What I think the 'cut mission' was about.

[Anywhere USA]

As you may or may not know, at the 10th Anniversary interview 10 years ago, it was confirmed a single mission was cut following 9/11. Out of all the cut things, this one is by far the most mysterious. Most of the other ones can either be found in the PAL version (Dodo Path, Suicide Bombers), modded in fairly easily (Blue cop cars, Plummet Airlines poster, destroyable Airtrain) or is fairly simple to understand (Liberty Face Statue, Cut Radio and Pedestrian dialogue)

 

This cut mission is the biggest mystery because we no nothing about it. Almost nothing.

 

Here's what we do know, and what I think the mission was like.

1. It involved a terrorist activist hellbent on crashing Liberty City's economy

2. It was cut due to 9/11

3. And most importantly, it COULD NOT BE A DARKEL MISSION. I feel a lot of people get this wrong. Darkel was cut months earlier in July and August, and has never been described as a terrorist. Darkel is a crazy bum, and his only confirmed cut mission (An alternate version of I Scream, You Scream, that involved blowing up people in Little China Park) doesn't suggest he is. (It was also stated Darkel was down to 2 missions when they decided to cut him, which makes me think El Burro's "Trial by Fire" is the other one of the last 2 that got repurposed, since it doesn't fit with Turismo and BigNVeiny which are centered around racing. It's also been speculated Darkel originally gave rampage missions and that's why the rampage icons move between spots when you fail, it was originally Darkel moving)

 

So, here's my theory on the cut mission.

1. The terrorist in question was Curtly, the only other character in the credits not to show up in game.

2. The mission was mid-late game, probably given by either Ray(who wants to take the credit for stopping a terrorist) or Donald Love(who can't afford to have the economy get tanked).

3. It involved the cut 'land mine' mechanic. In the game's code, there is both a sea mine exploding barrel drop(used in  Ray's mission Gone Fishing where you have to chase the guy in the boat, he drops the barrels behind him) AND a land variation of it that is unused.

 

Here's how I see it playing out. Either Ray is screaming at you about some terrorist planning to blow up half of Staunton and how it'll send the entire department under if he isn't stopped, or Donald is calmly speaking about his sources informing him of such a threat and intrusting Claude to sort it out before it crashes his stock.

 

Some sort of large vehicle, maybe the flatbed or barracks truck, maybe a securicar, is rampaging throughout Staunton, dropping explosive barrels behind it. You have to avoid the barrels and destroy the vehicle before it reaches it's destination. If it does, you fail the mission. Curtly is the terrorist in question, he probably screams some stuff in the cutscene or as you chase him. Wouldn't be surprised if he's a communist of some make. No clue where the final destination is.

[Anywhere USA]

If anyone wants to recreate this mission concept with mods, call it "Market Blow Out"

[universetwisters]

It's been pretty much proven in that vadim m video that darkel's missions weren't changed because of 9/11 or something like that, but hopefully if GTASeriesvideos shows off that GTA 3 GDD they flexed about buying last year, it'll answer those questions.

 

On 7/29/2021 at 12:41 AM, Anywhere USA said:

If anyone wants to recreate this mission concept with mods, call it "Market Blow Out"

 

[Anywhere USA]

On 7/29/2021 at 10:51 AM, universetwisters said:

It's been pretty much proven in that vadim m video that darkel's missions weren't changed because of 9/11 or something like that, but hopefully if GTASeriesvideos shows off that GTA 3 GDD they flexed about buying last year, it'll answer those questions.

Oh my god I specifically said it WASN'T Darkel. I said it was the terrorist activist mission starring Curtly, probably given by Ray or Love.

[universetwisters]

On 7/29/2021 at 1:16 PM, Anywhere USA said:

Oh my god I specifically said it WASN'T Darkel. I said it was the terrorist activist mission starring Curtly, probably given by Ray or Love.

Oh my b

 

But yea, any speculation would be moot if the contents of that GDD is revealed 

[H-G]

@Anywhere USA - You made a quite well theory. I like it, but I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree with you there. A while ago, I already documented the mission that was cut post-9/11 in the most faithful way possible by analyzing the final game's files and the leaked SCM sources from the mobile version of the game in the BETA discussion and finds thread:

On 1/31/2021 at 12:21 PM, H-G said:

So I looked into "cuts.img" again and noticed a strange oddity...

