Dave Jones co-created Grand Theft Auto, and Brian Baglow helped write the original. Neither had got their hands on GTA 6 when the BBC asked them about it days before launch.
Rockstar Games has been keeping their biggest release yet under tight wraps, and no preferential treatment was being offered to even the people who helped make the original.
Jones and Baglow talked to the BBC at Abertay University in Dundee, the city where their team made the first GTA. «We’re all waiting to see what they’ve done,» Jones said of the much-anticipated release.
Asked if he’d played it, Baglow shook his head. «I’ve got the pre-order.»
Upon its 1997 release, Grand Theft Auto quickly gained a following thanks to player recommendations. Take-Two, the game’s publisher, predicted in 2013 that Grand Theft Auto V had made over $1 billion in just three days. Apparently, Grand Theft Auto 6 has already broken records on PlayStation and Xbox digital stores for pre-orders.
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The first GTA started with a car door
Jones and Baglow were part of DMA Design, the Dundee studio behind Lemmings. The new project began as a racing game called Race’n’Chase.
As Jones put it, the breakthrough was simply «just getting out of the car». Once you could step out of your ride, stealing the next one became possible.
The idea of having players double as police officers was also considered. Jones preferred to evade capture rather than follow police procedure. In addition, developers fabricated their own brands, radio stations, DJs, and song lyrics when real-world licences became too costly.
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Baglow claimed that he is most pleased with the original because of those minute details.
Rockstar means midnight at the start of 19 November in each release region, so the game unlocks at different times around the world. On PS5, that means the time shown on your account’s PlayStation Store.
