We’re obsessed with the idea that poor people might take more than they need, but we never question why the super rich are never satisfied with what they already have.
20 years ago we released Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas.
The original plan was for the 3 cities to be on separate maps. The player would travel between the cities using trains and planes.
(Gta 1 and 2 also had three cities on separate maps)
Memory was very tight on the ps2 and with separate maps, the other cities’ skyline models wouldn’t have to be in memory.
It would also make it easier to have different police/ambulance/firetrucks for each city. Different pickups, weather types etc.
It would also be easier to contain the player until it was time for the next city.
It would also make it easier to organize the models on the DVD city-by-city which would help the streaming.
Just before the artists started working on the three maps, we had a final meeting at R* North in which we changed our minds and decided to go for a big map after all.
We still ended up doing city-specific pickups, police cars and weather.
Happy birthday San Andreas. You turned out all right.
🧵#GTA San Andreas is 20 years old today! Let's take a look at some of the technical improvements San Andreas brought to the GTA series!
San Andreas brought night/day vertex colouring to models, allowing artists to paint the models different colours depending on the time of day.