 

The opening cutscene for "S.A.M." is internally named "A8_PS", which is correct and actually makes sense because it's the overall eighth mission given by Asuka.
But for some strange reason, the closing cutscene that plays at the end of the mission is quite mysteriously named "A9_ASD" even though both cutscenes are part of the same mission.

 

While coincidentally reading the mission's leaked source file "asusb3.sc" at the same time, I found this gold-tier bit of unused code in the "mission passed" section:

 

//START_NEW_SCRIPT asuka_suburban_mission4_loop

 

Sadly, though, no such mission trigger loop thread exists in "main.sc", nor there's any code left for Asuka's ninth mission.
Strolling through the code further, I noticed the "Ransom" text displayed in the beginning of the "A9_ASD" cutscene is also internally named "AS4", backing up the discovery above.

 

Well, looks like the "Ransom" cutscene was indeed a separate mission from "S.A.M." once, but it wasn't going to be just a simple cutscene like "Love's Disappearance", though...
The next thing that came to my attention was the cutscene's subtitles. They all weirdly use the prefix "CAT1_" in their internal names (different from "The Exchange" ones which use "CAT2_").

 

When I checked the text files to find out more about the subtitles, I found a duplicate entry of the "Ransom" text under the name "CAT1" and an objective text named "CAT1_F", both unused.
The objective text says "Get to Catalina before the time runs out!". But where to? And what's the hurry? There's no mention of any time limit in the cutscene, nor does the text say where to go.

 

One could speculate the destination must've been Catalina's mansion in Cedar Grove, but wouldn't that directly lead to "The Exchange"?
There was certainly something in this mission that R* deliberately cut out. Maybe the Yakuza were going to find out about Claude's involvement in Kenji's death and turn hostile against him? Who knows?

 

Conclusion: "Ransom" was once a full-fledged mission of it's own, maybe with a name like "Asuka's Demise" or "A Special Delivery" when taking the letters "ASD" in the cutscene's name into consideration.
It was created for Asuka's second mission strand but got placed under Catalina's mission strand. And then, presumably due to 9/11, R* tore the entire mission down to a simple motion-capture cutscene.

 

After that, the "mission" got moved under Asuka's second mission strand at some point before eventually being merged into "S.A.M." in a rush.

Interestingly enough, it makes much more sense for Catalina to kill Asuka and Miguel and kidnap Maria after "S.A.M.", not while the said mission is going on.

 

Also, a fellow called Jinx. made this discovery in correlation to it:

On 2/5/2021 at 3:24 AM, Jinx. said:

@Staunton AssassinYou were talking about Ransom dialogue a while ago. Apparently gxt sources from the mobile port has more details in the other languages. The rest of the cut lines were dialogues...

 

 

Apparently the dialogue for The Exchange also has subtitles for the "overused puta" line from the PAL version, but they were made to be ignored. I wonder if that mission also has the "Come on you dumb bitch" part in the audio...

[Anywhere USA]

On 7/29/2021 at 1:00 PM, H-G said:

@Anywhere USA - You made a quite well theory. I like it, but I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree with you there. A while ago, I already documented the mission that was cut post-9/11 in the most faithful way possible by analyzing the final game's files and the leaked SCM sources from the mobile version of the game in the BETA discussion and finds thread:

 

Also, a fellow called Jinx. made this discovery in correlation to it:

That’s all very interesting. There may very well be a cut mission there.

 

I just don’t see how that would get cut for references to terrorism. It doesn’t feature a terrorist activist hellbent on crashing liberty cities economy. And there’s no explanation for Curtly or the scrapped landmine

 

We know a lot of missions got altered. There’s that beta version of Luigi’s Girls.

 

 

[H-G]

On 7/30/2021 at 8:19 AM, Anywhere USA said:

That’s all very interesting. There may very well be a cut mission there.

 

I just don’t see how that would get cut for references to terrorism. It doesn’t feature a terrorist activist hellbent on crashing liberty cities economy.

There was most likely something referring to terrorism in the dialogues for "Ransom", which seem to have their subtitle text strings butchered out real hard in the GXT sources found in the mobile port (and even moreso in the final game where the dialogue subtitles don't even exist) so nobody would be able to find them.

 

As for Curtly, that one could've been a very early character when he/she was cut, possibly nothing more than just a mere concept. The landmines were never really a weapon, I think, given how they're defined as a simple map object in the game. Maybe they had some scripted use in the missions? IDK.

