How, where and under what circumstances were the early parts of GTA announced?
On December 4, 2023, the official trailer for GTA 6 was released. Before that, all information about the game was limited to rumors and leaks. For the purposes of this article, we decided to recall how Rockstar announced the previous parts of the Grand Theft Auto series.
Grand Theft Auto 3
The announcement of GTA 3 went almost unnoticed. Today we see it as a breakthrough game that changed the entire industry, but at the development stage it was not perceived as a future revolution.
GTA3D was mentioned along with the unreleased The Grand Theft Auto Online Crime World on April 27, 2000, when Take-Two Interactive acquired DMA Design Limited. It would later be renamed Rockstar North. It is curious that the third GTA was originally developed for the Sega Dreamcast. They managed to release a technical demo of the future project there. However, it was soon decided to switch to the PlayStation 2, as a more popular and promising console.
GTA: Vice City
Representatives of Rockstar North announced the development of Vice City on May 22, 2002, five months before release. The E3 exhibition was chosen as the platform for the announcement. Studio co-founder Sam Houser said that he was motivated by the success of the third GTA, and in the new part of the series he and his team will rely on a unique style of play. Looking at sunny Vice City, we can say that Rockstar has succeeded.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City attracted the attention of players and journalists immediately after its announcement. They carefully studied the screenshots, imagined what features would be in the game, and looked forward to the release.
Initially, Vice City was supposed to be a set of additional tasks for GTA 3. But after excellent sales of the third Grand Theft Auto, the developers decided not to limit themselves to a simple add-on, but to release a full-fledged new part.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
On March 2, 2004, it became known that the next part of the GTA series would receive the subtitle San Andreas. At that time, no era or location was announced. There was even speculation that we were talking about San Francisco alone, and not the whole state. It was this city that was found in the very first Grand Theft Auto called San Andreas. There were also Liberty City and Vice City.
All that was available at the announcement stage was a statement from Rockstar President Leslie Benzies that the game would “revolutionize open gameplay and video game production values.” In our opinion, the statement is controversial. GTA: San Andreas offered more content than Vice City, but did not become a new word in the genre.
GTA 4
On May 9, 2006, the fourth GTA was announced at E3. Then it was announced that the game would be released on October 16, 2007. In reality, the release will be postponed to April 2008. The presentation of the announcement deserves special mention. Peter Moore, a Microsoft spokesman, lifted his sleeve and showed a tattoo of Grand Theft Auto IV. The previous parts of the series were first released on the PlayStation 2 and only after a while were ported to PC and Xbox. And the fourth GTA was released on PS3 and Xbox 360 simultaneously.
Grand Theft Auto 5
By the early 2010s, game shows were no longer as important as they were in the early and mid-2000s. Therefore, the announcement of GTA 5 took place on the Rockstar YouTube channel on November 2, 2011. It was there that the first trailer was released, which showed the beauty of Los Santos. In it you can see Michael De Santa and a hint of new heist mechanics. A day later, the game’s logo and the first art were shown on the studio’s official website. And screenshots appeared later, in July 2012.
GTA 6
The announcements for the fifth and sixth parts of Grand Theft Auto turned out to be similar. In December 2023, we saw the official trailer for GTA 6, and colorful art with the protagonists of the future game appeared on the Rockstar website. The release is scheduled for the fall of 2025, but before that time Rockstar will probably share new information.
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Do you remember your emotions from the announcements of new parts of the GTA series? Share your opinions in the comments!
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