One of the most influential video game franchises of our generation is none other than Grand Theft Auto. While the game has been developed in glorious 3D since the days of GTA3, things weren’t always this way. In fact, prior to Grand Theft Auto 3, the game was played with a birds eye view but included all of the chaos we’ve come to know and love in later releases.
However, if things were just a bit differently, perhaps we wouldn’t know of Grand Theft Auto at all. The reason I say this is because Gary Penn, a developer who worked on the original GTA, has come forth to comment of the development.
“[The original GTA] was a real mess for years, it never moved on, it never went anywhere… It was almost canned, the publisher, BMG Interactive, wanted to can it, as it didn’t seem to be going anywhere.”
Luckily, Penn adds, they discovered that adding a bit of chaos to the game would significantly bump the replay factor:
“One day, I think it was a bug, the police suddenly became mental and aggressive. Their route finding was screwed I think and that was an awesome moment because suddenly the real drama where, ‘Oh my God, the police are psycho — they’re trying to ram me off the road.’ That was awesome, so that stayed in.”
And thus, Grand Theft Auto as we know it was created.
Pretty neat story if you ask me. Head over to Gamasutra to read more.