GTA NeXt: IV Was Built To Last

[chngdman]

This post will be as loose and fast as I can make it and I encourage you all to add to, but please do not derail, my theories. I'll do my best to consider yours, and I hope you'll also do the same for all others who post in this topic with us! Some of my ideas (perhaps ideals?) will no doubt have been said before, and indeed the main basis is what we would probably call "the most obvious" - which is that the next game will be Vice City, followed by the state of San Andreas, or some of it, and I'm betting on Las Venturas first, with Los Santos a strong candidate as well for the followup to Vice City. Again, though, maybe even the whole state of San Andreas.

 

Sam Houser is noted in this interview to have said the new consoles, in particular the Sony Playstation 3, are providing them with the ability to make the experiences of the future. Now, before I continue, keep in mind that it is not only well known that if the cell was properly unlocked and setup to run your OS, it could (and would if enough money was thrown at it) destroy desktop processors, but it is also the big "secret weapon" and "sleeping giant" that lays in waiting for the other console manufacturers to scramble making new consoles to sell, all the while the PS3 sees it's awakening when it starts doing what the other consoles will need have an upgrade to do.

 

Like, the Xbox 360 (and obviously the wii) will not keep up with the PC for long, and even the PS3 will not have DX10 without alternatives that devs need to do backflips to provide for the first time, each effect. Once you do it, you can do it again, but that first time is hard on what you might as well call alien architecture, right? We are only now seeing processors that could compete with Cell being announced and released, and these come with great strides because they do not require as much legwork to do the same thing a fully optimized cell could do because it's a familiar architecture, even if multi core in itself is still relatively new and

. I recommend that entire video, and the first part, which can be found

, especially if you want better insight into the evolution of the game industry (how we will battle expensive game production costs in the HD world by going episodic, for instance, which has a great deal of relevance to GTA IV in my opinion).

 

Now, back to the next GTA with these things above fresh in mind. GTA 1 had all three of the GTA3 game locations (LC, VC, SA). GTA IV has even in it's official readme that the full-scale settings (highest all ranges) are for a future breed of PC. And we are in a major change, even gfx cards are about to totally evolve, and have already taken the strides (like going from SLI/Xfire to dual GPU cards and now SLI/Xfire with dual GPU, and more big things like ATI Stream just being enabled in cat 8.12 and GPU physics - things are Really about to make a Major shift - and GTA was made to last through that, for the same reasons you just saw Gabe explain why he went episodic with HL2 - better quality content, RERO. In the old days, movies led the way to the in-home tech of TV and TV shows were born -> Things happen faster these days -> this evolution came in about 20 years for the gaming industry -> higher costs = games made to last.

 

Now, we'll see the episodic stuff popping out over the next year or so from IV, then we'll see IV's 'sequel' (or prequel?) which will be VC or SA, I'm betting VC, and here's why:

 

Liberty City has it's trees and such. But there are no palm trees in Liberty City, even though vice city has a lot of the generic/life that Liberty City has. True just like their real-life counterpart cities. And, just as LC comes first because Vice requires a few more assets, SA needs many more assets. It needs not only new trees, but cactus plants, and many other things like the ground itself has particular sand, and the orange walls of the west...

 

So, LC games, those are construction kits - those are the footing to a GTA canon. Then, VC adds upon it to a polished extent. For instance, water is no longer just a fade to black, it will be tweaked and made to have depth and a seabed in the areas you can see below. In the old games, we saw all the way to the ground by VC. In this game there will probably be two levels by VC --> It will be a seabed, and then a darker falloff that takes place beyond that seabed we can expect from the last "round of GTA's". So instead of LC -> cant see through to VC -> see all of the bottom, you will now see LC -> see only very shallow through the northern brown water to VC --> you see a ways deeper, but it still falls off to a dark blue, and the shallow you can see is more blue, like southern water is.

 

The airport in LC is ALL the way to the east and faces northwest in one runway and south west in the other. And if you go to the map view screen in GTA IV and float over "the water", it says merely "Liberty", leading me to believe the next two games will be expansions.

 

GTA III made the loading solid for three whole areas - a loading screen will be present, SA was when they got it able to load a whole area that large with no loading screans, BUT remember the mission where you "fly to liberty" and kill off the mafia in st marcos bistro? Exactly. The feature was implemented, but the space wasn't there...

 

This takes us back to "Unlocking the visions you've been having for - however long..." that sam houser said in the interview above. There are a lot of things in each Rockstar game that carries over to the next. Bully radar and health, for instance. The way the guy runs in manhunt 2 - there are some ambient things going on there that occur in IV. etc etc etc.

