The Grand Theft Auto series goes hand in hand with America and the satire it inspires, but Rockstar Games at one point considered changing cities and choosing Tokyo instead.
This comes from an anonymous source who supposedly worked for Rockstar Games at the time of the third game.
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The former employee, who presumably cannot be named due to the incredibly strict non-disclosure agreements Rockstar Games imposes on its employees, said there was once talk of bringing GTA to Japan.
The source said of co-founder Sam Houser: “He had just GTA3 back then, and they traveled a lot to Tokyo to promote the game,”
The source continues: “It seemed like a cool, interesting city for it, but in the end it just came down to logistics.”
These logistics included sending a team to Tokyo to map the city and explore cultural differences.
Of course, the satire mentioned above is a big part of GTA, but it would have been much more difficult in a game set in Japan.
The source ends with the words: “Connecting these things was a little difficult and we thought it would just be cooler to stick with the cities that are in Grand Theft Auto 1.”
This is understandable in many ways, but it does not stop us from lamenting what could have been.
When the news was reported on Reddit, one user commented: “I took it as if a Yakuza game had been stolen from us by Rockstar.”
However, with SEGA in charge of the Yakuza series, it’s also likely that Rockstar didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes, as they perfectly capture the crime, culture, and humor of Japan.
Photo credit: Rockstar Games
Topics: GTA, Grand Theft Auto, GTA 5, GTA 6, GTA Online, Rockstar Games
