It was October 26, 2004 when GTA: San Andreas came into our lives and Rockstar Games managed to hit the historic table. The company once again defined open worlds and all thanks to a huge map that combined up to three gigantic cities.
Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas They made up a trio of cities like never before, full of life and with a multitude of activities to enjoy with CJ. Although the entire scenario could be traversed without loading times, the truth is that the initial idea was going to be very different.
Taking advantage of the 20th anniversary of the work, former Rockstar Games developer Obbe Vermeij has revealed on his X account that the original plan was to divide the zones.
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20 years ago we launched Grand Theft Auto – San Andreas.
The original plan was for the 3 cities to be on separate maps. The player would travel between cities using trains and planes. (GTA 1 and 2 also had three cities on separate maps)
Memory was very limited on the PS2 and with separate maps, the skyscraper models of the other cities would not need to be in memory.
It would also make it easier to have different police/ambulance/fire trucks for each city. Different pickups, types of weather, etc.
It would also be easier to hold off 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 with streaming.
Just before the artists started working on the three maps, we had a final meeting at Rockstar North where we changed our minds and decided to go for a big map after all.
Still, we ended up making city-specific pickups, police cars, and weather.
Happy birthday Saint Andreas. You turned out well.
As the creative points out, separating GTA: San Andreas In different regions it would have been a plus point on a technical and performance level. On the other hand, Vermeij points out that from a narrative point of view an artificial barrier would have been created to prevent players from advancing to points they were not yet supposed to reach.
The PS2’s memory was very lowso everything seemed aimed at staying in that line, but the company decided to go all out to implement a colossal map that remained to be remembered. One more detail that demonstrates the greatness of one of the best video games of all time.
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