The Unbelievable technical challenge in GTA 3 and the crucial elements that shaped its world

After several long years of waiting, fans of the Rockstar studio will finally be able to get their hands on Grand Theft Auto VI in 2025 (if all goes well). While waiting for its release on PS5, you may have had the opportunity to dive back into old episodes. A bit like the many Fallout players who have turned their consoles back on with the Amazon Prime series. If so, you will have noticed that the franchise has evolved a lot, even if it still retains its pastiche side that we love so much. However, it's nice to say that graphically the progress is crazy. On a technical level too, those equipped have made crazy progress and taken on tons of challenges. For example, did you know that Grand Theft Auto III could have been very different from what we have today?

A major problem

GTA 3 left its mark on Rockstar's license when it was released in 2001 on PS2. However, developing Liberty City was not easy for the studio. Some developers still remember the many technical difficulties encountered. At the same time, they absolutely had to do better than the previous part, which implies more innovation, quests, interactions, but above all a substantial open-world (for the time). The problem is that Sony's console did not have the shoulders to support all the ambitions of the developers, as explained Obe Vermeij on X. “There was no way we could fit the entire GTA 3 map into the PS2 memory,” he said on the social network. At the time, disk media was the source of many problems, which had to be understood in order to overcome, such as their loading speed. “The closer the in-game models are physically on the DVD, the faster they load. This is because the DVD needs to speed up/decelerate when a character's head moves to a different track,” the man continued.

So, as Vermeij explains, it was even necessary to rethink the discs and their design, to run GTA 3. Adam Fowler (in charge of the project) therefore got to work placing the models on the disc efficiently, in placing them as close as possible to each other to guarantee the fastest possible loading speed” the problem was that this was not enough and we had to be more radical by slowing down the player.

System B

If you notice that you have a lot of difficulty going in a straight line in Liberty City, this is normal. The developers have done everything to slow you down. So, you may have encountered treacherous intersections, or convoluted turns. Technical level, the studio also decided toincrease air resistance by 5%, but that is imperceptible to the players. Regardless, both of these techniques ultimately worked for the greater good of GTA 3. “For Vice City, several improvements were made to the code. Better compression of models and textures. Smarter code that would load detailed versions of buildings only if the player wasn't flying. “, continued Obe Vermeij. We now can't wait to see what the code of GTA 6 is coming to the PS5 and we thank the work of Adam Fowler, without whom nothing would be possible.