Rumors are doing the rounds that a new Midnight Club could be Rockstar's next game following Red Dead Redemption 2, but we’re not convinced, and one guy shows us exactly how easy it is to fake genuine-looking screenshots.
The original news stems from a Reddit user who claims to have noticed someone playing Midnight Club on Xbox One on Xbox Live, but not before apparently taking some quick screenshots to prove it.
He then says he did some further investigation and linked to the Xbox Live profiles of the user who was playing the game, which clearly show that Midnight Club was being played on Xbox One.
Those profiles have since been made private.
With Rockstar busy on Red Dead Redemption 2 and still ploughing out tons of content for GTA Online – not to mention rumors of Bully 2 being in development – it's unlikely there's a full blown Midnight Club game in the works, but if there is it's likely to be a remaster rather than a completely new Midnight Club game.
So, let's look at the evidence.
While the title screen appears to show a new Mustang model in the background of a very bland title screen. The font of the title isn't the Midnight Club font that has been used in every iteration of the game. Here's the official one.
In every iteration of the Midnight Club logo the ‘M' and the ‘C' are larger. The ‘H' blends into the ‘T', and the ‘G' certainly looks nothing like that logo that claims to be from the new Midnight Club game. The font is far too basic.
The Xbox Live username, tweedycrowd727, appears to be a genuine Xbox Live profile, and after doing a bit of digging we've discovered that this user also has some of connection to Rockstar, having also been a member of the GTA Forums.
There's no evidence, however, that the user is a Rockstar developer – this could just be a fanboy having some fun.
The next screenshot shows a Nissan GTR Skyline, a car that also appeared in the Midnight Club 3 DUB Edition and Midnight Club: Los Angeles. This is the new screenshot.
This is an old screenshot from a previous Midnight Club game. Doesn't seem to be much of a graphical overhaul, right?
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The next screenshot now proves how easy it is to fake. This one shows a Chevrolet Nova SS from the new Midnight Club game.
Only it's not actually from the new game, it's a LS3 from Street Legal Racing Redline, a 2003 racing game developed by Invictus and published by Activision Value. This shot was deliberately manipulated to prove how easy it is to fake the Nissan screenshot.
The last game in the series was Midnight Club: Los Angeles which was released on the PS3 in 2008 and scored an average of 83% on Metacritic. Handled by Rockstar San Diego Studio it was pretty much confirmed back in 2010, following the cancellation of a new game in the franchise, that they would not be working on the series anymore.
Fake or real? What do you reckon?