Grand Theft Auto III - Cuts, Changes, and The 9/11 Effect

Cuts, Changes, and The 9/11 Effect

Prior to the 2001 release of the final game, several modifications were made to Grand Theft Auto III. The changes were apparent as several promotional materials had previously displayed features that would be absent in the final version of the game. While cuts and changes are frequent during game development, the changes in GTA III were of note as they were made around the time when the September 11, 2001 attacks occurred; this led some gamers to speculate that at least some of the changes were motivated by the attacks. Few changes were made and when they were conducted, Sam Houser, the president of Rockstar Games (based in Manhattan, New York City), was quoted September 19, 2001 saying that a review would be carried out for GTA III, in addition to confirming the delay of the game's release by three weeks (the original, rough release date was suggested by Houser to be on October 2, 2001):

Among the changes made shortly after 9/11 was the police cars' paint scheme. The old color scheme of blue with white stripes (seen in previews and the manual map) specifically resembled that of the NYPD. The new color scheme of the LCPD is modeled in a generic black-and-white design that is common amongst several police departments in the United States such as the LAPD and SFPD. Pre-release screenshots in the game's official website depicting police cars had also undergone modifications, around a week after September 11. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Grand Theft Auto IV saw paint schemes bearing likenesses to those of the NYPD's (past and present) returning, several years after GTA III was released.

Another cut is that of Darkel, an in-game character, for the final version of the game. Mentioned in several early video game publications and websites, Darkel was to be a revolutionary urchin who vowed to bring down the city's economy. One mission involved stealing an ice cream van, using it to attract pedestrians, then blowing it up (this mission would eventually be given by El Burro instead in the final version of game to kill a group of gang members). Darkel was also originally expected to give out Rampage-like missions, and even had his voice recorded for this part. Rockstar later decided that they would like to go back to the original system of giving out rampages as featured in Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto 2. Although Darkel and his missions were removed indefinitely, the character remains listed in the manual's credits, as well as having a character texture retained in the game's data files. Another reminder of Darkel's existence is an abandoned tunnel in the city, associated with the character in the official website, and includes four homeless people in a group wielding Molotov cocktails. Both the tunnel and the four homeless people are retained in the final version of the game.

The Dodo airplane, the only flyable aircraft in the game, was also a point of discussion; the wings of the vehicle were significantly short, while an uncontrollable full-winged version has been seen flying around the city. However, the plane, for months before 9/11, had a short wingspan, as evidenced from a preview in Game Informer (Issue #95), which indicated that the plane was to be used in a (now abandoned) mission to loft the plane high enough in its brief flight and reach new areas of the city. The Dodo is considerably difficult to control, usually resulting in short flights (although it is possible to fly the plane continuously around Liberty City when properly trained).

Other changes included stopping the selection of certain character models when using cheat codes, removing the aforementioned ability to blow limbs off non-player characters in only the PlayStation 2 version of GTA III, (though this can enabled with a cheat code) elderly pedestrians with walkers, school children as pedestrians (from GameSpot UK's beta preview ) and a school bus (seen in eight screenshots).

During a Q and A session on their website, for the game's tenth anniversary, when asked how much was different from the original version, Rockstar stated:

About 1% different. We removed only one mission that referenced terrorists and changed a few other cosmetic details – car details, a couple of ped comments, lines of radio dialogue etc – the game came out a very short time later. The biggest change was the US packaging which remixed the previous packaging into what became our signature style – because the previous packaging was, we felt, too raw after 9/11. All of the more extreme rumours are amusing but impossible to have been achieved in such a short period of time. They also denied any of the rumors with school children being in the game.

Expanding on the cover change during an interview with Edge, Sam Houser said that the new North American artwork had been created in an evening and that they instantly preferred it to the originally planned cover.