The Design Behind GTA 3

Welcome all. Today we have an episode from our Hot Topic series truly like no other. I'm Gary7 MT for the GTA Series Videos Crew and in this video, we got something extra. We're going back - way back to the 3D era's roots.  To the spirit and soul itself of  the entire Grand Theft Auto series. We're going to get into the GTA 3's beta content but this time, thanks to rare inside news, we're going deeper still, than ever before. As some of you may know, thanks to our other video series, we're really into collecting. And if you call yourself a collector, your goal is always going to be to try to get specific, hard to find items - even Electronic Press Kits together with Press Clippings and Briefing Books from GTA 3's presentation at the 2001 E3. Some things are definitely harder  to find and acquire than others, but every collector has their own Holy Grail. And Holy Grails usually include stuff that  was part of the creation process of a game. Like original GTA sketches, or this big-ass framed print of GTA San Andreas displayed in Rockstar's NY offices more than a decade ago that shows very familiar artwork, but for the first time, with all four  OG members of the Grove Street Families, including never-before-seen artwork of Big Smoke. There's more of course, and hopefully we can drop an episode in the future with our Rockstar Collection series. But today we've got something here truly special.   An authentic GTA 3 Design Document  dated December 29th, 2000. Now to break it down for those who don't  already understand what this actually is: one could describe it as no less  than a seminal instruction manual. A huge, elaborate document delineating,  in fine detail, the entirety of the game. Though it was made to promote the idea of GTA,  and show those in high places their progress, you should think of it as more than  a blueprint for the developers. This book for the first time anywhere, births every detail about how things  work, how places should look and even what set of specific sounds  are connected to a particular location. Or how many vehicles should appear  in an area, at any given time, how characters should look, behave, how  the missions work, and so, much, much more. This may not be a one-of-a-kind item, but it is a rarity. Now, from the jump, this "document" was  probably duplicated dozens of times, so every department or lead  developer could have one. Its content was updated on the fly  - often with pages of new details and information replacing older ones. From reading the book cover to cover,  it's clear some pages are extremely old, and explained what the  general framework was to be. These pages were written in the very early  days of the virtual world's creation. Probably from a period when GTA3  was more idea than functioning game. Go further through the pages,  and you discover clear speak of a world that has achieved concrete foundations. The fact that this official  copy's last update is dated December 2000 - in itself,  tells us most insightfully how the world's seminal development  was evolving at the timeframe, about a year - our time -  before the game was released. Now before delving into fine, fine detail - we at GTA Series Videos respectfully say we know what this document means to many of you. It means as much to us too, y'all. It goes without saying, any GTA fan would  love their very own copy of this scarce, original document to dissect from A to Z. As collectors and fans, we surely understand, but we've decided to share the document's  contents in the form of a video. Specifically, this video. Only. And as you can see from the length of it, we ain't half steppin' on detail. Thanks are also in order to Mr. Jago, Sergiu, Son of Big Boss, Jinx and all the guys behind  the Grand Theft Auto 3D mod on GTAForums. Thanks to Game Informer, we do  know that GTA 3 was originally intended to be released on the SEGA Dreamcast, but considering SEGA's situation at that time, and that the Dreamcast didn't have the  processing power Rockstar required, that version was scrapped and the project's development evolved with the PlayStation 2 in mind. All told GTA 3's gestation took a full 27  months - from August 1999 to October 2001 - and a team of 23 people, between artists,  programmers, designers and musicians. Back in Edinburgh, Leslie Benzies led this team as DMA's lead producer while additional support came from the New York crew. Despite years of experience and a clear  vision for bringing the freedom of the 2D GTAs to a fully-realized 3D world, understanding the main reason for the GTA  series' success wasn't clear even for Rockstar. They surmised that instant  rewards for easy missions, coupled with the fact that we all  secretly really want to drive around realistic urban environments we all  identify with and shoot stuff up, and do it completely free of consequence, was  probably the most obvious reason for its success. With the transition from 2D  to full 3D, emotion became an important characteristic of the series as well. Thanks to the ability to have realistic  characters with believable faces and voices, the main next step should have been to make  the players bond with those characters, feel anger, sadness, joy, and  more as they play the game. The first and most important change Rockstar  chose to make to GTA 3 was the name itself. Stepping away from any designs  