How Rockstar Pulled Off GTA 3's Huge Open World On PS2
Mark Brown from Game Maker's Toolkit released a new video.
Optimization is a hot topic right now, with hardware prices being part of the reason, but not the only one. There are also many impressive achievements by game developers in the past that are worth revisiting, both to learn from and simply to marvel at.
In his new video, Mark Brown, the creator of the popular game design and development YouTube channel Game Maker's Toolkit, discusses how Rockstar North pulled off fitting an entire 4-kilometre-wide city into the PlayStation 2's tiny 32MB of memory for Grand Theft Auto III. Liberty City doesn't rely on clearly segmented zones, it's a continuous city you can explore in any direction, filled with unique models and textures. In total, it contains about 130MB of data, and although there are three separate islands, it still far exceeds what the console could handle.
So how did the developers make it work? The answer is streaming, loading assets into memory as you play. Watch the video to learn more. And if you'd like to dive deeper into game development tricks, you can start by exploring how mirrors work in games, then check out our article covering various behind-the-scenes techniques. Learn how Telltale Games' The Walking Dead faked a rearview mirror reflection and how Resident Evil 1 solved its corner visibility issues.
Don't forget to subscribe to Mark's YouTube channel for more great videos:
Grand Theft Auto 6 is expected to launch on November 19, 2026, amid reports of intense crunch at Rockstar Games.
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