“I feel like they have so much further to go than where they currently are. And from where Garbut’s sitting, the future looks bright.
Since GTA III, Rockstar has continued to expand the horizons of the open-world genre.
GRAND THEFT AUTO III 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITION SERIES
Whether it was curating existing music like the classical of Double Clef or 80’s pop of Flashback – or even writing songs in-house specifically to suit some of the stations, GTA III’s approach to music was a turning point in the series and something the team have only continued to evolve ever since.” A living world “The music and audio teams were helping to build this new, more immersive space for the player, and the music and talk radio stations took the experience of the world to new heights. “As the player’s experience with the vehicles deepened, we had to elevate the other aspects of the game to meet this new reality,” Garbut explains. Naturally, for a series called Grand Theft Auto, a lot of that attention was focused on the cars, but it was far from the only important element to get right. GTA III was able to achieve that thanks to the uniquely obsessive attention to atmospheric detail that’s become a hallmark of Rockstar’s work ever since, whether it’s the parody social media ads in GTA V or the Wheeler, Rawson, & Co. “Prior to Grand Theft Auto III, games were a thing you played – an adventure you worked through or a puzzle you solved. “As we began to see how we wanted to immerse the player in the world, to be able to interact with the world and its characters from ground level, this started to inform how the teams saw the entire world,” Garbut says. It was about creating a virtual world that players wanted to return to again and again. It wasn’t just about clearing levels and scoring points. The new 3D engine and camera mechanics prompted an almost existential rethink of what a Grand Theft Auto game could be and do. It shifted expectations about how cinematic and connected we wanted it to be, and it moved us away from some of the super gamey elements.” “We needed a world that was far more detailed, that you could see right into the distance, that you could interact with up close and personal. “This changed so much about the way we had to look at making the game,” he says. That required a subtler, more nuanced balance between visuals and gameplay.Īccording to Garbut, going from 2D to 3D was far more than just a change in perspective. The transition transformed the core GTA gameplay loop - looking for trouble, then inevitably finding too damn much of it - into a far more immersive experience. Rockstar Gamesįirst released on the then-brand-new PlayStation 2, GTA III marked a massive departure for the series. Key art of 8-Ball, a recurring series character who first appeared in GTA III. To mark the 20th anniversary of the game and the upcoming launch of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition, Garbut shares his perspective on the series’ groundbreaking transition to 3D environments, the genesis of the open-world genre, and the enduring legacy of GTA III. That we helped create a genre that others followed and found their own paths on.” “It feels like we built the foundation, the ruleset, the blueprint. “I’m proud of our team and of the path we have stayed on,” Garbut says. That success wouldn’t be possible without the creative vision of Garbut, who serves as art director for the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption series. More importantly, it established the concepts that paved the way for GTA V, which has sold more than 150 million copies since its 2013 launch. The first game in the series to cross the eight-digit sales threshold, GTA III transformed a hit into a blockbuster. And it’s frankly difficult to imagine how these kinds of games would exist at all without GTA III. While ubiquitous in 2021, open-world games simply didn’t exist in the early 2000s. “Suddenly you were in this world, not above it,” Garbut says. It moved the perspective from a top-down 2D view to an immersive 3D environment.
Grand Theft Auto III, released by Rockstar Games on October 22, 2001, changed video game history with one simple shift. How do you build an entire world out of nothing?įor art director Aaron Garbut, it was as simple as adding a third dimension.
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