A composer sharing music for an unreleased game has led to a much deeper story and raises more questions than it was supposed to. From an cut mission in L.A. Noire to upcoming Rockstar Games projects, there’s a lot to unpack here.
So, some of the former L.A. Noire developers Team Bondi launched a new studio a few years ago called Video Games Deluxe. This is the group that made the L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files release several years ago. More recently, they did the Netflix mobile release of the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition.
Then a few days ago a music composer named Freyja Garbett shared an interesting post on Instagram. As reported by VGC, the musician namedropped Sowden House as a 1940’s thriller in a caption along with a video of a musical piece. Below is Garbett’s caption.
From the creators of L.A. Noire comes Sowden House, a psychological thriller set in 1940s L.A. that will have you questioning your sanity. I never thought I’d be writing for video game but I’m grateful for the opportunity! 🙏 This was the second Video games session recording and it features the ‘jazz band’.
Freyja Garbett
The composer has since removed the post. Following this, Video Games Deluxe shared a statement to VGC to squash rumours of this game coming out and shed light on music’s origin.
We are working exclusively on projects for Rockstar. We commissioned some music from a local composer Freyja Garbett for a VR project that we were working on a number of years ago when between projects. It is based on a case from LA Noire that did not make the cut but was more of a tech demo than anything else. We have no idea whether this will ever see the light of day but we decided to finish the score commission to support a local composer.
Video Games Deluxe
This reveals that Video Games Deluxe wanted to make a VR project based on a cut mission from L.A. Noire. On top of that, they confirm they are “exclusively” working on projects for Rockstar Games. Back in 2020, the studio shared on their LinkedIn page that they were working on a “AAA open world title in VR for Rockstar”.
Could this be a new title or the long awaited GTA San Andreas VR release? At this moment in time we have no idea but we will keep you posted. This is all rather curious and is rare to learn about a Rockstar Games title in development from someone else.
Speaking of L.A. Noire, it just got added to GTA Online’s subscription service GTA+. If you pay for GTA+, you’ll have full access to L.A. Noire on Xbox or PlayStation.
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