derived from the GTA2 logo by dropping the acronym and creating a logo so iconic it's still used to this day. While this change was emphasized  in the 2001 E3 document, there were two features promoters were asked to avoid: One, not to play-up the violence and  two, "Do not use the acronym GTA," but use the full "Grand Theft Auto III" name instead. GTA 3 is set in the present  day - away from those "future looking nerd games" - loosely basing cars on real vehicles, buildings built in American style and ripping  off New York but calling it 'Liberty City'. Featuring areas like the slums, Chinatown, a Red  Light district, Docks and Residential all dicey. Though brightly lit, still scary and full  of pedestrians easily recognizable as good, bad or indifferent. They wanted a final look that  was dark and smoggy, and thanks to 3D, shadows could be  used to enhance the environment. Vehicles play a large part in the GTA series and obviously this Design Document must focus pages on them. First there are the pages that explain in  detail how the various vehicles handle, where every maneuver should fall according  to its own unique physics calculations, how every block on the map has a ratio that  creates variety in the spawning of vehicles, and all manner of other technical  stuff that explains exactly why we got what we got at the end:  cars and boats that are fun to drive. What's interesting is how, way back  then, Rockstar had thought about implementing incredible sound  detail into the game such as: powered car windows being raised and  lowered, and hoods opening and closing. Or adding airbags - just like in real-world  vehicles, something they haven't done yet, probably because it wouldn't be  that much fun stealing a car, hitting the first thing on the road and then trying to drive  with an airbag in your face. Extremely interesting also is  this list of every vehicle, starting from the very last one:  the Wingless Cessna, a.k.a. the Dodo. This entry definitely debunks a  theory spread in past years claiming that the game was originally meant to  feature the ability to fly airplanes and that this feature was removed after the  events of September 11, 2001 in New York. That means that there were no  missions involving a full-winged Dodo before or after 9/11, and that's certainty the case now. There were three boats at that time and  three boats are what we ended up with, but the story with vehicles is different. The first column of the list indicates  the inspiration for the vehicle, the second a priority value - maybe an in-game  value or something tied to development, the third column is for the  name of the vehicle in-game, the fourth is for additional details and the  fifth is for the weapons the vehicle should have - which is none for any of them at  this point in their development. The lists show a lot of vehicles and thanks also to some renders available on  detailed cards in the Design Document, we can recognize most of them, but  let's look them over one by one. First on our list is an unknown vehicle,  the 2-door saloon. There aren't enough details visible to actually say what this was supposed to be. A 2-door saloon vehicle could actually be anything  from a Ford Cortina, Escort or P7, to a Fiat 500. Considering the rest of the list,  this car could be the Stallion, despite it being more of a  muscle car than a 2-door saloon. Next on the list we have the Ambulance, called  Midicar - probably intended to be Medicar. The Armor truck now known as Securicar and  the Army Truck known as the Barracks OL. The Beamer is based on a 1995 BMW 530i, now known  by players as the Sentinel - or Mafia Sentinel. The name Sentinal was given  instead to a car based on the 1997 Dodge Intrepid that later became the Kuruma. The speed boat is clearly the Speeder. The Bus is, well, the Bus and the Esperanto or Esparanto has always been based on the 1976 Cadillac Eldorado. Next is the Aster, based on the Chevrolet  Astro Van we now know as the Moonbeam. The Coach didn't change its name, while the Space or Space Carrier - based on the Dogde Caravan - is the Blista in GTA 3. The Rumbler became the Banshee  considering it's based on the Dodge Viper - the Rumbler was actually the name  of a vehicle in GTA2 that resembled a Dodge Copperhead more than a Viper anyway. Next is a Ferrari Testarossa  named Rocket, the Cheetah in GTA 3 and then we have the Panto based on a  Fiat 128 which didn't make the cut at all. The Fire Truck remained unchanged, like the Stretch, the Fishing Boat was renamed Reefer and the Freightliner FLD-120  became the Linerunner. The Garbage Truck became the Trashmaster, the HumVee became the Patriot, the Ice Creamer/Ice Cream Van became the Mr. Whoopee and the Dyablo, inspired by the  Lamborghini Diablo, became the Infernus - while also gaining a different, rounder  look than what's shown in this render. Then we have two vehicles called Luton;  lutons are specific types of vans. The Luton 1 has a full 3D render, while  the card of the second one is empty. The dimensions clearly resemble those of the Mule - and considering that in GTA 3 we  have two renditions of the Mule, the default and Mr. Wongs - these  could be the ones we're talking about. Or the second Luton could be the Yankee,  another rendition of the classic Luton van. Next is the Maurice, inspired by the Chevrolet Nova Station Wagon - which in the game became the