Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser has explained before why Grand Theft Auto is and has always been an American series, but did you know it came surprisingly close to leaving the land of the free? According to former Rockstar North technical director Obbe Vermeij, the studio once had a Tokyo-set GTA in serious talks, along with a whole list of other international cities that never made it past the idea stage.
In separate interviews, Vermeij has said GTA: Tokyo nearly happened, with a Japanese studio set to take Rockstar's code and build it, the same kind of arrangement that eventually led to the criminally underrated Bully. "Tokyo almost actually happened," he said, though "the contracts were never signed."
Vermeij explained that would have been a Grand Theft Auto III-style game, reportedly with samurai swords and Japan's street-racing scene playing a big role, driven mostly out of Rockstar's New York office with Sam Houser and Leslie Benzies involved.
There's proof beyond Vermeij's words for this. Take-Two Interactive once registered a "GTA: Tokyo" trademark in late 2003. An anonymous former Rockstar source had also told Time Extension that Tokyo was seriously considered after GTA III, partly because Sam Houser had gotten caught up in the Tokyo scene on promotional trips. Unfortunately, the logistics of researching and satirizing a foreign city properly proved too hard, so Rockstar stuck with the fictional American cities it knew, which we can only presume led to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in Los Santos.
The non-US GTA settings that were considered or trademarked
Location | How far it got | Source |
|---|---|---|
Tokyo | The closest, in talks with a Japanese studio, never signed | Vermeij, trademark |
Rio de Janeiro | An internal brainstorm at Rockstar North | Vermeij |
Moscow | An internal brainstorm | Vermeij |
Istanbul | An internal brainstorm | Vermeij |
London | A broader idea, only ever got the top-down GTA London packs | Vermeij, Dan Houser |
Paris | A broader idea | Vermeij |
Bogota | A precautionary trademark, no real plans | Trademark, former source |
Sin City | A precautionary trademark for a Vegas-style US setting | Trademark, former source |
How far each considered or trademarked GTA location actually got.
Vermeij has also described the Rockstar North team brainstorming GTA games set in Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Istanbul, mostly over drinks, dreaming up what those cities could become. London and Paris came up too. However, unlike Tokyo, those were mere ideas that never made it past water cooler talk.
Aside from Tokyo, London has the most history of the also-rans. The first Grand Theft Auto got top-down London expansion packs in the late 1990s, but a full 3D London game never materialized. Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser explained why previously, as we've already mentioned. One-half of UK's most prolific gaming moguls explained that so much of GTA's identity, the guns, the larger-than-life characters, the satire, is baked into America. In his words, "there was so much Americana inherent in the IP" that setting a game elsewhere would be hard to pull off.
A couple of the others were only ever paperwork. Back in 2003, Take-Two also trademarked "GTA: Bogota" and "GTA: Sin City" but these were more to keep name-squatters away, with no real development behind them. Sin City, tellingly, pointed at a Las Vegas-style American setting anyway.
So, yeah, all these years and GTA has stayed home. It has not left since. Grand Theft Auto VI is set in Florida, a fictional version of Miami and the wider state of Leonida, in perhaps the most American premise the series has had. Vermeij has said the modern scale makes another international experiment unlikely, since billions ride on each release and a familiar American backdrop is the safer bet.
Tokyo was as close as GTA ever came to going abroad, and it stayed on the same map it always has.