Grand Theft Auto Almost Went Global
Since the late nineties, Grand Theft Auto has been tied closely to fictional versions of American cities. Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas are all riffs on real United States locations that most players can easily recognize. But behind the scenes, Rockstar once considered a very different direction for the series.
Obbe Vermeij, former technical director at Rockstar North, recently revealed that the studio explored ideas for Grand Theft Auto games set in several international cities. At different points in the company’s history there were internal discussions about locations like Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Istanbul. The most advanced of these ideas was a project called Grand Theft Auto Tokyo.
According to Vermeij, GTA Tokyo came surprisingly close to happening. The plan was for another studio in Japan to take Rockstar’s existing Grand Theft Auto code and build a new game around it set in Tokyo. That would have meant a full GTA style experience in a completely different cultural and visual environment. In the end, the project never made it into full production and was quietly dropped.
Vermeij worked at Rockstar North back when it was still known as DMA Design, contributing to major series entries including GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas and GTA 4. His experience gives an inside view of how the studio thinks about risk, setting and scale when billions of dollars are on the line.
Why GTA Keeps Coming Back To America
So why did Rockstar walk away from those more exotic locations? Vermeij explains that it ultimately came down to risk and familiarity. With such huge budgets and expectations around every mainline Grand Theft Auto release, the studio chose to stick to what it knows best.
He describes it as a tension between wild creative ideas and financial reality. When a single game represents a massive investment, it becomes much easier for decision makers to say they should do another American city instead of jumping to a completely new country. America is seen as a safer bet in terms of tone, humour and audience recognition.
Another big factor is cultural familiarity. Vermeij points out that the United States is essentially the epicentre of modern Western pop culture. Even players who have never visited New York, Los Angeles or Miami still have a mental picture of those kinds of cities thanks to movies, TV and other games. That shared understanding makes it easier for Rockstar to build convincing worlds and for players to feel at home in them.
Rockstar also has to deal with how long modern AAA games take to make. Vermeij argues that with development cycles stretching close to a decade for something like GTA 6, it is no longer realistic to take big location risks. If a new Grand Theft Auto only comes along every 10 to 12 years, the team is under pressure not to gamble on a totally unfamiliar setting or radical concept.
He even believes that we are unlikely to see another GTA set in an unusual time period like the futuristic style of Grand Theft Auto 2. That game tried to move into a more sci fi direction, but according to Vermeij, the team that worked on it disliked the experience. Reinventing weapons, vehicles and world details for a future setting proved far more work than expected. That memory probably makes Rockstar more cautious about radical shifts in tone or era.
Missed Opportunities And Space For New Open World Games
While Rockstar might not want to experiment too heavily with GTA itself, Vermeij thinks there is a big opportunity for other studios. The space of modern city based open world crime games once had serious competitors like Saints Row and Watch Dogs. Over time, those GTA style clones have faded out or moved in different directions.
Vermeij notes that it now feels like Grand Theft Auto stands largely alone in its niche. That gap could be filled by a new series willing to go where GTA has not. A future open world game might lean into more experimental settings such as a city in the far future or a detailed recreation of somewhere like Moscow, Rio or Istanbul.
The challenge is that many publishers are understandably nervous about going head to head with Rockstar. Matching the scale, polish and cultural impact of a modern Grand Theft Auto is a daunting task. Still, for a studio with a strong vision and tight focus, there is clearly room for a fresh take on crime sandbox gameplay that explores locations and ideas Rockstar is unlikely to touch.
There is also a deeper thematic reason why Rockstar might avoid leaving the United States. Grand Theft Auto is built on satire of American life: its media, politics, corporations and culture. That sharp and often harsh humour works partly because America is such a dominant global presence that it feels like punching up rather than down.
Trying to apply the same style of mocking commentary to less globally dominant countries could easily feel uncomfortable or unfair. There might be one exception. Rockstar North itself is based in the United Kingdom, and the series did once return to London in its early 2D days. The studio likely understands UK culture well enough to satirize it from the inside. Even so, they show no real sign of revisiting London or other British cities for a mainline GTA.
All of this context makes Grand Theft Auto 6 even more interesting to watch. Since GTA 5 launched, the world has changed a lot in terms of technology, online culture, politics and the business of gaming. Rockstar will likely stay within the United States thematically, but how it updates its satire and world building to match the modern era is a big open question.
With GTA 6 expected to finally show what Rockstar has been working on, fans will soon see how the studio balances risk, setting and cultural commentary this time around. The series may not be traveling to Tokyo or Moscow, but there is still plenty of room to evolve its familiar American playground into something new for the next generation of players and hardware.
