Former ‘Grand Theft Auto’ Dev Says New Locations “Just Not Realistic” Due To Modern Demands, Predicts Series Will Stay “Stuck In This Loop Of About Five American Cities”
In offering a bleak and unfortunately probable read of the franchise’s future, former Rockstar Games technical director Obbe Vermeij believes that thanks to the ever-evolving standards of modern video game development expectations, Grand Theft Auto will likely never take a genuine trip outside of its Liberty City-Vice City-Los Santos-and-soon-to-include-Leonida comfort zone.
Vermejj, who previously provided his talents to Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, San Andreas, and IV, offered this reflection on the current state of the series during a recent interview with GamesHub’s Kyle Curran.
Asked if there had ever been any talk of “moving beyond the USA and to a more international setting”, the game dev recalled, “There were desires, yeah, but it’s like talking about alternative projects at Rockstar when you really start thinking about it.”
“We had ideas about GTA games in Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Istanbul. Tokyo almost actually happened. Another studio in Japan were going to do it, take our code and do GTA: Tokyo. But then that didn’t happen in the end.
People love having these wild ideas but then when you’ve got billions of dollars riding on it it’s too easy to go let’s do what we know again, and also America is basically the epicenter of Western culture, so everybody knows the cities, even people who haven’t been there. They have a mental image of the cities.
I think it’s unlikely it’s going to be in Bogota next time, especially since there’s just more and more money involved as the project gets bigger. It doesn’t make sense to set it in some left-field location for novelty. GTA: Toronto? It just wouldn’t work.”
From there specifically asked if he saw any chance of Rockstar responding to the longtime fan demand for a GTA game set in Europe and involving “all of its different criminal underworlds”, Vermejj bluntly declared, “It’s just not realistic.”
“I would love it, and if games still took year to make then yeah sure, you can have a little fun, but you’re not going to get that when there’s a GTA every 12 years.”
“You’re not going to set it in a new location. You don’t really need to either because the technology changes so much. Nobody is going to say that they’re not going to play GTA VI because they’ve already played Vice City. That doesn’t make sense. It’s completely different.”
Bringing his lamentation to a close, Vermejj ultimately asserted, “They’ll revisit New York again. They’ll go back to LA or maybe Las Vegas. I’m afraid we’re stuck in this loop of about five American cities. Let’s just get used to it.”
Given the sheer amount of labor and capital investment required to develop a new setting suggests Vermejj may end up being right on the money, it looks like Grand Theft Auto VI‘s Leonida may end up offering one of the last ‘fresh locales’ in the series’ entire history – so let’s hope Rockstar Games doesn’t absolutely fumble it.
