14 DAY TRIAL // Grand Theft Auto 4 was a massive game that took the open world sandbox franchise back to its roots, in Liberty City, but with a much more realistic tone than previous titles in the series, like San Andreas or Liberty City. The game, which did extremely well and gained critical acclaim due to its innovative features and deep story, is set to be released for the PC in late November with console gamers already playing the title for quite some time.
Recently, Dan Houser, one of the co-founders of Rockstar Games, the developer of the franchise, spoke with Edge about the different direction that GTA 4 approached and how it would be extended through the planned expansion packs for the major title. He also went on to say that the direction wasn't really set in stone, although the development team did have a general idea on where the DLC packs would take the title.
"We’re still figuring out what we’re going to do next, because of the downloadable content. I don’t think it’s set anything in stone, it’s just what we did with that game. The idea that the tone was identical from GTAIII through to Vice City to San Andreas to Liberty City Stories to Vice City Stories is a little bit of revisionist history. It really wasn’t as close or as unified as all that – sometimes even within a game like San Andreas the tone moved a lot, and we desperately tried to make that make sense."
He then pointed out the fact that GTA 4 wasn't the master opus of Rockstar and that the gamers would receive something much bigger and better in the long term. The title did have all of the essential features needed for a game, but improvements could always be made.
"The masterplan, if there is one, is to keep evolving and make the perfect game, and I don’t think we’ve even got close to that. I think GTAIV was as good as we could do at that moment in time. I think it was a really well worked-out game that combined the three elements of what makes GTA on a console. On the one hand that’s a progressive, tight, action game, with a better targeting system and the amazing physics and bunch of other things that really made the seamlessness of the design feel like it was taken up a level."
All that's left for gamers to do is keep guessing what the DLC packs will contain, but the possibility of zombies isn't very likely.