Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA V) turns ten years old this month. It proved to be a real phenomenon with 185 million copies sold. What makes it an irresistible version is that GTA V allows what is not allowed in the real world, says Obi Vermeig, former Art Director at Rockstar Games and co-creator of the highest-grossing PC game in history.

Vermeij witnessed the entire development of GTA. In fact, everything in GTA 3 is further improved in Vice City, in terms of music, backgrounds, and storylines, says Vermeij. GTA 3 has been the most technically action game out there, but it doesn’t have a lot of personality. We worked with a very small team of 25 people, and Rockstar Games in New York barely got involved as our parent company. Ultimately, everyone had a major influence on this project.

Watch it grow step by step

Vermig himself barely gets involved with the characters and the voice acting. However, he has seen the team grow exponentially, to around 400 people in the Edinburgh office alone. “You don’t know anyone anymore, it just got too big.” The realization that the game would truly become such a phenomenon only came to him when, once on the market, the game proved to be a huge sales success. “In fact, it wasn’t until four to six months later that we realized he was going to be such a big hit.”

It’s almost impossible to ignore: GTA actually is A game of games, even for people who don’t touch the game regularly. Verweg only understood the cultural and economic impact of the project he had worked so intensely on when he heard talk about it in a restaurant. It was really incredible: GTA was the first game that really went mainstream. When that happened it was a very special moment.

homemade lights

The visual detail that Vermeij is really proud of are the lights that make the city look less dark from a distance in GTA 4. “The city always looked very dead, but I made the lights so you can see the cars in the distance.” Leadership. I didn’t tell anyone. If you put that in the game and people at the studio say, “Wow, that looks nice,” then it’s very nice to make it yourself. It was a very small thing, but it made a huge difference visually.

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It was a time when all programmers and Artists Basically, just trying a few things, like a soup that everyone throws some ingredients into. This didn’t always work. For example, Vermeij spent three weeks fixing the network version of GTA 3. Everything seemed to be working properly, but a lot still needed to be done to make it good enough. “So we left it anyway.” But that was actually the biggest thing I worked on that I couldn’t achieve.

Much of the technology is intact

After the necessary acquisitions, the team was formed in 1999 that eventually began modding the GTA 3 game. The franchise will be around for exactly 25 years in 2023. Vermeij was not officially involved with GTA V, but a large part of the technology developed in That time it is still in use today. For example, he made a significant contribution to the artificial intelligence of cars and GTA Online. “I worked on the original code for GTA 4 and it has just been ported to GTA V.”

Vermeij rarely receives negative feedback for his participation in GTA games. He also doesn’t think the alleged aggressive nature of GTA and other games is anything to be ashamed of. We have been taken to court several times, but I think this is nonsense. I don’t want to work on something that makes people aggressive. But I don’t see it that way at all: it’s an outlet for people and I’ve never met anyone who has a problem with that.

Zero on the petition

Last year, Vermeij visited Dundee again, where the original gaming company was founded. He got a glimpse of the kitchen there. But he can’t say anything about the newer version(s) of GTA, simply because he hasn’t received any response. I went to the new studio for a while, but they wouldn’t let me in. If you leave, then you leave, and they have a philosophy that no one should know what happens in the game, so it remains a surprise.

It is a philosophy with which Vermeij fully agrees. He has one idea for the current GTA team: take one city that follows you through the years, with character development. Type Back to the future – GTA. “That sounds interesting to me: cities are evolving and I think it would be interesting to do that in GTA as well. But the whole economy has changed: it’s much more about the internet. I have a feeling that’s also why GTA 6 is taking so long.”

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According to Vermeij, game developer Rockstar Games has to be careful not to shoot itself in the foot with the development of GTA 6. Vermeij says Rockstar Games makes $1 billion a year from GTA Online alone, and the question is whether it’s a new offline game. It will not be disassembled. “It is very inappropriate to kill GTA Online.” I also don’t know what they will do when GTA 6 is released: will they keep GTA V, or will that become a thing of the past?

Vermeij has no concrete plans for his future in the gaming world. He doesn’t envision returning to the GTA offices. “You really need a big team for that. If you were to replace everyone in the GTA 3 team with a completely new team, you wouldn’t have enough people to make GTA 6, so I don’t think that’s necessary anymore. I like Mindcraft and similar games where you can change Environment. But I have no concrete plans.