We're Already Mourning the GTA Tokyo Game on PS2 That Never Was | Push Square
Did you know that Rockstar briefly considered releasing a Grand Theft Auto game set in Tokyo? Speculation about a Japanese edition of the crime sandbox caper has been rife for several years, especially after Take-Two famously filed trademarks for a game based in the city shortly after the release of GTA: San Andreas in 2004.
Speaking with our friends at Time Extension, a development source explained that Tokyo was on the cards at one point, but the idea was ultimately shelved. “[Co-Founder Sam Houser] was pretty caught up with the Tokyo scene. He had just released GTA 3 back then and they were doing a lot of travel to Tokyo back then to promote the game. It seemed like a cool, interesting city to do it in, but at the end of the day, it just came down to logistics.”
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The source explained that sending a research team to Tokyo for long enough to map out the city was a problem, but more importantly it didn’t feel it could get the series’ trademark “cultural satire” to work in quite the same way. “Making those things connect was a little tough and we thought it was just cooler to stick with the cities that were introduced in [the original] GTA.”
While the reasoning makes sense, we can’t help but imagine what a Tokyo-based GTA would have looked like. Of course, there have been plenty of Japanese sandboxes to scratch the itch since, most notably the Yakuza titles – despite their obvious absence of driving. Would you have played a Japan-based GTA? Imagine what could have been in the comments section below.
As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.
Well, we have Yakuza now at least.
Maybe one day, they'll go back to Tokyo?
Probably not...
It’s a cool
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