Perennial. We have nothing at all for Off-road, apart from being good on bumps and with  the special ability of being bouncy which leads us to the one and only BF Injection. The Old Taxi is clearly the  Cabbie and speaking of vehicles, according to the 2001 E3 document, we were supposed to meet various characters inside  taxis, five or six in total, including a "Martin Scorsese style  cuckold" and a "Sean Penn-esque lawyer". This led to the idea that the side-mission  was originally meant to be less repetitive and maybe feature talking passengers and jobs that are a little more complex  than simply "drive me here or there". "See the woman in the window?" "That's my wife." But let's get back to the vehicles. Next on the list is the Ariant - clearly based  on a Plymout Reliant - which became the Manana, despite its characteristics describing  it on the list as a four-door vehicle. The Police Boat was renamed  Predator in the final game, like the Cop Car ended up with the name Police - and yes, the render is still the  one with the blue and white vehicle. The Shark, based on a Porsche Boxter,  was the original name of the Stinger and the little remote control buggy we now know  as the RC Bandit was originally named The Bug. The Hachura, inspired by the  Ford Riviera, became the Idaho. The Train was originally named Subway Train, like the Enforcer which is  named SWAT Van in the document. Another vehicle dropped from this  document is a tank which looked like this and whose name would have been "F- you too" - an APC like that only ended up being added first into San Andreas and then to The Ballad of Gay Tony. Same goes for the Tanker, a vehicle only  added a few years later in GTA San Andreas - we know its a classic fuel tanker by  what it says under Special on the card "Massive explosion if too damaged" and by the AmCo added after the  name on the same card. AmCo is a Petroleum Company in GTA 3's Liberty City. While the Taxi didn't see any significant change, the vehicle we know as the Bobcat,  was based on the 1990 Toyota Pickup and the name for it was supposed  to have been the "U-Jerk Truck". Last on the list is the Transit but we don't  have a card for it like the Wingless Cessna. This vehicle was probably  what we know today as the Pony - despite the Pony being more inspired  by the Ford Econoline than the Transit. Various pages focus on weapons and explain their modes of collection - by simply running through its spinning 3D model, and how they can also be obtained from  crates, special cars or special buildings. There are schematics explaining  exactly how each weapon works, from the stance, to which button makes it work, the damage effected, percentage of  damage inflicted, radius, etc. Each weapon is also accompanied by  a cute sketch of Claude holding it. Thanks to the sketches and the list of weapons,  we can see that at this point in development Claude would have also been able  to use weapons like a Golf Club, a Crowbar, a weapon called "Magnum"- probably  a Colt Revolver or Desert Eagle, a Silenced Pistol and Silenced UZI, a Mini Gun for which we have the details, but  the images are the same as the Rocket Launcher's, and a Time Bomb also called a Satchel Charge. This is probably the landmine - of which we still  have the model and the textures inside the game. The explanations then move onto targeting  detailing exactly what we ended up with: two targeting systems, free aim and lock on, plus the special camera when we use  weapons like the Sniper Rifle which,   in the document is explained with the words "This would use a similar targeting system to  the one used for the sniper rifle in Goldeneye" referring to the popular first person  shooter made by Rare in 1997 for Nintendo 64 which actually was pretty advanced for its time, marking a point in history demonstrating the viability of consoles as  platforms for a shooter game. But there's more. Thanks to the work of two valued members of GTAForums.com, Fire_Head and The Hero, also known as AAP, more details have been discovered. We're talking about the addition of  a First-Person View camera in GTA 3 - a feature that took over a  decade to appear in the series, first seen in the PS4, Xbox  One and PC versions of GTA 5. Without delving too far into details,  Game Informer provided an initial glimpse of the First-Person View with  this screenshot and text. The First-Person View camera was  conceived and developed for the PC version and featured dedicated animations and different  points of view, but was never fully completed. Later the camera view was edited to  include the protagonist on screen, rather than just an arm and weapon, thus the original version of the  First-Person camera never made the cut. Liberty City is undoubtedly  the main protagonist of GTA 3 - just like any of the other  cities featured in every GTA. There are no maps or details in the document, apart from small cards giving technical info about blocks in areas and identifying  the features of the place. The area's style, what kinds of  vehicles and peds to spawn and the sounds associated with it are also detailed. An interesting tidbit is given in a  paragraph concerning Building Destruction. According to the document,  "destroying all buildings would be impossible, but we can define  some buildings that can be blown up." For example, mission can require  this type of destruction - "Take