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Dan Houser looks back on GTA 3, ten years later
Did you know that GTA 3 has 8,000 lines of recorded dialogue? Did you know that the events of September 11, 2001 forced the game to be delayed and altered at the last second? All of this, and more, is part of an IGN interview with Rockstar's Dan Houser that looks back on one of the most famous games ever created, Grand Theft Auto 3.
"We couldn't come into the office for five days because there were roadblocks up. It was a practical issue, we couldn't do any work," Houser said of the time immediately following the terrorist attack. As far as changes to the game post-9/11, not much was actually edited out of the game. "I think one mission got removed. There was a non-interactive jumbo jet, just to give some life to the sky, that looked like it could pass through a building. That got adjusted, and a few lines of radio dialogue in the talk show. We were really very sensitive to stuff though because we'd watched on our doorstep, you know?"
The events of 9/11 affected more than just the contents of the game; it made Rockstar change the box art for North America at the last second, overnight. "What's become the very staple of our marketing and presentation was done in an evening as a response to 9/11," Houser said. The iconic style of the box art has been uniform ever since.
Grand Theft Auto 3 is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary with ports to the iOS and Android platforms.
