Rockstar North talks about the importance of GTA III to their studio
While it took literally decades for it to happen, Nintendo fans finally got to experience Grand Theft Auto III through the release of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition on Switch. GTA III is definitely a watershed moment in gaming, and in a recent interview, we get a bit more insight into just how much the game mattered to its devs.
Game Informer spoke to Aaron Garbut, Rockstar North’s art director, about just how influential GTA III is for the studio. Obviously the franchise has come a very long way since GTA III, but as Garbut says, that installment set the tone and direction for GTA to this very day.
GTA III set the template for how we make games. We [learned] so much from it, but mainly, we just learned how hard it was. Creating worlds with the density of detail and content we wanted that could be navigated at speed has all sorts of complications. Having the content exist in that world alongside open-world systems – the ambient world, cops, gangs, and the like, creates even more complications. I guess we learned that we weren’t afraid to take a hard path if we felt the results were worth it. And the approach of systems interacting to create complexity is something we continue to build on.
[Aaron Garbut, Rockstar North’s art director]
