Despite not making its way into the series until 7 years later,Grand Theft Auto 3was originally planned to be the first implementation of multiplayer in the series. While it would have been a far cry from GTA Online’s current state, former technical director Obbe Vermeij outlined the original plans for the multiplayer mode.
Reported byGamesRadar,the former Rockstar developer goes into detail about what the original mode would have looked like in its early stages. Between bothGrand Theft Auto 3andGrand Theft Auto Vice Citythere were several attempts to implement the mode over the years, before taking a break duringGrand Theft Auto Vice City’s development.
GTA Online Would Have Looked Very Different In 2001
A Much More Simplistic Style For The Time
In the statements by Vermeij,Rockstar"North and NY had wanted to make this happen since the GTA 3 days", long before its eventual implementation intoGrand Theft Auto 4. Compared to the morefleshed-out and standalone multiplayeroffered by the franchise today, the originalGrand Theft Auto 3would have offered more simplistic modes where"Players could kill each other, drag each other from cars, and respawn around the city."
“Players could kill each other, drag each other from cars, and respawn around the city.”
While the prototyped game modes had plenty of promise at the time, they were eventually cut from the final release after running out of development time and resources. After the first failed attempt withGTA 3,Rockstar’s second attempt went even further than the original by hiring new employees like network coders specifically for the project, but it was still eventually scrapped"due to deadlines.“Following the two failures, Vermeij claims forGTA San Andreas' development,“we didn’t even try. It was the final PS2-era game — not worth the effort”, despite Rockstar’s partial success by including local co-op functionality.
Giving The Game Mode The Resources It Needed To Flourish
While I would still love to see a glimpse into what the originalGrand Theft Auto 3 Onlinewould have looked like in reality, the project’s further development would have done more harm than good for the series. With how limited Rockstar’s resources were at the time,finalizing either GTA3orGTA Vice City’s multiplayer would have required reducing their single-player campaigns significantly. With the series still somewhat in its infancy, it seems like a much better choice to have honed in on Rockstar’s strengths at the time, rather than experiment with an unstable new game mode.
Compared to its humble beginnings,Grand Theft Auto 5finally delivered on the massive multiplayer potential of the franchise’s open-world potential. Even if it took some time to get to its current state with heists, businesses, and a near-endless stream of content to experience,GTA Onlinemanaged to succeed in fleshing out the groundwork laid by its predecessors. With rumors that the upcomingGrand Theft Auto6 Onlinewill besold separately at launch, it could very well take the series to an even more ambitious scale that will be unrecognizable fromGrand Theft Auto 3’s humble multiplayer beginnings.