 

I think if this forum section is about GTA V, then we can expect the same thing that I theorize will happen with IV above, but on an even more grand scale graphically. You can currently compare GTA IV's graphics to those of really good RTS, but up close and technical things happening all over the place. RTS could do that before because they don't do nearly what GTA IV does. GTA IV has some other bells and whistles in there too - when's the last time you played a real time sim with dynamic cutscenes and dynamic car paint? Lot's of things going on in there.

 

If this forum is about the next full-scale GTA in general, I have to say it's Vice City, hands down. if not for the fact that sam houser himself says he's been trying to do something for a long time and can finally start getting there with these new machines (the next-box, wii-next, and when sony uses that cell, while the PC market fine hones the quad for desktop use and the i7 for power gaming and workstations - this does not mean good things for sony though lol. they still have a really funky closed architecture on their hands while the PC processor market is able to do nearly the same stuff in a more familiar workflow), if not for that, then certainly because LC has stuff that you need to make VC, but VC has even more stuff that you can't make SA without... And making SA first would mean you'd make all those cacti and different atmospheres then just throw them away - you'd make SA take a longer time to develop, when making LC makes a game, then VC makes a game, then SA is already half done once the palms and sh*t are finished.

 

Will fly to the other cities in IV from the airport just like we did in SA, but fly over the whole city you are in, then transport to the other city, fly over it, and land. And in GTA V, I can see GTA V being the one that has no transition, you literally fly city to city. What supports that? If you go to the official IV site, you see "Bohan is Ripe For Development". They've already got their expansion in place, and if they get a new area of bohan in (north bohan), we will know that they know they can do it on a larger scale (just like the LC mission in SA) in V.

 

 

I hope they stick with LC, VC, SA for the remainder of the series existance, and any other city that takes place I hope is only expansions and seperate from the game itself, and I don't think I'm far off from what will happen, because LC, VC, SA all mean way more to GTA than locations. People say they want other places, and that's cool, and I hope we see other cities and stuff, but LC, VC, SA should always start and end an iteration of this game ever since III (III->VC-SA->LCS->VCS->IV->IV VC-> Next PSP titles (on the next PSP and it's competitor at that time) and then finally SA, which will cap off the series until V.

 

I'm all over the place, but I tried to keep this very loose and keep it short, to spark a discussion. Looking for more concrete pointers that support the above theories, thanks.

[chngdman]

nobody read this?

[Toxcity]

I totally agree with you when it comes down to the next releases.

It has already been said that GTA III, VC and SA where like a series of episodes and that is why IV is called IV rather than 9.

 

VC will be created in the new RAGE game engine just like LC has been. Just imagen the beauty of VC with the new bloom effects... OMG the water will be stunning. I also think you have an fantasic point about the area around the airport being called Liberty. Surely they didn't run out of names? It must be as you said the gateway to VC/SA?

 

Mmmm, time will tell.

[chngdman]

Ah, I should clarify. The part about liberty - go to GTA IV's map and float your cursor over the water - not land at all. See how it says liberty? I would think it would just be blank if they weren't going to make those maps "swappable", you know?

 

I agree, I think that VC is going to be the most amazing thing we've ever seen. I remember VC had that effect on me the first time - a real sight to behold.

 

VC water will be so amazing. Just imagine IV water clearer, where you can see more depth, but then it still falls off to a darker blue. I saw a modded timecyc for IV with tropical water - it looks so amazing dude! It is missing the levels of detail I talked about above, as it's only a top layer (much like III, except this time is see-through). Really looking forward to VC this time - I really hope they get it out relatively fast like last time too (1 year!).

 

Remember how in this canon a minute is 2 seconds long instead of one? So an hour is 2 minutes instead of one minute, a day 48 minutes, and so on? Let's hope development time isn't 2 times as long

[Toxcity]

It will be interesting what the future of the RAGE engine brings us. But I am pretty sure it will be bringing us the same sorta layout as last gen GTA.

 

Planes will be interesting... mmm the explosion of a crash.

 

Jet ski? Tanks again maybe? Parachute surely? The sun rising in VC reflecting off the sparkling blue sea making you feel warm and fuzzy.. hope so!

[chngdman]

OMFG jet skis! Yea man, no way they'd waste that feature on VCS and not use it in full glory in the brave new world of IV! ha, be cool to see the player don a life jacket ala' motorbike helmet in IV.

