The Grand Theft Auto franchise was very close to branching out with a game set in the Japanese capital of Tokyo, a former Rockstar dev confirmed, before eventually being scrapped.
GTA has become synonymous with the USA over the years, with Rockstar creating the likes of Liberty City, San Andreas, and Vice City as counterparts to New York, California, and Florida, and it’s been over 25 years since GTA briefly visited the streets of London, and an exit from North America now seems extremely unlikely.
However, a game based in Tokyo was on the agenda in the past and “almost happened,” though the idea was later scrapped.
GTA: Tokyo Almost Happened
Speaking to GamesHub, former Rockstar North technical director Obbe Vermeij, who worked on the likes of GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas, confirmed that discussions did take place for a Tokyo-based version of the game to release.
“We had ideas about GTA games in Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Istanbul. Tokyo almost actually happened. Another studio in Japan was going to do it, take our code and do GTA: Tokyo. But then that didn’t happen in the end,” he said.
With the GTA franchise ballooning further since the release of GTA V, and the huge anticipation for GTA 6, Vermeij believes the time has passed for a move to another continent to take place, and believes it wouldn’t work.
“People love having these wild ideas, but then when you’ve got billions of dollars riding on it, it’s too easy to go let’s do what we know again, and also America is basically the epicentre of Western culture, so everybody knows the cities, even people who haven’t been there. They have a mental image of the cities.
“I think it’s unlikely it’s going to be in Bogota next time, especially since there’s just more and more money involved as the project gets bigger. It doesn’t make sense to set it in some left-field location for novelty. GTA: Toronto? It just wouldn’t work.”
Additionally, while fans have been holding out hope for the bottom of the GTA 6 map to be expanded to include some of the Caribbean, or even Colombia, Vermeij believes it’s still unlikely to happen, even though he admits it’s something he would enjoy.
“I would love that. I think drug running is a good match. I was actually constantly trying to push to get that into the earlier games but it never happened. But is that what Rockstar are doing? I don’t think so. It doesn’t really make sense. It’s a lot of extra work for what it would be.”
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As good as it might sound, GTA is only possible in America. Unlike games like Assassin creed, which deal with assassination as its essence, GTA deals with American culture as a whole..so it’s just not possible lol
Tokyo would be a perfect fit. Shanghai would be interesting as well. I’d love to see NYC and Boston for anymore American cities. Rome is a bit small to do it all in that one place but driving there is just insane so that part of it would work. Maybe do something like the Italian Job on Vespas? Lulz. Paris, London, and Berlin are all natch too.
Would love that but Rockstar doesn’t get 1 thing, combat and don’t trust modern Rockstar. Sleeping Dogs however give me a remake and non woke sequel. Also funny Saints Row originally was going that route too the second game was to be a prequel set in the 70’s/80’s and then the third game would have been in modern day again and the explosion from the first game was caused by the Ronin so you’d go to Japan to hunt them down. Too bad they didn’t go that route. I hope Nagoshi Studio is basically doing Yakuza with GTA/Sleeping Dogs freedom now with Gang Of Dragon. Modern Yakuza/RGG has been trash since he was less involved ruined the story with 0 onwards.