out the Kiki restaurant on 42nd Street." Once a building has been destroyed, it will  remain in that state for the duration of the game giving the player a 'I did that'  feeling every time they drive past. That is exactly what happens  during the mission "Blow Fish" where the player drives a Trashmaster into the  Triad Fish Factory destroying it in an explosion. And speaking of places, lets  look at the common ones first. Each of the districts should've had the following: Police Stations used as restart  points and mission locations, Medical Facilities where players  can enter to obtain health and Fire Stations, used as mission locations. Even if not specified as a mission location, the card might identify a  place with the related odd job, like the Bus Stops and the Train  Stations marked as places where the player could start side missions  focused on driving the bus or train. Other common places are Gun  shops used to buy weapons, the Respray shop used to repair cars  and drop wanted levels to zero and a Bomb shop where the player  can have bombs fitted to vehicles. The Radio Station was marked as a mission location and the Bank as both mission  and odd job locations. Players would be able to steal armored  cars supplying the bank with money. We'll next move on to the Industrial sector, also called District One, a dark,  grimy, rough and polluted area. Here we have Chinatown, the Docks that supposedly were to have had forklifts -  something not present in GTA 3, the Union Offices marked as a  mini gang area same as the Slums, described as an area full of rubbish,  graffiti, bins, broken windows, boarded up windows, fire escapes, leaking pipes, playgrounds, concrete and mesh covered corner  shops where people could hear screaming, crying, shouting and loud music. Then we have the warehouses used for missions  - with the ability to allow vehicles to enter - which are probably the main inspiration  for the Import/Export missions. Before quitting odd jobs, Portland  should have had a Multi Storey Car Park used as a playground for a racing side  job and also as a mission location. The car park would have been full of  vehicles, customers and security guards, so the building was probably meant to be  attached to a Mall or something like that. Another area would have been  the one with the Factory where the player should have been able to start  a side mission focused on running deliveries. The area had forklifts, trucks  and construction workers. What's interesting is that the main  inspiration for this area was Leith, a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, where Rockstar North offices actually were located at that time before moving after  the success of GTA San Andreas. Then we have two of the main areas  rumored to have been removed in Portland: The Power Plant and the Chemical Plant. The first should have been a fenced-off  mission location full of signs, company logos, flashing lights  and people in white overalls. The Chemical Plant too was an area  marked as a fenced-off mission location full of danger signs and company  logos and white overalled workers. Not many details are known about this  area, but thanks to a couple images we know that both places were located in  a peninsula in the north-west of Portland. After that, we have the Garages/Lockups where the  player could start a side mission stealing cars - some of them may have even contained  spray booths to "clean" the vehicles. Next is the Park, filled with all kinds of peds  during the day, but only criminals at night and yes, like the Wasteground,  this area was cut as well. Envisioned as an area full of  winos, wrecked cars and bumpy roads. The Junkyard was retained, but the side mission to bring cars was  removed together with the Strange owner. The Red Light District was instead kept, but JJ the pimp was removed along  with an odd job related to him - maybe it's the same pimpin' side mission  we can play in GTA San Andreas instead. The strip club would have had a cheerful  interior full of strippers, drunks and pervs. The Road tunnel, like the  Basketball court, was retained. Clubs and Bars were supposed to have had  interiors with young, drunk people and music. The Abattoir wasn't removed, but we  lost the interior, the white overall and hat wearing workers and sleazy men,  together with trucks full of sheep. In Portland we would also have  the Storm Drains a la Los Santos where we could get some car  racing jumping off as an odd job and a Marina with wooden jetties  and small boat berthing where we could have started another side activity: boat racing. The pages then begin to list mission  locations tied to characters. First, Salvatore Leone - whose name  during development was "Frankie" - was supposed to inhabit a fat mansion that  had a pool out back with Maria but was cut, along with the pair's cars. Also, the area was supposed to be surrounded  by bodyguards but in the game, there are none. Next is Joey's garage, which seems to have survived unchanged  from what we read in the description, while in the script this place  is described way different: "Joey hangs out in a warehouse that has been  transformed into a very well-equipped garage. It has a walled yard out front (with  a sliding gate) which leads to the door to the workshop proper within the warehouse. The gates into the warehouse are closed  and if Joey emerges to speak