London return unlikely for GTA; Next-gen GTA V downplayed

A new Grand Theft Auto set in London wouldn’t really be a GTA game at all, Rockstar’s Dan Houser has argued.

1999’s Grand Theft Auto: London was the second release in the series and the possibility of the franchise making a return to the UK has been a subject of discussion for some time.

I think for us, my gut feeling is, GTA London was cool for the time, but games were more limited then,” Houser told The Guardian. These days I think we would love to set a game in the UK, set in London, whatever, but I don’t know if it would be a GTA game.

I think there are plenty of great stories we could tell about the UK, great environments to showcase, great gameplay mechanics that could have a UK bent to them – I just don’t think it would be a GTA necessarily.

There are so many games we’d like to make that we just don’t have the bandwidth to make at the moment. But we always think, well the future is long and varied, and that’s what the future’s for. Speaking for myself – and normally I’d be as militant about saying ‘we’ as much as possible, because it certainly isn’t only me at all, thank god – but my own personal feeling is that GTA is America.”

Houser also touched upon the hopes that Grand Theft Auto V may be making its way to PS4 and Xbox One. Although not explicitly denied, the noises certainly don’t sound positive.

Of course we’re interested,” Houser replied when asked if Rockstar was interested in next-gen console tech. But no, not in terms of GTA, because we’re always working on the current game.

We look at the tech at a more practical level: what will be ready for which game that we’re working on further down the line. We don’t have another GTA in development, we don’t work on three of these games at a time. That would be phenomenally depressing.

So, in terms of GTA, no. We get pitched by the hardware manufacturers on what they’re planning to do and our tech guys come up with ideas on how that could be used. Does this influence design decisions? Of course. But we’re not sat there fantasising about 10 years down the line. We’re so busy with what we’re doing right now.”