In an era of triple-A publishers hoarding big franchises, it’s rare to see any previously successful IP go more than a few years without a new entry or reboot. It’s even stranger to watch such a franchise sit gathering dust in a publisher’s catalogue for over a decade without being re-ignited or sold off to finance other projects. Yet, this is exactly the position that the Midnight Club series, once a staple of any racing game fan’s library, has found itself in. Forgotten about and left to rot.
That is, until January 2022, when Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick off-handedly mentioned the series during an investor call announcing the company’s acquisition of Zynga, where he included Midnight Club in a list of Take-Two’s biggest franchises.
As a fan, I was surprised to learn that Zelnick was even aware he still had the keys to Midnight Club in his back pocket. I certainly wasn’t alone either, as the name-dropping inspired a wave of fresh speculation about a revival for the street racing series, intensified by the discovery of a job listing at Take-Two owned studio Visual Concepts, seeking a producer to work on “an unannounced, open world driving game with a major license”.
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