 

I think it will be like the past too, but I like to imagine what new things will be added. Like how friends/relationships carried over and evolved from SA to IV, and a host of other new features like the phone that were never in III or the other games (at least not as more than a prop for delivery of information - this time you actually use it)

 

Like, if we picture SA, and we take for granted two things hypothetically: VC and SA are coming, and they will bring back those features as they arrive, then what can we assume - logically - comes in the next SA, aside from the features that we expect?

 

Like, VC is going to have jetskis - you just know it is. I can't remember the features right now, but there were things in IV that reminded me of features that were exclusive to LCS/VCS - god what were they - anyhow, what hasn't been done? I wonder if VC or SA will have a full size vortex/hovercraft. That'd be awesome, and they got it done in the tech demo version (sa ) much like the used-once trip from SA to LC and Marcos Bistro may be used this time around for intercity travel.

[Starskos]

I like your idea, i was thinking a similar thing just the other day... wouldn't it be nice if you could go back to LC with a new charcter from the next GTA installment or vice versa, it would be a shame to sweep such a beatiful map game under the carpet just because a new title is released. I think one day we'll be able to fly between games but i can't see it happening while we're still using disks to boot from, you would have to keep swapping them over and that it not practical, the solution would be to either download the disk content onto your harddrive to access or download directly from a GTA server. A GTA server would be ideal as R* could just update existing cities and add new locations to travel to as well as new missions, cars, weapons etc etc

[Playstation_Loyalist]

I like the effort in this post, though this thread's topic over-all practically IS missing some aspects:

 

1. The idea of "swapping" cities. That would be bad. Because if so, it would take Rockstar an estimated 7-9 years to create each every city you've mentioned. Plus, a Blu-Ray disc is NOT that simple to be made programmable and develop a game. It's too hefty for R*'s side. And imagining Liberty City's size, would you imagine San Andreas 3 times the size of Liberty City? That's fanciful, yes. It would be fun, but fanciful. Unrealistic for this time. Wrapped up. Fail.

 

2. The LC/VC/SA alignment theorem. There's no evidence yet of using the actual III-era game alignment. Only speculations. Though Vice City and San Andreas is pretty missed, like what Rockstar said, they just did that because of Liberty City's lack of the NYC feeling. Now, they said they wanted to recreate Liberty City to correct things. That's it.

 

Still, the LC/VC/SA alignment is still a strong theorem to reckon.

 

The others can stand to themselves. The mentioned two above are just lacking details and EVIDENCE.

[chngdman]

I think Vice and San Andreas will be about the same size as new Liberty, slightly larger actually, as well Bohan will be expanded sooner than later.

 

They never said it was to make things right, but they did say it was to capture NY in a way they didn't before - and next game they will say they felt like they did Vice too fast, and after that, they will say something about SA too. There is no evidence of this, and there may be other games lined up for the series, but in this canon, we will visit location-to-location.

 

The load time would not be bad at all - how long does it take to load the game now? I certainly do not mind waiting that long between flights just like the tech-demo of this exact feature that was used in San Andreas to Liberty City. The only evidence we have, if any, is what is already out and in-game in the old games and what was used and not used in IV. We'll see Vice done properly, and it won't take nearly as long as you think - IV may have been in development since 2003, but the map (high detail models of it) was not.

 

Why else would they have develop three universes with daylight in San Andreas alongside the rest of the interior worlds that are for indoors, but again, they have 3 daylight versions and only one map in sa, why would they do that? The game wanted to be all three cities in 3D since before GTA III even came out - GTA III wanted to be IV but couldn't and so on.

 

Other games do a game of levels, then a sequel the same. GTA does one level per game, but at the end of the day, all three in a canon makes just one game (no one can argue that III, VC, SA, are all the same game on different discs). Vice is next

Edited January 17, 2009 by chngdman

[Guanxi]

That's a very good idea. If Vice City and San Andeas and Liberty City (IV) were all installed on the hard-drive and you could just fly from one city to another using the San Andreas Juank Air terminal system and you watch a cinematic that you can skip, spawning outside the terminal. Games could take place over all three locations. How amazing would that be.

 

I say one runway leads to VC, the other leads to SA.

[chngdman]

Exactly! This is one of the reasons - I sh*t you not - PS3 came with a hard drive stock. It is also one of the reason Microsoft was forced to allow IV to install to the hard drive. We've got another revolution from rockstar on the way - and it's been here for years, it's just not seen by all yet

 

Like, Episodic is nothing new to rockstar, if anything, they did it before anyone else, and on a much larger title-to-title scale. Not to mention it's always evolving - a game that is never finished.