A former GTA 3 developer explained how the weather worked in the game

Obbe Vermeij, who once had a hand in the development of classic GTA, spoke about the creation of weather in Grand Theft Auto 3. Initially, the change in weather phenomena was completely unpredictable.

Since there were only four types of weather for GTA 3 — sunny, cloudy, rainy and foggy — Obbe Vermeil decided to use a random selection. That is, if sunny weather had a 40% chance of appearing, the sky cleared, and if it had a 20% chance, then it was covered with clouds. But when the game build was sent to testers for verification, complaints began to pour in about a lot of errors: users saw only rain or fog for several in-game days.

As a result, we had to switch to a fixed table, according to which weather events could only repeat once in a cycle of 64 game hours. Additionally, the level designers used scripted commands to manually change the weather in some missions. For example, when it rained, it caused poor traction of cars with the road.

In the following parts of GTA, additional weather modes appeared — for example, “Clear Skies” in Vice City.

Previously, Obbe Vermeil explained how vehicles work in the Grand Theft Auto trilogy.