We're Already Mourning the GTA Tokyo Game on PS2 That Never Was 1
Image: Push Square

Did you know that Rockstar briefly considered releasing a Grand Theft Auto game set in Tokyo? Speculation about a Japanese edition of the crime sandbox caper has been rife for several years, especially after Take-Two famously filed trademarks for a game based in the city shortly after the release of GTA: San Andreas in 2004.

Speaking with our friends at Time Extension, a development source explained that Tokyo was on the cards at one point, but the idea was ultimately shelved. “[Co-Founder Sam Houser] was pretty caught up with the Tokyo scene. He had just released GTA 3 back then and they were doing a lot of travel to Tokyo back then to promote the game. It seemed like a cool, interesting city to do it in, but at the end of the day, it just came down to logistics.”

The source explained that sending a research team to Tokyo for long enough to map out the city was a problem, but more importantly it didn’t feel it could get the series’ trademark “cultural satire” to work in quite the same way. “Making those things connect was a little tough and we thought it was just cooler to stick with the cities that were introduced in [the original] GTA.”

While the reasoning makes sense, we can’t help but imagine what a Tokyo-based GTA would have looked like. Of course, there have been plenty of Japanese sandboxes to scratch the itch since, most notably the Yakuza titles – despite their obvious absence of driving. Would you have played a Japan-based GTA? Imagine what could have been in the comments section below.

Would you have played GTA Tokyo on PS2?

[source timeextension.com]