GTA: San Andreas' World Could Have Looked Entirely Different

GTA San Andreas was released 20 years ago, on October 26, 2004. To commemorate this date, the former Technical Director at Rockstar North Obbe Vermeij, who worked on the GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, GTA 3, and more, shared the original plans for its world.

In his recent Twitter post, the developer said that the original plan was to create three cities on separate maps, similar to GTA 1 and GTA 2. Players would travel between the cities using trains and planes. According to Vermeij, the division into three maps would have been a good decision because PS2's memory capacities were limited, and thus, "the other cities' skyline models wouldn't have to be in memory."

The developer shared an image depicting a potential game world's plan:

Making three separate maps would have brought some other advantages. For instance, it would have been easier to make different police, ambulances, and firetrucks for each city. The designers at Rockstar North almost started working on the three maps, but just before that, the developers changed their minds and decided to create a big map instead. As shared by Obbe Vermeij, the meeting was with Leslie Benzies, Aaron Garbut, Adam Fowler, Alexander (Sandy) Roger, and himself. However, the single map that was created featured unique city-specific pickups, police cars, and weather.

Obbe Vermeij has been sharing behind-the-scenes moments of creating the GTA games. For instance, he revealed the reason behind the random plane crashes in GTA: San Andreas, shared why, unlike in GTA 3, there was no litter on the streets of the game's San Andreas or how the game's mirrors were made. Currently, the developer is working on his own game, Plentiful, which is a "relaxing game about creating conditions for nature to thrive."

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