Rooster Teeth confirms Warner Bros is deleting 21 years of gaming history

One of the first bastions of online gaming media, Red vs Blue and RWBY studio Rooster Teeth is closing down. However, parent company Warner Bros is also deleting decades of beloved history in the process.

Starting in 2003 with the pilot episode of Red vs Blue, a Halo Machinima series made in the 2001 Xbox game, Rooster Teeth quickly became one of the biggest online bastions of online content. Over the years, the Texas-based studio developed groups such as Achievement Hunter, Funhaus, F**kFace as well as original animations like RWBY and Camp Camp.

Announced in March, Warner Bros is shutting down the company after 21 years of service. While a lot of the brand’s content is available on YouTube, two decades of content is also exclusively available on the Rooster Teeth website, and Warner Bros is axing it all.

In an update sent to fans last night, Rooster Teeth confirmed that the official website and app will be permanently closed as soon as the company officially closes its doors in May.

“The Rooster Teeth website and apps will shut down on May 15, 2024. As more information regarding content YouTube channels, social accounts and more are finalized, this will be shared with you all,” the messages reads. “Thank you for being here with us. We could not have made it 21 years without your support.”

At the time of writing, content creators at the company are still planning to take individual brands with them, if Warner Bros allows them. For example, the popular podcast and Let’s Play format F**kFace, frantic fast food review podcast Face Jam and extremely popular Dungeons and Dragons podcast/puppet-themed video series Tales of the Stinky Dragon are all planning on continuing. However, the groups may be forced to rebrand following the company’s closure.

With the company winding down, no new subscription-only content will be released to the Rooster Teeth website and the brand’s online store has also closed. However, content is still being actively created at Rooster Teeth by its biggest groups until the company’s final days.

As one of the first internet groups alongside the likes of Penny Arcade and Mega64, Rooster Teeth’s 21-year lifespan is a miracle for internet groups. Despite multiple controversies over the years, the scrappy Texas-based entertainment company leaves behind countless fans, and even more who have been touched by its works over the years.

While it seems that Warner Bros is planning on deleting content locked to the Rooster Teeth website and app, fans are already hard at work archiving the brand’s work. There are numerous archival projects in the works including the Archive of Pimps, named after the company’s iconic Minecraft let’s play series.

Rooster Teeth closes down on May 15, 2024, just over a month after its 21st birthday. The company will end with the release of Red vs Blue: Restoration, the final entry in the brand’s debut series.