Rockstar San Diego are no doubt hard at work on their next hit, and not too soon either – it’s been almost five years since they released the phenomenal Red Dead Redemption for the Xbox 360 and PS3.
Some new details on their next game have emerged via a new job listing on the company website, indicating that whatever they’re up to will feature the two words that single-player enthusiasts despise: dynamic multiplayer.
The new advert for a Network Engineer, which you can read in detail down below, states that it is the responsibility of the successful candidate to “integrate dynamic multiplayer into all areas of gameplay” and that they should be ready to “implement cross-platform abstractions for third-party online services, including Xbox Live and Sony.”
Rockstar San Diego is looking for a networking programmer who specializes in the synchronization of the wide range of gameplay mechanics found in a Rockstar open world game. This position involves extensive collaboration with gameplay programmers and designers, so good communication skills and the desire to work closely with others are a must.
Responsibilities
- Integrate dynamic multiplayer into all areas of gameplay.
- Extend and maintain core and mid-level solutions for efficient networking of complex open-world game environments.
- Work with the game project team to integrate networking technology into game projects, identify extensions to that technology, and create those improvements.
- Implement cross-platform abstractions for third-party online services, including Xbox Live and Sony NP.
- Work with external vendors to develop solutions using and/or extending their online service SDKs.
Qualifications
- 3+ years of professional experience with at least one shipped game title; preferably on the Xbox and/or Playstation consoles.
- Prior experience synchronizing objects in bandwidth limited situations.
- Experience working with common networking libraries.
- Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering or other Science degree.
- Experience building networked implementations for complex game systems, including AI, physical simulation, object management, etc.
- Familiarity with networking systems and their components including: DNS, NAT, firewalls, security methods, peer-to-peer and client server models.
- Experience with online game service APIs, particularly Xbox Live, Sony NP, and Games for Windows Live.
- Experience building robust, scalable backend systems and tuning those systems for performance and reliability.
- Database design and administration experience.
- Strong OO design understanding.
- Desired – Console development experience.
- Desired – Good math, in particular a working knowledge of vectors, quaternions and linear algebra.
The listing also makes note that the candidate should be familiar with open-world games, something that is more or less a given considering who the studio are and their previous games.
Could this be a sign that Red Dead Redemption 2 (or 3 if you count Red Dead Revolver as the true first Red Dead) will be place a greater emphasis on multiplayer? Maybe, but hopefully not.
Then again, if the next Red Dead Redemption can pull off a decent multiplayer similar to GTA V’s we’re all in. Just don’t force it down our throats!
What do you make of this? More multiplayer a good or a bad thing? Giddy on up down to the comments and let us know.
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