is in the early stages of development, and could apparently feature some pretty substantial changes to the standard franchise formula. This is according to a new report examining the working practices at Rockstar Games, following the brutal crunch period staff there suffered through .

Kotaku interviewed 15 members of staff who are either still with the developer or have left since the release of . While the main thrust of the report is that management appears to be making an effort to reduce crunch and high levels of stress among employees, there was some interesting news regarding .

The report suggests that Rockstar has a plan to release as a “moderately sized” game that would be regularly updated and expanded over time, much like online. This, apparently, is just one of the ways in which Rockstar management is looking at reducing crunch on the title. We’ll have to wait and see exactly what Rockstar means by “moderately sized”, of course.

Jason Schreier, who wrote the article, later tweeted: The next GTA is still a ways away, so it’ll be a while before we see whether the company’s attempts to mitigate crunch are really successful, but in the last year Rockstar has made several quality-of-life improvements and replaced managers that staff described as toxic.”

initially released back in 2013, and has shipped an incredible 120 million copies worldwide since February. A huge part of that continued success is down to , so if Rockstar could find a way to translate the success of a constantly evolving live service to while also taking the pressure off its staff… that’d be a no-brainer for everyone involved.

Out of everything we’ve heard about so far (that it’s set in Vice City, that it’s been inspired by , that you can fly between locations), we really have no idea what’s true and what isn’t... but this new report is by far the closest we’ve come yet to official word that the game is in development.

It’s worth noting that this is just one plan for the game right now, however. Any title that’s still early in development could still go off in any number of directions, so we don’t know for sure if this is the route Rockstar will pursue.

Interestingly, Kotaku only refers to the project as “a new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series” and not . This doesn’t mean it be called as such when it releases, and we’ll be referring to it as until an official title for the game is unveiled. Whenever that might be.