14 DAY TRIAL // Rockstar Games confirms that the newly-revealed first-person perspective for Grand Theft Auto 5 on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One can't be done on the PS3 or Xbox 360 due to the technical limitations imposed by the last-gen hardware.
Grand Theft Auto 5 came out for the PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms more than a year ago and impressed tens of millions of fans from around the world thanks to its huge open world, its array of adventures for the three protagonists in the story campaign, not to mention the constantly updated GTA Online multiplayer experience.
Rockstar has been working on adapting the game for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One platforms and is getting ready to release it, first on the two new consoles later this month and then on the PC in early 2015.
One of the big surprises added to the new versions of GTA 5 is a first-person perspective that turns the third-person shooter into a first-person one, just like Call of Duty or Battlefield.
First-person GTA can't be done on last-gen consoles
Rockstar Games' Rob Nelson, the animation director in charge of GTA 5, has stepped forward, via IGN, and emphasized that, while the studio would have loved to bring the first-person perspective into the game's other versions on PS3 and Xbox 360, it can't be done due to the hardware limitations imposed by those old consoles.
"We’ve always been in interested in it, but it’s never really been an option for us," Nelson explains. "I don’t think we could’ve put it in the [last-gen version] because we were too busy making the game. We were too busy working on our third-person controls and the missions."
Rockstar had plenty of issues getting the game to work on PS3 & Xbox 360
According to him, there were plenty of obstacles that had to be overcome even for the regular third-person mode, so a first-person one just couldn't work on the same quality level as the normal game.
"We were out of memory on the old consoles for animations. We were constantly fighting about what we could have and what we could still push in, and what other areas you could steal memory back from – audio, art, maps – for animation. So we could’ve added all the atoms to make a first-person mode to the level we wanted. We weren’t sure the world would have held up the way we would’ve wanted it to," he adds.
Grand Theft Auto 5 is set to appear with its new first-person shooter this month on PS4 and Xbox One and in early 2015 for the PC.