Summary
Grand Theft Autogames have always been rather impressive displays of technology, on top of being pretty great games themselves.Grand Theft Auto 6will no doubt be the samewhen it launches next Fall, and even if you cast your mind all the way back to the release ofGrand Theft Auto 3in 2001, you’ll find small details thatRockstaradded to really push the boundaries of the hardware and technology of the time.
One of these small details in Grand Theft Auto 3 was the litter that was scattered across the streets in various locations. On its own, it’s not that impressive, but what made GTA 3’s litter special is that it would blow in the wind and shift around when cars drive by, which is a very pointless detail that is typical of the Rockstar-esque flexing we see even in its modern games. You’d think that the feature would have been used in future games, but the streets ofGrand Theft Auto: San Andreasare squeaky clean.
Turns out that there’s a good reason for this, and it’s not just because there are fewer litterbugs in San Andreas than there are in Liberty City. Former Rockstar developer Obbe Vermeij has been revealing development secrets about the series for the past few months,explaining why GTA 3 didn’t have working planes,why they’d constantly crash around CJ in San Andreas, and howGTA 4’s depressing tone ended up convincing him to leave the studio.
GTA: San Andreas Didn’t Have GTA 3’s Moving Litter Due To Rendering Concerns
In a new tweet by Vermeij earlier this week, it’s explained he intended to include GTA 3’s moving litter in San Andreas,but “not everyone on the team” actually liked it. Vermeij doesn’t go into great detail about why certain people at Rockstar didn’t like the feature, but he does explain that one of the biggest concerns around it waspotential rendering issues, as the litter was made up of “immediate mode polygons” that could be slow to render.
Vermeij explains that he eventually “lost the argument” and had to remove the litter from San Andreas, but he did manage to sneak it into Manhunt, Rockstar’s infamously brutal stealth game that launched in 2003. This is because some of the staff that were working on GTA were moved onto Manhunt during the last few months of development, during which Vermeij added the code. Now that’s a level of sneaky that you can only admire.
