Take-Two cancels an unannounced game it spent $53m on

Rockstar and 2K parent company Take Two Interactive has canceled an unannounced project resulting in a staggering financial loss for the company.

Take Two held its quarterly earnings call today, and the accompanying investor presentation reveals that due to the "decision not to proceed with further development of an unannounced title in its pipeline," the company suffered a loss to the tune of $53 million.

Now, it's not at all unusual for a publisher the size of Take Two to invest that much in a single game - Red Dead Redemption 2 cost an estimated $540 million according to VentureBeat. But regardless, it's a lot of money to chuck into the bin no matter how you look at it, and it begs the question: what game was Take Two pouring that kind of cash into only to cancel without ever announcing it?

Bloomberg reports that the canceled project was a superhero title code-named Volt, and that it was in development at Mafia 3 studio Hangar 13. According to Bloomberg, development on Volt initially began in 2017 and included several reboots, with the most recent version of the game struggling to overcome technical challenges and other complications related to the Covid pandemic. The game would've been a competitive online superhero game as well as a brand new IP from Hangar 13. Ultimately, the folks with the coin purse at 2K decided it wasn't worth the investment and canceled it.

A recent leak says GTA 6 "is Rockstar's most chaotic project since its creation."