple of months it seems a new report about canceled single-player DLC for Grand Theft Auto 5 comes to light. This past week, a former Rockstar developer appeared on the SanInPlay YouTube channel and offered some more insight into the standalone GTA 5 story DLC that was ultimately canceled after the launch of GTA Online.
Joe Robino, who worked as a senior camera artist and virtual cinematographer at Rockstar between 2010 and 2016, talked about "kick ass" DLC that was in development for GTA 5 which would've focused on the character of Trevor, played by voice actor Steve Ogg.
“A lot of the team went to do Red Dead Redemption 2 right away and I took on this other project that was a standalone DLC for GTA that never came out and it was kick ass,” Robino revealed. “That was my thing. I was one of the main editors, camera artists, and on-stage stuff. We split our teams into two. I stayed on GTA Online and then this DLC, which Steven Ogg [the actor who played Trevor Philips] was a very important part of."
He continued: “And then some of the team overlapped and went to RDR2 early on, and then we just kind of did this [flipped motion], because when that game got shelved, we spent so much money… a lot of that stuff though did end up making it I believe into later iterations of GTA Online, I think. So it’s not like they wasted it."
Robino went on to explain that when GTA Online launched it was just too much of a cash cow for Rockstar to justify releasing standalone story DLC.
“It was really really good. But when GTA Online came out it was so much of a cash cow and people were loving it so much that it was hard to make an argument that a standalone DLC would outcompete that," Robino added. "I think looking back now you could probably do both. But that was a business decision they made. I was a little upset about that. That actually was a lot of the reason for me being a little sour at that time. Because I was like yo, WTF guys? This s**t’s awesome. Let’s keep going. Let’s finish this s**t.”
This actually isn't the first time we've heard about DLC focused on the character of Trevor. Back in April, Ogg confirmed that he actually did work on DLC reportedly called "Agent Trevor."
“We also had that really cool s**t of — and I forget if it was DLC, I have no idea — but where Trevor was gonna be undercover, he works for the FEDs,” Ogg revealed. “And we did shoot some of that stuff with ‘James Bond Trevor’ – he’s still kind of a [frick] up, but he’s doing his best to pretend to be like [a secret agent]. We shot some stuff and then it just disappeared and [Rockstar] never did it, they never followed up on it.”
In 2018, Rockstar revealed GTA Online's Doomsday Heist missions alongside the Thruster, a jetpack that's still available in the multiplayer mode to this day.
At this point, with Rocksta having already announced Grand Theft Auto 6, there's practically no chance of GTA 5 getting any additional story content. GTA Online will continue to receive updates, but it's unclear what will happen to the multiplayer mode once GTA 6 releases in late 2025. The new game will likely have some sort of online multiplayer component, although it's unclear if Rockstar will be updating the current GTA Online and perhaps moving it to the state of Leonida (a fictionalized version of Florida) or if we'll be getting an entirely new sandbox to play in.