Fun fact: Rockstar Games once kicked around the idea of a Grand Theft Auto set in Istanbul but it stayed in the idea bin and the game never made it into production. A solo developer said "hold my beer", spent two years and just did it anyway. A game called ALATURKA, a retro open-world crime sandbox set in a fictionalized 1970s Istanbul, went viral this weekend on the back of a new trailer and it is entirely the work of one person building on livestreams with no budget.
To be clear up front, this has nothing to do with Rockstar. ALATURKA is an independent, GTA-inspired homage, not an official title and not a clone using any of Rockstar's assets. The developer, Burak Akşahin, describes it as basically a PS2-era 1970s Istanbul take on Grand Theft Auto, with heavy driving physics and döner kebab deliveries as the core job loop.
Low-poly retro visuals, period cars, a living city with seagulls and cats, and the usual open-world chaos round the game out and honestly, it kind of works for what he's attempting to do.
What ALATURKA actually is
Detail | Info |
|---|---|
The game | A retro, PS2-era open-world crime sandbox |
The setting | A fictionalized 1970s Istanbul called Bosforus |
The core loop | Heavy driving physics and döner kebab deliveries |
The dev | Burak Akşahin, solo, on livestreams, $0 budget |
Built with | 100% Unreal Engine 5 Blueprints, no traditional code |
Status | On Steam for wishlisting, about 17,000 so far, no release date |
ALATURKA is a GTA-inspired indie with no connection to Rockstar.
As we've already mentioned, Rockstar did once weigh non-American settings for the series and former Rockstar North director Obbe Vermeij has said the studio brainstormed GTA games set in Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Istanbul before deciding to stay in the fictional United States. ALATURKA is one person picking up the Istanbul concept Rockstar left on the table and running with it, döner deliveries and all.
Akşahin, an Unreal Engine instructor, developed the game 100% in Unreal Engine 5 Blueprints, without traditional code, and streamed nearly the whole thing publicly with community feedback shaping it. The trailer pushed it to millions of views and roughly 17,000 Steam wishlists, with no release date set yet.
With Grand Theft Auto VI looming, GTA's gravity is pulling solo developers into building their own open worlds while they wait, from the person who tried vibe-coding a whole GTA 6 clone with AI to this. The difference is that ALATURKA is original, its own city, cars and jobs, which keeps it clear of the asset and likeness lines Rockstar has enforced lately.
Rockstar never built its Istanbul-inspired GTA. Someone finally did and it delivers döner along the way.