Edited July 30, 2021 by H-G

[Anywhere USA]

On 7/30/2021 at 7:43 AM, H-G said:

There was most likely something referring to terrorism in the dialogues for "Ransom", which seem to have their subtitle text strings butchered out real hard in the GXT sources found in the mobile port (and even moreso in the final game where the dialogue subtitles don't even exist) so nobody would be able to find them.

 

As for Curtly, that one could've been a very early character when he/she was cut, possibly nothing more than just a mere concept. The landmines were never really a weapon, I think, given how they're defined as a simple map object in the game. Maybe they had some scripted use in the missions? IDK.

Curtly had a VA. Only other cut character with a VA is Darkel, who got cut in the Summer with a big role.

[LeatherJacketSoldier]

I don't know, the theory involving Darkel being the terrorist and giving you missions consisting on learning how to fly the Dodo and crashing it in certain targets (last one being Love Media Building) makes a lot more sense to me. And I certainly am sure R* cut his missions due to 9/11 events, but like every sc*mbag in this world R* won't admit it (R* wouldn't have sell jack, if they admitted it, but if I was R* CEO by then I wouldn't have hidden anything).

And this:

On 7/28/2021 at 4:20 PM, Anywhere USA said:

Curtly, the only other character in the credits not to show up in game

Are you sure there's a "Curtly" in the credits? Because I only remember about Curly Bob, who indeed appears in-game in one of Salvatore's missions.

[Anywhere USA]

18 hours ago, LeatherJacketSoldier said:

I don't know, the theory involving Darkel being the terrorist and giving you missions consisting on learning how to fly the Dodo and crashing it in certain targets (last one being Love Media Building) makes a lot more sense to me. And I certainly am sure R* cut his missions due to 9/11 events, but like every sc*mbag in this world R* won't admit it (R* wouldn't have sell jack, if they admitted it, but if I was R* CEO by then I wouldn't have hidden anything).

And this:

Are you sure there's a "Curtly" in the credits? Because I only remember about Curly Bob, who indeed appears in-game in one of Salvatore's missions.

Yes, there’s a Curtly, and he has a VA,

 

And I’m assuming RS is telling the truth, and the magazines were accurate, which means they cut a mission in September involving a terrorist activist hellbent on crashing Liberty Cities Economy, and it couldn’t have been Darkel who got cut earlier. That leaves Curtly tbe primary suspect.

[Jinx.]

20 hours ago, LeatherJacketSoldier said:

I don't know, the theory involving Darkel being the terrorist and giving you missions consisting on learning how to fly the Dodo and crashing it in certain targets (last one being Love Media Building) makes a lot more sense to me. And I certainly am sure R* cut his missions due to 9/11 events, but like every sc*mbag in this world R* won't admit it (R* wouldn't have sell jack, if they admitted it, but if I was R* CEO by then I wouldn't have hidden anything).

Except they didn't lie about anything (except about removing buildings that look like the twin towers, which there weren't any, as Staunton looked similar since April 2001 or so). In the same QA, they said the Dodo was always meant to have cut wings. Low and behold, when the original BETA vehicles were found on mobile, the Dodo was there and had cut wings, and the cars date to around the time the game was still cartoonish. You can see all the car models by yourself here:

 

 

As for Darkel himself, Rockstar said that he was cut long before 9/11. He only had 2 missions implemented in the game, one of them being I Scream, You Scream, which was given to El Burro later on, and not to mention the rampage stuff in the game code being called CDarkel. And Darkel himself wasn't given a model overhaul either. He still uses the old mapping style and model type used by the peds from peds.dff (you can find the hidden bodies on the PreRelease thread) and the alpha 8ball model (8ball.dff on PS2 only), proving he was cut early on. And that's without mentioning the design document that popped on Ebay almost 2 years ago, where new details were found, like a Yakuza character called Toshiro having the Grand Theft Aero mission, which is given by Love in final (trivia, Love's building and garden use Toshiro's name in their model definition, albeit shortened). Funny enough, Darkel has a section for missions there aswell. Speaking of missions, the GameOn exposition doesn't list Darkel or anything else either, and those came straight from R*. They don't list the Marty Chonks mission either, meaning these were added late. Those stickers HAD Darkel at one point. In one magazine, there was a Darkel artwork alongside the notes. I posted the pics on the Prerelease thread before, check my posts out whenever you have time.