to the Player, he will exit the warehouse through a  secondary door set into the bigger gates. The garage has an air of busyness with a  cacophony of workshop noises emanating from within (pneumatic wrenches, the high-pitched whine of  screw drivers and the 'squek-k-k' of arc welders). Standing with an ever so slight slouch, Joey emphasizes gesticulations with the heavy  monkey wrench that is always at his side." Toni's Mums Restaurant, located in an area called Little Italy, had Toni, his mom,  customers and all kinds of peds - it's also marked as a mini gang location  with buildings in the classic red brick style. Same goes for Luigi's Club, a club in  the Red Light District full of johns together with Luigi and his bodyguard, "Muscles". Then we move to the second district called Commercial - basically Manhattan  as written in the document. The island has a Marina and an Underground  Car Park like the ones in Portland. It was also to feature an international  port full of piers, car parks, warehouses, a massive area with aircraft carriers and cruise  liners that was clearly scrapped completely. Again, we can get an idea of what this area was  supposed to be like by looking at the beta map - here we can see a lot of sketched warehouses  and buildings, along with a very, very long ship, probably one of the cruise  liners mentioned before. Another massive area dropped was the Airport,  placed in a northern area of Staunton Island. The scope the developers had in mind  was clearly too massive for that time and despite most of that being scrapped, the entire airport area was moved  to the south of the third district - an area that as of December 2000, wasn't clearly developed yet. Still in Staunton, the island would have been  full of restaurants with outside seating, menus, umbrellas, flower pots,  waiters and peds of all kinds. The Staunton Island City Hall  was supposed to be a Museum and the island would have been filled with  theatres - all inaccessible unfortunately. The Casino, like the Football Stadium, was already programmed and both places  had their own specific sets of peds. Other areas were dedicated to Offices and Hotels, and there was supposed to be a certain Corporate H.Q. but no deeper description is given. The Court House and Town Hall are in the same  building, a building appearing in the final game. Both are marked as mission  locations full of town officials, judges, lawyers, police,  criminals and normal peds. Wall Street was supposed to have had armored  cars that we could steal as an odd job and the island has a Shopping Mall. Time Square was marked as a mission location  and feature scenery like Central Park, Broadway and the University. Tied to the campus was a University Science Area, labeled a mission location and weapons area with students and professors along with various  vehicles described as "mostly very shit cars." Another scrapped area is the Ferry  Port used as a mission location and as an area allowing players to cross the water with their vehicles without  using bridges or tunnels. The area was supposed to have Ferry Workers  all around and various cars and boats. We have an idea of what this area would have  been thanks to GTA Liberty City Stories, a prequel to GTA 3 developed years later,   that has in Portland and Staunton  Island a fully functional Ferry Port. And speaking of boats, one or more large static  boats were supposed to be around Staunton Island. This was to be a mini gang area full of sailors. Two other scrapped locations are the  Lawyer's Offices and the Car Hire, a business where we could have started an  odd job consisting of returning stolen cars. And while we're still on side missions, another one that didn't make the  cut was tied to the Cathedral, where we were supposed to traverse the city gathering churchgoers and bringing  them to the Cathedral for mass. As for the character locations tied to  the Yakuza, we have Toshiro's Skyscraper - a contact point, which means Toshiro would  have been a character we would have worked for, Kenji's Casino and Kemuri's Condo - with  the latter being Asuka Kasen's beta name. As for the other characters, Machowski was tied to  a Café, not the Bellville Park's public bathrooms and Maria was supposed to be in a  Posh Hotel, not Asuka's apartment. And that brings us to the third district  called Suburbia in the document, and Shoreside Vale in the final game. The first card is for a  skanky zone called the Multis, a mission location and mini gang area full of  towering, graffiti, concrete skyscrapers. Here all the stereotypical hood features are on  display: idle swings, broken windows, car parks and garages with junkers everywhere while  gangs and scummy peds roam the pissy streets. Clearly this is the description of the  north-west part of Shoreside, Wichita Gardens. The area called The Projects  also recalls Wichita Gardens. This too is a mini gang area with run-down  buildings, shitty vehicles, gangs, and the like. The last location is a Skate Park -  another mini gang area full of gang members and skateboarders navigating jumps, rails and half-pipes - unfortunately this area was left out too. Completely different is Cliffside Drive, another mini gang area, but it  enjoys swanky people and cars, boats on trailers, fenced,  phat houses with long drives, flowers, ponds, swimming pools, tennis courts and even a golf course on a