Rockstar’s Ultimate Goal For the Grand Theft Auto Universe Is…
Putting each city from every previous GTA entry into one single game. Good goddamn.
Speaking with Digital Trends, Leslie Benzies, currently the head of Rockstar North (the Edinburgh, Scotland stationed developer responsible for the majority of Grand Theft Auto’s main titles, including the upcoming GTAV), revealed that his studio eventually wants to create a game that allows you to travel between each existing GTA locale by plane.
“At some point we would like to have one big world containing all our cities and let the player fly between them and revisit their favorite areas,” says Benzies. Although, reconciling every game’s locations into one context may prove difficult since some Grand Theft Auto games focused on the setting and time period hand in hand. One glaring example would be Vice City, a satirized version of 1980’s era Miami. “Miami in the 1980’s is so iconic,” Benzies says, “it would feel strange to revisit the city in a different time period.”
That’s not to say Rockstar North wouldn’t be up to the task. Next year’s Grand Theft Auto V (voted at the VGA’s as 2013’s most anticipated game) makes a modern day return to San Andreas, last depicted as a mid-90’s satirization of gang infested Los Angeles. Hell, Liberty City (more commonly thought of as a fictionalized New York City) has been the backdrop for several different installments using different eras. If the timing’s right and if the technology can handle it, bet your ass Rockstar can chain together a Grand Theft Auto universe.