 

As for this thread, I have high doubts there was any cut mission. There isn't anything to suggest there was one, aside from a possible mission that involved Catalina and Maria, judging by the text sources leftover from mobile. There also isn't any mission source leftover that suggests any cut mission post 9/11. As for Curtly, I have strong feelings he was a minor character, as there is barely anything known about him outside of the voice actor. With all the info from articles and R* interviews, there isn't a single mention or hint at him. Not to mention he's bundled with both Misty and Darkel in the credits.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Jinx.

[Anywhere USA]

On 8/4/2021 at 3:30 AM, Jinx. said:

Except they didn't lie about anything (except about removing buildings that look like the twin towers, which there weren't any, as Staunton looked similar since April 2001 or so). In the same QA, they said the Dodo was always meant to have cut wings. Low and behold, when the original BETA vehicles were found on mobile, the Dodo was there and had cut wings, and the cars date to around the time the game was still cartoonish. You can see all the car models by yourself here:

 

 

As for Darkel himself, Rockstar said that he was cut long before 9/11. He only had 2 missions implemented in the game, one of them being I Scream, You Scream, which was given to El Burro later on, and not to mention the rampage stuff in the game code being called CDarkel. And Darkel himself wasn't given a model overhaul either. He still uses the old mapping style and model type used by the peds from peds.dff (you can find the hidden bodies on the PreRelease thread) and the alpha 8ball model (8ball.dff on PS2 only), proving he was cut early on. And that's without mentioning the design document that popped on Ebay almost 2 years ago, where new details were found, like a Yakuza character called Toshiro having the Grand Theft Aero mission, which is given by Love in final (trivia, Love's building and garden use Toshiro's name in their model definition, albeit shortened). Funny enough, Darkel has a section for missions there aswell. Speaking of missions, the GameOn exposition doesn't list Darkel or anything else either, and those came straight from R*. They don't list the Marty Chonks mission either, meaning these were added late. Those stickers HAD Darkel at one point. In one magazine, there was a Darkel artwork alongside the notes. I posted the pics on the Prerelease thread before, check my posts out whenever you have time.

 

As for this thread, I have high doubts there was any cut mission. There isn't anything to suggest there was one, aside from a possible mission that involved Catalina and Maria, judging by the text sources leftover from mobile. There also isn't any mission source leftover that suggests any cut mission post 9/11. As for Curtly, I have strong feelings he was a minor character, as there is barely anything known about him outside of the voice actor. With all the info from articles and R* interviews, there isn't a single mention or hint at him. Not to mention he's bundled with both Misty and Darkel in the credits.

They said they removed one mission that made reference to terrorists in an interview. Another source mentions “a crazed terrorist activist hellbent on crashing Liberty City’s economy”

[Jinx.]

If it was a character there would've been more than one mission removed. All characters had between 4 to 6 missions. Unless it was a small character that appeared in one mission given by someone else, where one mission makes sense. It most likely had voice acting that couldn't be re-recorded in time, which would make sense when compared to other censoring, since those only had cut lines or altered text. And this is without mentioning the sloppy edits on their cop cars, how rockets go through the plane, or their habit of keeping leftovers in the files.

 

I'm sure the character is not related to the mission in any way. The info about the character came from articles that interviewed Sam Houser, the same articles that mention the game removed any building similar to the twin towers, despite the fact that no buildings were changed at all, but a billboard ad and a statue resembling the face of the Statue of Liberty being removed. Dan's articles never mentioned a character being removed, only a mission that referenced terrorism.

[Anywhere USA]

13 hours ago, Jinx. said:

If it was a character there would've been more than one mission removed. All characters had between 4 to 6 missions. Unless it was a small character that appeared in one mission given by someone else, where one mission makes sense. It most likely had voice acting that couldn't be re-recorded in time, which would make sense when compared to other censoring, since those only had cut lines or altered text. And this is without mentioning the sloppy edits on their cop cars, how rockets go through the plane, or their habit of keeping leftovers in the files.

 

I'm sure the character is not related to the mission in any way. The info about the character came from articles that interviewed Sam Houser, the same articles that mention the game removed any building similar to the twin towers, despite the fact that no buildings were changed at all, but a billboard ad and a statue resembling the face of the Statue of Liberty being removed. Dan's articles never mentioned a character being removed, only a mission that referenced terrorism.

I don't think Curtly was a mission giver, I think he was a terrorist who showed up in a mission given by someone else (Ray or Donald) and died