cliff overlooking the  sea complete with a winding road up to the area. This area could be the north-east  part of Shoreside - Cedar Grove, obviously without the golf course. The River and Lake is probably  the area from the Dam to the sea, marked as scenery areas and mission locations. Here we also were supposed to be  able to have boat races as odd jobs. Probably related to this area, because  both are marked as "separate parts of map", also is the Park, a scenery area with boats. This area could actually be the Staunton  View Picnic Area, but we're not sure. Another scrapped location is the  Second Hand Car Dealer full of old ass cars with "For Sale" signs  and a building with huge windows. This is the perfect description of Capital Auto Sales, but that building ended up in  Portland, instead of Shoreside Vale. This location was also the point where starting  an odd job focused on stealing and selling cars, with the latter actually having been  added to GTA Liberty City Stories five years after the date of this  document, like the Ferry Port. Then we have the Mansions, clean, rich, white, gated communities brimming with rich folks and expensive cars used in missions - again, Cedar Grove. The Villas too are marked as missions locations and they're different from the  mansions 'cause they're smaller - but still posh, with rich peds and hot cars. The Graveyard was supposed to be in this district,  but in the end, it was moved to Staunton Island. This was supposed to be a clean area  surrounded by walls with statues, tombs, gravestones and a church. Here between mourners and grave-diggers,  we were supposed to find a Hearse - a vehicle only added to the  series a year later with Vice City. Next are the Morning Star Houses and Facility, both quiet areas filled with various  cars and Morning Star workers - not a lot of details on the houses, but the Facility was a large high security  compound with large swanky buildings. Both places are marked as mission locations and strangely enough, in GTA 3 there is a company called Morningstar Industries, but exactly what they do, is  hidden from us uninitiated folks. There are ads around the city  and the headquarters is located in the Morningstar Building in  Torrington, Staunton Island, with the Morningstar plaza just in front of it. Clearly this company had a bigger part  in the game before being almost erased. Something else completely erased from the game  is the Military Base and the Military Test Site. The former was a large military  base augmented by a security fence and possessing a variety of military vehicles  and soldiers throughout the installation. According to the document, here we were supposed to be able to find  a mission contact called Major Hale - more about him later when we get more  into the characters of Grand Theft Auto 3. The Military Test Site seems  to be one big firing range, 'cause the area is described as a large piece  of waste land surrounded by a security fence, saturated with soldiers all over using  most vehicles as target practice. Actually, sounds kinda fun... Then we have four different  areas, all tied to Zaibatsu - to those who have never played GTA2, the Zaibatsu Corporation  plays a major role in the game by being the only criminal  organization controlling   areas in each and every district of  Anywhere City - the city in GTA2. According to a Liberty City Tree  article and some commercials, the Zaibatsu is a pharmaceutical company  promoting a new drug called Equanox, a wonder drug banned by the FDA for causing psychotic behavior and being practically a more toxic version of PCP. The Zaibatsu's presence in Shoreside Vale was high - starting from their identical Zaibatsu housing provided by the company to all employees accompanied by a Zaibatsu vehicle. The Test Facility is a contact point, meaning  we would have worked for the corporation. To be precise, for a contact working in  the "Zaibatsu High Energies Division". Another contact point was the Zaibatsu Villas, a series of identical very posh, swank  houses for the corporation's employees. Additionally, we have the Zaibatsu Skyscraper,  a large building still under construction. This too was to be a contact point. Lastly, we had another Zaibatsu property, a mansion called Toshiro's Villa  - more about this fella, later. The villa was supposed to  be a mission location full of various very sporty and expensive vehicles. That's it for the third and final  district, but not all for Liberty City. According to the document there was supposed to be  a "Prison Island" used for the intro of the game and described as an area full of concrete,  bars and a massive entrance and car park. Complete with a security force, barbed wire,  tall walls, searchlights and plenty of darkness. The only peds accounted for  in this area were the Bad men. The name of this island could have  been Nixon Island - according to an example of a police radio dispatch in the document. Nixon Island is a name already used in  the first Grand Theft Auto to identify   Rockstar's counterpart of Roosevelt Island, where a prison was actually built through the 19th century after the  City of New York bought the island. Interestingly enough, this location is present  in GTA 4, and is called "Colony Island". Next is the Country Club,  a place described as thus: "The rich Mafia bosses come  to the golf course to relax. This is a