Grand Theft Auto (GTA) Vice City launched in October 2002, just one year after the release of the breakout GTA 3. While it would release to critical acclaim and remain one of the most popular games in the series, GTA Vice City was never supposed to be a standalone game.
According to former Rockstar North technical director Obbe Vermeij, what became GTA Vice City was planned to be a mission pack for GTA 3.
“Originally it was supposed to be a mission pack to [GTA 3],” he said via his blog. “Only once [GTA 3] did as well as it did and Vice City started to look sufficiently different from [GTA 3] was the decision made to make it a standalone game.
“This was quite far into the project. (maybe 6 months or so).”
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The game’s development, Vermeij says, didn’t feature “many code changes” from GTA 3. Instead, most of the work was done on creating a brand new city for players as well as new missions to do.
“The artists and level designers used the [GTA 3] code base for a while until the programmers were available to make code changes,” he said.
Despite GTA Vice City being a success for Rockstar, Vermeij says that work on the game was “more stressful” than that of GTA 3 because of the prior game’s success and the high expectations on the new game.
However, he said, that seeing how well GTA 3 performed and the awards it received, it made the work more tolerable for those involved.
“Everybody just powered through on adrenaline but it became clear that we needed a bit more of a gap for the next game,” he said.
What do you think of GTA Vice City originally being planned as a mission pack for GTA 3? For more Insider Gaming, check out the new leaked gameplay for STALKER 2.
