Courtesy of Take-Two Interactive's recent quarterly earnings report, it looks as though a sequel to teased sequels to L.A. Noire and Max Payne in its first investor call of 2021, hot on the heels of Rockstar officially confirming development on Grand Theft Auto 6 was underway. While future installments of L.A. Noire or Max Payne are seemingly still a ways off, there's plenty of room for speculation as to how either series could continue. In L.A. Noire's case, a game focusing on Jack Kelso in the 1950s could be one route that Rockstar takes with a potential sequel.
[Warning: full spoilers for L.A. Noire follow.]
Released in 2011, L.A. Noire was originally developed by Australia-based developer Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games. The title, which was set in post-war Los Angeles in 1947, saw players take control of Cole Phelps, an ambitious cop and WW2 veteran, as he rose through the ranks of the L.A.P.D. The game featured a mixture of capers for players to solve, incorporating a mix of detective gameplay, puzzle-solving, cover-based shooting, and open-world driving. It also employed revolutionary facial-capture technology, with players having to deduce whether a suspect was lying or being honest based on the evidence they'd accumulated and the behavior of the interrogatee.
As a game set firmly within the noir genre, things did not end well for Cole Phelps in L.A. Noire. After having an illicit affair and finding redemption by helping to expose the Elysian Fields conspiracy - eventually culminating in a confrontation between himself and serial arsonist Ira Hogeboom - Cole was swept away by a flooding sewer and died. This has left the door open for another character to be the focus of a sequel, and while there's scope for L.A. Noire 2 to mimic Red Dead Redemption 2 and be a prequel, it arguably makes more sense for the follow-up to move into the 1950s with a familiar character in Jack Kelso. Instead of working with the L.A.P.D., Jack could move on from his career as a claims investigator for insurance companies and become a PI, getting involved in lurid affairs along the way.
How Jack Kelso Could Lead An L.A. Noire Game Set In The 1950s
The first L.A. Noire was set two years after the conclusion of the Second World War, in the wake of the Black Dahlia murder and with the post-war boom in full effect. A potential sequel could keep that same 1940s setting, but it may be more interesting if it was set in the 1950s instead. James Elroy's seminal L.A. Quartet - a series of novels including The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, and L.A. Confidential - depicted stories that took place over both the 1940s and '50s, and Rockstar could mimic that approach if it chooses to delve back into L.A. Noire with a full sequel. While not overnight, the '50s saw numerous changes sweep across the United States, with new emerging aesthetics also bursting onto the scene. Stylistic changes like this could go some way in making a potential L.A. Noire sequel feel fresher than the original, with new vehicles, fashions, and firearms for players to try.
While Jack Kelso wouldn't necessarily have to anchor an L.A. Noire sequel set in 1950s Los Angeles, players are already familiar with the character and he has a history with the established forces from the first game. If Rockstar was to build an interlinking narrative along the lines of what Elroy constructed with the L.A. Quartet, then characters from the first game should return. There's the likes of Stefan Bekowsky, who Cole partnered with on traffic duty, as well as Herschel Biggs from arson, who could feature. Kelso is arguably the stronger character for a game to center around though; he'd already experienced Cole's shouting before L.A. Noire's main story during WW2, and may have just cause to avenge him in a sequel. Players even experienced a portion of the first game's story through his eyes. He's also not a member of the L.A.P.D., which could prove another way of making L.A. Noire 2 feel fresher.
L.A. Noire 2 Could Focus On Completely New Characters
Of course, there's also the possibility that Rockstar forsakes the cast of the original game and instead develops its own new characters from the ground up. The first L.A. Noire was developed by Team Bondi, and the studio went defunct in 2011. After its collapse, former of Bondi went on to KMM Interactive Entertainment, and started development on the controversially titled Whore of the Orient, another project that would've had a noir focus, except this time set in Shanghai in the 1930s. That game was canceled in 2016, but it may illustrate how broad a scope there is for potential L.A. Noire sequels, almost along the lines of how Rockstar approached GTA's various settings and stories. They don't even necessarily have to be set in Los Angeles, and could instead encom a range of titles with a noir theme.
There's also the matter of Team Bondi's collapse. Unlike Grand Theft Auto V or Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar only published L.A. Noire. While the company owns the license to the property, this may indicate that a potential new installment in the series would start from scratch, and maybe even focus on new characters players didn't encounter in the first game. Rockstar has utilized characters from games it didn't originally develop, as was the case with Max Payne 3, but it may be the case that a future L.A. Noire severs ties with the cast of the original, and keeps any connections to a minimum, similar to both the GTA and Mafia series.
In any case, there's real potential for an L.A. Noire sequel. The first game had its critics, but it was also a unique offering in Rockstar's library, boasting ambitious mo-cap technology and a compelling mix of detective gameplay and action. It may have lacked the detail and polish of some other Rockstar titles, as the open world had little in it for players to interact with, but these are all areas a sequel could address. L.A. Noire 2 - should it ever be made - could refine the first game's interrogation system, introduce a more fleshed-out open world, and apply the lessons learned from GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 to a noir theme - regardless of what its cast may look like.