perfect location for  head mashing with a golf club." This location was mainly split into three areas: The Club House - a plush, wooden bar with  outdoor tables, parked cars and golf carts. The Practice Hut - open and spacious  but with no vehicles, only golfers and the Golf Course - lush, green and huge,  full of senior citizens and golf carts. Let's chill for a minute before delving too  deeply into the characters, and vibe on the gangs. According to a page in the document the game  was supposed to have four main criminal groups. A Mafia, all dressed in smart suits with Italian  accents, dedicated to protection rackets. The Yakuza, a bit of a mix, with the more  senior gang members dressed in sharp suits, but henchmen wore more "street clothes". This group is very organized and very violent. Then there's the Street, unorganized thugs who  rob liquor stores, do drive-by's and jack dealers. Of course, we can't forget Corrupt Cops, little more than criminals with badges whose  only intention is to prey on anyone they can. But the other pages tell  of a little more than that. We have the Hispanics, lead  by El Burro of Portland with two of his five missions focused  on giving the Forellis a bad rap - the Forellis are another Mafia family in Portland, huge protagonists in GTA Liberty City Stories but almost inexistent in GTA 3. The last criminal organization  in Portland are the Thongs, who were renamed Triads in final version. Yardies and Hoods are also mentioned, but their  appearance is only shown in the missions table, which is probably one of  this document's last updates. What is completely missing from this document  is a page giving details about the Masks, an unknown organization we were supposed to fight. It's quite obvious that this group  was the first iteration of what later became the Colombian Cartel and Catalina itself. The story's concept wasn't significantly changed, but it seems it was made a little  better by adding that personal element; instead of being ambushed, Claude was betrayed. So instead of having a revenge  story on a mysterious group, Claude is hunting down people he  knows who tried to f- him over. There are various pages in the document  focused on the characters of the game and even more can be learned from the pages  of information about the story, missions or by looking at the document supplied to all  Rockstar employees in attendance at the 2001 E3 - the document is a guide on what to do, what to  avoid and what's OK for them to share and whatnot. Let's start with our protagonist - Claude. He's described as an American guy, 5' 9'', 29 years old who has a very specific  distinguishing feature: a mole on his ass... Well, another detail is that Claude's  clothes were supposed to change sometimes and that this feature was supposed to be completely controlled by the game script, not the player - which is something that actually happens  during the first mission of the game. Claude goes from the Prison  uniform to his classic outfit, but it's a onetime only kind of thing. But the main thing we can learn about Claude, can be learned by looking at the script  for the introductory mission of GTA 3. According to Rockstar, Claude was  always designed as a silent guy; he wasn't supposed to be able to talk,  partly to aid people identifying with him, but mostly because they had so many other problems  to solve and this didn't seem like a major issue. Rockstar even pushed this  concept affirming in a Q&A that at no point did they plan  for Claude to have a voice and that the quote "Get out of the car" heard in the first ever gameplay footage of the game wasn't genuine: "This is fake. This is an old bit  of gameplay footage, for sure, but we think the voices were added  at a later date by someone online as at no point did we plan for Claude to have a  voice or even design how a speaking protagonist would be implemented until Vice City." In our collection we have various official press disks, created by Take-Two / Rockstar Games to promote their titles. In one of them dated February 23rd 2001 - before that same footage was released by IGN on their website  - we have that exact same video. In that video we can clearly hear someone saying "Get out of the car", an audio clip from GTA2 reused and edited for this trailer, while Claude is throwing someone out of the car. "Get out of the car, man!" "Get out of the car!" But that's not all. On page 172 of the design document we  have the complete script of the cutscenes and missions for the Industrial sector and after some blazay-woo-woo  of which we'll talk later, we also have the lines of  dialogue between the character and we can clearly see that here,  Claude was supposed to have a voice. Another mission in which Claude has lines  is "Pulp Friction" - the document name for the mission we know as "Chaperone". Unfortunately, these are the only lines  for Claude in the entire document. Apart from these two, missions are  soliloquies from bosses, like we're used to. That said, we got tidbits  about other characters too. 8-Ball for example ended up in jail after one of his devices detonated on a job before he'd properly placed it - which is why his hands are all messed up. 8-Ball's a Mafia associate, in fact the only  brother in the group, so everybody knows him. Not only was he always available at  his garage in the South Industrial area - where players could  