Rockstar was reportedly considering a GTA 3 sequel called Grand Theft Auto: Tokyo, but it "was just cooler to stick with" established places like Vice City and San Andreas

gamesradar.com:

There was reportedly a time way back when in which Rockstar was strongly considering making a GTA 3 sequel set in Tokyo, and frankly, now I feel robbed of just such a game.

This comes via TimeExtension, which asked an unnamed source who previously worked at Rockstar for clarification on references to GTA Tokyo that were found by data miners in December 2023 following the leak of GTA 5's source code. The source confirmed that Rockstar was indeed considering a GTA game based in Tokyo after Rockstar co-founder Sam Houser found himself visiting Japan frequently during GTA 3's promotional run. Ultimately, Rockstar decided it would be better to stick with what they know.

"He had just released GTA 3 back then and they were doing a lot of travel to Tokyo back then to promote the game," TimeExtension's source said. "It seemed like a cool, interesting city to do it in, but at the end of the day, it just came down to logistics. Getting the research team out there long enough to map the city and just the cultural satire in terms of what could possibly work in a fitting narrative way in that city. Making those things connect was a little tough and we thought it was just cooler to stick with the cities that were introduced in Grand Theft Auto 1."

Rockstar ended up releasing one of the best games ever made with GTA San Andreas in 2004, but I still can't help but wonder what could've been in a GTA Tokyo. We have the wonderful Yakuza series as a reference point for what an open-world game in Tokyo looks like when done right, but the two series really aren't all that comparable. Maybe one day. Maybe one day.

Meanwhile, we have GTA 6 on the way to take us back to the sun-soaked streets of Vice City.

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