Former Rockstar Developer Reveals That GTA in Tokyo "Almost Actually Happened"
But it would have been made by another studio.
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You might have heard rumors of Rockstar considering a GTA game set in Tokyo – an idea that has never found the light of day but actually existed, as confirmed by Obbe Vermeij, a former Rockstar technical director who worked on several GTA titles.
In an interview with GamesHub, he said that the game "almost actually happened," but even if it did, it would have been done by an outside studio.
"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."
While most, I'm sure, would prefer Rockstar to handle the game, I suppose the studio thought an actual Japanese company could do it with more authenticity. Or maybe it would just be busy with another project, who knows? In any case, the game is not happening, as GTA 6 is set in the US.
"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."
There were also rumors of a GTA title set in Bogota, since in 2003, Take-Two Interactive filed several trademarks, including GTA Tokyo, GTA Sin City, and GTA Bogota. But Vermeij thinks it's "unlikely" we'll see the location in GTA 7, "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."
While fans want to see GTA in Europe as well, the developer doesn't see it happening:
"It’s just not realistic. I would love it, and if games still took a 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."
Well, let's just take one step at a time and think about possibilities later. Vermeij talks a lot about what-could-have-beens on his X/Twitter, so you should check it out.
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