Switching between multiple time periods

[HOW'S ANNIE?]

There's been a lot of speculation about the next installment's setting taking place over multiple decades, with the map and gameplay changing as time progresses. Now this sounds like an interesting idea in theory, but I believe this aspect adds in too linear of an aspect to the game. If it started in the 80's and progressed through the 2010's, then how many unique gameplay features may we lose by the end of the story?

 

My counter idea comes in the same vain as Rockstar's multiple protagonists concept for V. The solution? The ability to freely switch between time periods. Now I'm not suggesting literal time travel be a plot device. More so that we have two, probably heavily connected, story's (or one big non-linear story) being told at once, set in two different decades. Much like the Godfather II [The movie, not the game!!]. We could have a protagonist per time period, or we're told the decades long tale of one man's life of crime.

 

The question is, do you guys think this idea is one that could work for GTA? Would next gen consoles even be able to handle fuidly loading two versions of the same map on the fly?

Edited July 12, 2019 by HOW'S ANNIE?

[Gentlebreeze]

Yes, that can be done now. GTA biggest memory hog is its audio. 

[Algonquin Assassin]

It sounds a little too gimmicky to be honest and probably a good reason why no one really remembers The Godfather II game. I would prefer just one well done time period or at the very least a fixed story spanning across multiple decades (like the first couple of Mafia games). IMO the switching mechanic in GTA V still needs a lot of work if it's retained and that's only to switch between different character models.

 

I can't imagine taking a concept that's hardly been perfected and applying it to something that's intrinsically far more complex without risking being a complete failure.

 

[DexMacLeod]

8 minutes ago, Black_Jesus said:

Yes, that can be done now. GTA biggest memory hog is its audio. 

I actually think the audio is one of the main reasons why it won't be done. They'd need a whole new set of NPC dialogue for every era. There's ways they could cut corners but hearing the same pedestrians carry on the same conversations for decades would just destroy the illusion for me. Then there's the radio which would have the same affect.

 

 

[Zello]

11 minutes ago, DexMacLeod said:

Then there's the radio which would have the same affect.

Not to mention how much it would cost to license all those songs. Unless they do covers of them or create their own again.

Edited July 12, 2019 by Zello

[The Coconut Kid]

I have no idea if fluidly switching between time periods is possible or not, but Driver: Parallel Lines had a similar feature once the game had been completed. You go into the main menu and select 'era change' -- five seconds later, you're in either 1978 or 2006. The changes around the map (and the map was large) were comprehensive although repetitive in some places, the vehicles and pedestrians evolved with time, and the soundtrack changed completely.

 

That said, Grand Theft Auto of the kind we're expecting on next-gen is a different beast entirely. But so is the software they have at their disposal.

 

Something I have wondered is what if Rockstar were to release the base game, either set in the past or present, and then continue that story through DLC similar to The Lost & Damned and Ballad of Gay Tony. For example, let's say we get Vice City set in the 80s. Six months down the track, we continue in the 90s or 00s. A few months later, the story progresses to present day. Our game wouldn't revolve so much around a set of characters and their actions, but the evolution of an entire city and the criminal infrastructure that underpins it. Ambitious and risky, yes. Could also be a game changer.

 

1 hour ago, SonOfLiberty said:

It sounds a little too gimmicky to be honest and probably a good reason why no one really remembers The Godfather II game.

Godfather II didn't even have a specific year it was set in -- it was awful. I vaguely remember the first mission took place in 1959 with Castro overthrowing the Batista government in Cuba, but the rest seemed to take place through a loose amalgamation of the 60s and 70s. Thankfully, Rockstar are better than this. Point them at three dates spanning three decades and I've every faith they would do the job.

 

1 hour ago, Zello said:

Not to mention how much it would cost to license all those songs. Unless they do covers of them or create their own again.

I think the cost would be a shrewd investment on their part, to be honest. A lot of the success of Vice City, I think, came from Rockstar's ability to tap into the nostalgia market. The soundtrack CD's were massive at the time. Imagine if they had the rights to 80s/90s/00s bangers.

 

But I also wouldn't mind if they reduced station sizes from 35 or 40 mediocre songs to a tight tracklist of 20 across a wider range of genres across the decades the game passes through.

[Grotti Vigilante]

2 hours ago, The Coconut Kid said:

I have no idea if fluidly switching between time periods is possible or not, but Driver: Parallel Lines had a similar feature once the game had been completed. You go into the main menu and select 'era change' -- five seconds later, you're in either 1978 or 2006. The changes around the map (and the map was large) were comprehensive although repetitive in some places, the vehicles and pedestrians evolved with time, and the soundtrack changed completely.

I remember that feature and quite liked switching between them. I prefer the warmer feel of 1978. But aside from lighting, the soundtrack and vehicle models, what major differences were visible on the map aside from the presence of the World Trade Center? 

[The Coconut Kid]

39 minutes ago, Grotti Vigilante said:

I remember that feature and quite liked switching between them. I prefer the warmer feel of 1978. But aside from lighting, the soundtrack and vehicle models, what major differences were visible on the map aside from the presence of the World Trade Center? 

From memory:

 

The Bronx area has a large stadium. There are four or five project blocks towering over the Harlem River. South Bronx, which is burned out and derelict in 1978, is rebuilt and cleaned up.

 

The waterfront area where you exit the Holland Tunnel in New Jersey (near the save point at the garage) is developed into modern offices on previously vacant land. The Jersey City area seems to have had a facelift to reflect the developments going on in actual New Jersey at the time -- lots of parks, new buildings. The industrial area has transitioned from factories and treatment plants to shipping and warehousing. There are more shiny offices (they seem to reuse a lot of their buildings) popping up in South Jersey.

 

The airport in Queens has been expanded/remodelled from the 1978 version. The big stadium in the middle of the borough has been fixed up. There are tanks along the expressway in 1978, I think, that are gone by 2006. Riker's Island prison has expanded, but I'm not sure this should count because you can't access it unless you glitch.

 

Harlem has been cleaned up, a lot like South Bronx. The Harlem River area looks very nice, where as in 1978, it's a shooting gallery for junkies. There's a project block and a large building that have both been built in East Harlem -- the same two are in a mission in GTAIV. The abandoned pier/dock areas along FDR Drive in 1978 have been/are being turned into Battery Park City. There's also the police HQ -- although I can't remember if that was present in 1978 or not, but it certainly looks new.

 

Brooklyn isn't very impressive in this game, the least developed area of the map. I didn't spend much time here. It seems like they knocked down a few of the grimy brownstone houses and replaced them with projects.

 

There's probably a lot more. Where there are empty lots in the 1978 version of the map, new buildings seem to pop up in 2006.

 

And the map is clean. So clean in 2006 compared to 1978.

[HOW'S ANNIE?]

6 hours ago, The Coconut Kid said:

Our game wouldn't revolve so much around a set of characters and their actions, but the evolution of an entire city and the criminal infrastructure that underpins it.

I know the preceding paragraph was about DLC expansions but I can't help but think this sums up why I feel the way I do about this idea. The setting is the true main character in any GTA game. One thing we've never seen in a GTA game is how time plays a role in the evolution of a city. We've only ever had concurrently running plots, or those with only a 2 or 3 year time difference, based in the same setting. Without treading into same-ish territory by using the same setting twice, we'd be able to freely experience a city at it's highest point and it's lowest point.

 

One thing I must add too. A lot of you are assuming I'm talking about Godfather II the game. I've never picked up a Godfather game in my life, I'm speaking of the 1974 classic.