Summary
Grand Theft Auto 4’s tech lead, Obbe Vermeij, has revealed in a recent interview that he leftRockstar Gamesbecause he thought the series was getting “too depressing”.
Ever since the series' inception,Grand Theft Auto has made a name for itself thanks to how much freedom and funyou can have in its bright open-world maps. That’s been true since the top-down days and is something that the PS2 era of GTA embraced even further, especially when it came toVice CityandSan Andreas. There was a point where that changed, though.
I am, of course, talking about Grand Theft Auto 4. While it’s regarded as a high point for the series now, fans of the original games considered it to besurprisingly dark and serious when compared to the PS2 games. It seems that even some Rockstar developers thought that too, as GTA 4’s tech lead has recently revealed that its different tone caused him to leave Rockstar.
As reported by GamesRadar+, GTA 4’s tech lead andRockstar Games veteran Obbe Vermeij recently took part in an interview with SanInPlay, where he talked about his time working on the series. Vermeij left Rockstar after development on GTA 4 was completed, and it turns out that was a purposeful choice due to how it seemed like a change in the series' direction.
If the name Obbe Vermeij rings a bell, that’s likely because he’sshared a lot of behind-the-scenes development details regarding the PS2 era of GTA games.
After detailing his time at Rockstar, Vermeij talked about working on GTA 4, revealing that its more serious tone caused him to leave Rockstar Games. Vermeij said he really enjoyed the PS2 era of the series, but thought that GTA 4 was “too serious, too dark, too depressing almost”, while also noting that it wasn’t as good or fun as the games before it.
I really enjoyed them. And then we made [GTA 4], and to my mind, it was a little too serious, too dark, too depressing almost… I thought GTA 4 wasn’t as good and as fun as the games before. And I thought that the next one was going to be like, even darker. I’m happy to see that I was wrong. GTA 5 is a lot more lighthearted than GTA 4. So I got that wrong. - Obbe Vermeij
This, combined with Vermeij’s wife wanting to move back to Canada and him wanting to work for a smaller team, resulted in him leaving Rockstar behind. Vermeij thought that the next Grand Theft Auto game was going to follow GTA 4’s footsteps and focus on a more serious tone, but admits that he got it wrong since GTA 5 is a good middle ground of drama and levity.
