Rockstar Games released quite a few GTA Online news yesterday.

　　First of all, Freemode Events are coming in an update set to become available on September 15; here's how the developer described them.

　　Freemode Events in Grand Theft Auto Online are a new advancement in open world gameplay, giving players access to a range of seamlessly integrated games and challenges in GTA Online’s Freemode. Taking full advantage of the latest generation of consoles and PC hardware, there are no menus, lobbies, or load times – just an open Freemode session filled with Friends, Crewmates, rivals, and randoms where spontaneous and chaotic new games and challenges will appear.

　　One of these events can kick off at any given moment while in Freemode, and you can customize your session to decide exactly which ones will happen – so you can play as much or as little of this new content as you like. With countless variations on each Freemode Event, there are tons of unique new experiences, each offering new opportunities for reaping GTA$ and RP in GTA Online.

　　Feeling locked and stocked? Look out for King of the Castle – an every man for himself turf war where you’ll need to ascend and claim the designated ‘castle’ as your territory – and then fend off everyone else as they go all out to dethrone you. Form fragile alliances and work together in modes like Hunt the Beast, where one volunteer is temporarily transformed into a faster, stronger, beastly character who must escape relentless pursuers. Freemode Events also take the shape of insane stunt challenges, such as popping the longest wheelie, catching the most air in a land vehicle, or performing the most near misses in a vehicle without crashing.

　　Also included with next week's update are two brand new Adversary Modes. First, Hunting Pack: you’re part of a team tasked to deliver a priority vehicle rigged to explode if it drops below a minimum speed, while your opponents race, ram and batter to take it down. Or try Cross the Line, where heavily-armed squads face off across a neutral zone – with the goal of having all team members strategically penetrate their opponents territory to claim victory. The Freemode Events Update also brings the Rockstar Editor to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with new features (also being added for current PC users as well) such as an ambient audio and sound effects library, Snapmatic integration, Director Mode updates and more.

　　That's far from everything we learned of Rockstar Games' plans, however. Imran Sarwar, Director of Design at Rockstar North, explained a lot more in an interview published by IGN; for instance, he mentioned that GTA Online has exceeded their expectations and that all key members who launched GTA V are busy supporting GTA Online, which basically means that the promised GTA V single player DLC is still very far, if at all coming.

　　Right now our focus is on GTA Online which has exceeded our expectations. We currently have all key members of the team that launched Grand Theft Auto V focused on supporting GTA Online in every capacity. The community we’ve been able to foster is massive, growing each day and we have so many ideas that have yet to make it into the game. The evolution of GTA Online on these newer platforms is also an exciting prospect as the power of those systems is going to allow us to achieve even more.

　　The last part of his sentence brings us to another important GTA Online announcement: Rockstar Games is officially retiring support for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, mainly for memory reasons.

　　The primary technical reason is the memory capacity of the older systems. We are constantly adding new items to the game with each update and we began approaching the memory limits after the first year of GTA Online content. We found ourselves almost at capacity after the launch of Heists but with some creative programming we managed to squeeze additional updates into those older systems which allowed us to make it as far as the two Ill Gotten Gains updates, but we can’t make any more meaningful updates without putting the stability of the entire online game at risk.

　　This will allow Rockstar Games to be more free while creating new modes for more powerful platforms like PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

　　After almost two years of regular free content updates delivered to those systems, we are now focused on the opportunities provided by the more powerful PS4, XB1 and PC – and we’ve got some really fun ideas on how to make the most of these more powerful machines. Bringing the Rockstar Editor to the newer consoles and the changes that come with Freemode Events are a great start and only the beginning of what we want to accomplish with GTA Online long term.

　　Aside from simply allowing us to utilize more memory and pack additional assets into the game itself, the additional power will mean we can create more complex game types and deliver on some of the ideas we have that only these newer systems can allow. We are really excited for how GTA Online can continue to evolve as a platform with these new systems

　　Are you still playing GTA Online, or would you rather have the studio focused on some single player DLC of GTA V? Let us now in the comments.