GTA Online, the multiplayer mode for GTA 5, is an enormous success. It's helped the game remain popular--and lucrative for Rockstar and Take-Two--in the 10+ years since GTA 5 originally came out in 2013. As it turns out, Rockstar Games wanted the GTA series to have a multiplayer mode much, much earlier.
Obbe Vermeij, who worked on GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas, and GTA 4, told GamesRadar that Rockstar's teams wanted to incorporate an online mode "since the GTA 3 days."
"For GTA 3, I prototyped a simple deathmatch. Players could kill each other, drag each other from cars, and respawn around the city," he said.
This showed promise in the development process, Vermeij said, but Rockstar simply "ran out of time."
"We needed lobbies, scripts working over [the] network etc. We decided to cut the effort," he said.
Rockstar attempted to build an online multiplayer mode for Vice City, but it was cut as well as a result of development deadlines, Vermeij said. For San Andreas, Rockstar never even tried, with Vermeij saying it was "not worth the effort."
2008's GTA 4 introduced a multiplayer mode, with players able to roam through the game's open world together and duke it out. GTA 5's GTA Online mode, though, elevated things to a new level. The game is updated weekly and just got its latest big expansion, Money Fronts, this week.
GTA 6 is expected to have an online element, too, but Rockstar has only talked about the game's single-player element for now. We also do not know what will happen to the current version of GTA Online when GTA 6 launches, but Take-Two's top boss has suggested it could still be supported after GTA 6 launches.
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Obbe Vermeij, who worked on GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas, and GTA 4, told GamesRadar that Rockstar's teams wanted to incorporate an online mode "since the GTA 3 days."
"For GTA 3, I prototyped a simple deathmatch. Players could kill each other, drag each other from cars, and respawn around the city," he said.
This showed promise in the development process, Vermeij said, but Rockstar simply "ran out of time."
"We needed lobbies, scripts working over [the] network etc. We decided to cut the effort," he said.
Rockstar attempted to build an online multiplayer mode for Vice City, but it was cut as well as a result of development deadlines, Vermeij said. For San Andreas, Rockstar never even tried, with Vermeij saying it was "not worth the effort."
2008's GTA 4 introduced a multiplayer mode, with players able to roam through the game's open world together and duke it out. GTA 5's GTA Online mode, though, elevated things to a new level. The game is updated weekly and just got its latest big expansion, Money Fronts, this week.
GTA 6 is expected to have an online element, too, but Rockstar has only talked about the game's single-player element for now. We also do not know what will happen to the current version of GTA Online when GTA 6 launches, but Take-Two's top boss has suggested it could still be supported after GTA 6 launches.
Source