The Development of Grand Theft Auto III

Look at this picture; do you recognise it at all? Well if you don’t, it’s a school bus in Grand Theft Auto III. It’s not a mod either; it’s one of many things that was either cut or changed during the development. You can still see school buses near 8-Ball’s bomb shop in Portland, though they’re not driveable; they don’t even have any wheels! Speaking of 8-Ball, he was originally white rather than black, and was named Mullin. Last year, Rockstar did an online Q and A with fans about GTA III; where beta features such as these were explained. I’m going to do my best to detail what is now known about the early stages of GTA III’s development, and what is still a mystery.

At any point during the development of GTA III, did Claude ever speak?

Many people have seen this trailer where Claude appears to say; “Get out of the car!”

Here is Rockstar’s explanation:

“This is fake. This is an old bit of gameplay footage, for sure, but we think the voices were added at a later date by someone online as at no point did we plan for Claude to have a voice or even design how a speaking protagonist would be implemented until Vice City.”

Seems probable, right? Well I can shed at least a little bit more light than Rockstar can on this matter. I recently bought the press disc that was given out by Rockstar to the press at E3 in 2001. The trailer in question features on this disc, with voices and all. So it seems as if this trailer is not a fake after all, though I would assume that the voices and sound effects within the trailer were added by a Rockstar employee; and therefore a talking Claude would have never been implemented in the game. It is possible that the trailer in its finished state wasn’t seen by the powers that be at Rockstar; and so could have been added by a single designer gone haywire. This one remains a bit of a mystery.

Darkel

Darkel was a character that was cut during the development of GTA III. He was to be a revolutionary street urchin who would have given out rampage-like missions. However Rockstar decided to go back to the traditional rampage style missions and Darkel’s part in the game was cut. The only mission of his that is known to still exist in the game is ‘I scream, you scream’, which was given out to Claude by El Burro. Here are Rockstar’s comments on the matter:

“Darkel was just a crazy bum who gave you some crazy missions. They were removed a few months before the game was done and long before 9/11 because they just weren’t as good as the rest of the game, and tonally they were a little odd. He started with 5 missions and they were slowly all cut. When only one or 2 were left, they were all removed as the character just didn’t work alongside the other characters. None of these missions involved blowing up buses of school children although that is a funny rumour!”

Another rumour is that Darkel gave out a mission where the player had to fly a plane into the Love Media Building. Rockstar have never commented on this, however they have revealed that the Dodo was never meant to be flown; meaning that this mission is probably just a rumour.

“Because we were making a driving and shooting game - even that, as a combination of core gameplay elements, was very, very radical at the time. The Dodo was never meant to be flown very much at all, and it certainly wasn’t grounded as a result of 9/11 – it was just a fun thing that people then went crazy with when they figured out various bugs that let them fly it!”

There were other cut characters too: Curtly, Butler (presumed to have been Salvatore’s butler) and Novy. Tom Novy’s song ‘Back to the Streets’ was used in a trailer and it is rumoured that it was to feature on Head Radio. Both Novy and his song were cut for unknown reasons; however the textures for him and Butler remain in the game. Other characters simply changed names before the final release of the game. Salvatore Leone’s name was originally Frankie Sorvino; therefore making Joey’s surname Sorvino too.

Other Stuff

A lot of the other stuff that was changed between the first look at GTA III and the final release was mostly cosmetic. A beta map design shows that Francis International Airport was located in Staunton Island, before it was moved to Shoreside Vale. Shoreside Vale looked slightly larger than it ended up being, having more roads near where the airport would eventually be placed.

 The graphics were a lot more ‘cartoonish’ in the earliest stages of GTA III’s development, and Portland went through a few design tweaks. The police station and hospital were changed and there was originally no subway. The Police cars were originally blue rather than black, which is potentially one of the few changes Rockstar made in light of 9/11.

“(GTA III after 9/11 was) about 1% different. We removed only one mission that referenced terrorists and changed a few other cosmetic details – car details, a couple of ped comments, lines of radio dialogue etc – the game came out a very short time later. The biggest change was the US packaging which remixed the previous packaging into what became our signature style – because the previous packaging [which was released as the cover of the game in Europe] was, we felt, too raw after 9/11. All of the more extreme rumours are amusing but impossible to have been achieved in such a short period of time.”

So that’s about it. There’s just one thing left to cover really.

How is the cannelloni at Marco’s Bistro?

“Horrible! Stale as hell.”