Red vs. Blue, often abbreviated as RvB, is a comic science fiction video web series created by Rooster Teeth Productions and distributed through the Internet and on DVD. The story centers on two opposite teams fighting a civil war in the middle of a desolate box canyon (Blood Gulch) in a parody of first-person shooter (FPS) games, military life, and science fiction films. Initially intended to be a short series of six to eight episodes, the project quickly and unexpectedly achieved significant popularity following its Internet premiere on April 1, 2003.
The fifth season of the original Blood Gulch Chronicles series ended with episode 100, released on June 28, 2007. Three mini-series—Out of Mind, Recovery One, and Relocated —and the three-part Recollection trilogy containing the full-length Reconstruction (2008), Recreation (2009) and Revelation (2010) series (Seasons 6–8) have extended the plot. The Project Freelancer saga began with Season 9 (2011) and follows two separate stories: a continuation to the Recollection trilogy and a prequel set before the events of The Blood Gulch Chronicles. The two stories are continued in two further mini-series—MIA and Where There's a Will, There's a Wall—and concluded in Season 10 (2012).
Burnie Burns confirmed in What's Trending that the series would continue with Season 11, which premiered on June 14, 2013; and Season 11 was later followed by Season 12 and Season 13. In 2016, Season 14 was released as the first anthology season, consisting of several canon and non-canon stories created by in-house writers as well as several outside writers; Freddie Wong of RocketJump, Chris Roberson (creator of iZOMBIE), Ben Singer and Chad James of Death Battle, Ernest Cline (author of Ready Player One and Armada), Arin Hanson and Dan Avidan of Game Grumps, etc. Season 15 debuted in 2017, continuing the canonical story following the events of Season 13. In March, Joe Nicolosi announced Season 16 which focused the events after the last season with a reduced episode count. Nicolosi stepped down after Season 16 concluded, with Jason Weight taking over writing duties and both Josh Ornelas and Austin Clark taking over directing duties for Season 17, which had an even more reduced episode count.
On January 15, 2020, Season 18 was confirmed to be in development with a brief 3-second clip being shown in a promo trailer for upcoming Rooster Teeth releases.[1] The season was done by Death Battle writers Noël Wiggins, Joshua Kazemi, and Ben Singer based on a story by the season's director Torrian Crawford.
Episodes are released earlier for subscribers of Rooster Teeth's premium service, originally known as Sponsors and renamed in 2016 as FIRST.