RTX 2023: Red vs. Blue Is Back for the Last Time

Back where it all began: Rooster Teeth announced the final season of Red vs. Blue, with series creator Burnie Burns back as writer after a six year absence. (Image Courtesy of Rooster Teeth)

Cue the tense music! Attendees at this morning's Rooster Teeth Animation: Behind the Frames panel at the RTX convention got some huge news and a first glimpse at the next phase in the franchise that built Rooster Teeth, groundbreaking machinima series Red vs. Blue.

The bulk of the panel was taken up by a screening of a new episode of RT's teen comedy Camp Camp, which will return with a new season in 2024 after a five-year hiatus. Yet when 2D supervising producer Austin Harper and 3D and machinima supervising producer Laurie Yates took to the stage, it seemed pretty clear that they were there to announce more than just some new Red vs. Blue merch, including the return of the plushy Griffball (IFKYK).

What they had was the first teaser footage for the newly announced season, Red vs. Blue: Restoration, with AI Epsilon running simulation after simulation that looked suspiciously like footage from earlier seasons, all while an unnamed figure told him he was wasting his time. Meanwhile the screens became dominated by footage of Alison, a key figure in the mythology of the action-comedy-drama series.

But neither Alison nor Epsilon were the real big reveals, as a credits stinger announced the returns of series creator and Rooster Teeth founder Burnie Burns – who left the company in 2020 – as writer, and cofounder and RT chief content officer Matt Hullum taking over directing duties. Burns was lead writer on the first 10 seasons, covering the three big story arcs (The Blood Gulch Chronicles, The Recollection, and The Project Freelancer Episode), with Hullum as a regular cowriter and codirector. However, they handed over writing and directing duties in 2016 after season 14, the aptly-named Anthology.

Later, via Twitter, Rooster Teeth confirmed that series mainstays and RT cofounder Gustavo Sorola and Geoff Ramsey will also be back.

The even bigger news: The quartet is returning to the show to bring it to a close, with the next season being announced as the final run for the online cult fave.

Red vs. Blue actually predates Rooster Teeth. It began with Burns riffing over gameplay footage from Halo: Combat Evolved in 2002, becoming one of the first examples of machinima (using grabbed footage from video games to create stories). The original trailer ran on the now-defunct drunkgamers website, and the initial episodes became one the first true phenomena of streaming video, turning the game's high-stakes SF action into a sitcom about boredom and bureaucracy.

Over 18 seasons, it became a massive cult success and the core of Rooster Teeth's programming portfolio. However, the most recent season, soft reboot Red vs. Blue: Zero, failed to spark with original fans and didn't seem to bring in a large new audience. At the same time, Rooster Teeth has put more emphasis on its other big franchise, their American anime RWBY, and there have been no new episode of Red vs. Blue since 2020.

RTX 2023, Fri.-Sun., July 7-9. Austin Convention Center, 500 E. Cesar Chavez. rtxaustin.com