fit explosives to vehicles, but 8-Ball was also often  available at Luigi's club where, for a price, he would sell  us other kinds of explosives. Nothing really new about Luigi "The Snake"  Goterelli, apart from being shorter than he looks and according to his description,  would rather charm, than shout. Luigi's always accompanied by a 6'  7'', 35 year old bodyguard called "Muscles", described as "bloody huge." We later discover his name's Mickey. The only two people who dare to mess with him are Luigi and Salvatore. Next in line is Joey Leone, Salvatore's son. We're given generic details like  his love for motor vehicles and that he prefers overalls to the suit  and position in the organization. Toni - whose last name in this  document was Fucile - is one of the territorial lieutenants of the Mafia. An aggressive defender, he deals with the family's  operations and deals ruthlessly with rivals. Toni's described as an ugly, middle-aged, Italian man with a spreading waistline  who wears a suit and gold jewelry. He has a violent, crass personality only  mitigated by his mother, who he still lives with. Inspite of all this, she still  thinks of him as her golden boy. She constantly embarrasses him  in front of other Mafia members, but people are too scared to tease him about her. Maria is a 25 year old, 5' 10'', olive-skinned Italian-American beauty with a toned body and perfectly proportioned "ass-ets". She's the designated player love  interest throughout the game. As Claude progresses through the levels,  his fate becomes intertwined with Maria's. Thanks to GTA San Andreas, we discover that Maria was a waitress at the Caligula's  Casino where she met Salvatore. The two became a couple from that moment on. But Maria's past according to  the document was quite different. "She moved to Liberty City to study and  like many female students in the States, she turned to erotic dancing to  fund her way through college. After a month at Luigi's club, she became a bit  of a starlet and despite Luigi's persuasive ways, she never took up the offer to become  one of Luigi's 'working girls'. Inevitably she attracted Salvatore's attention  on one of his many visits to the club and soon became the center of his amorous advances. As soon as she'd acknowledged his existence, she found herself isolated from the opposite sex. She was Salvatore's girl  whether she loved it or not. She then grew to like Salvatore, but he didn't like her carrying on her education and liked even less her aspirations for a career. She soon found herself housebound and  as Salvatore became more used to her, so the romance waned and Salvatore's  darker side revealed itself. She is now desperate to  escape her tragic situation." The last character depicted and described  with ties to the Mafia is Salvatore. Called "Frankie Leone" at the  time this document was written. Salvatore was a 56 year old, slightly balding, 6' foot man with very Roman features. Sal favors traditional tailoring and  carnations in his suit jacket's buttonhole. He's the head of the Leone family and believes in traditional Sicilian family values and  expects respect from every quarter. Salvatore suffers fits of  explosive rage when wronged, although these outbursts aren't  usually directed at people. Whole restaurants however have been demolished  as his lieutenants try to placate him. It's well known that his wife Maria has  borne the brunt of his darkest moods. Already at this point in the game's development,  Salvatore's fate was to be killed by the player. Misty's description doesn't offer  additional details about her, but we do learn more about Mike Lips and Chunky Dave - known in the final game as Chunky Lee Chong. Both end up as targets in Joey's Leone missions. "I got a little job for you pal." "The Forelli brothers have owed me money for too long and they need to be taught some respect." Mike Lips was a local businessman and long-time  poker player who found himself at the wrong table. He ended up being owned by Joey  - according to the document. Chunky Dave instead sold various narcotics  through his noodle stand for the Mafia but when he started dealing Rapture - or SPANK as it's known in the final game - he signed his fate at the hands of the Mafia. Lastly, is Curly Bob, described as the Mob's finest gun - that is until a close call cost him his nerve. He started drinking to calm his  nerves to continue being a sniper, until finally he was too  messed up to shoot straight and dropped down to doing menial tasks for Luigi. His addiction was the key to the Masks using him as informer. Moving from Portland to Staunton Island  the first character we meet is Asuka, called Kemuri on some pages. According to this document, Asuka isn't Kenji's  sister, but head of security for the Yakuza. A sharp dresser she oozes self-confidence, preferring chic trouser suits to accentuate  her figure and create a more masculine image. Her character is mainly inspired by Lucy Liu from  Payback, Ally McBeal and more. Another character based on  famous actors, is Ray Machowski, described as a "Columbo meets Harvey  Keitel". An interesting mix we admit. He's a 48 year old, 5' 8'' dirty cop. According to his back story, Ray loves money. Everything and everyone else is so  expendable that he gained a reputation for "losing" partners - as we know. What we didn't know is that Ray was supposed to have women sprinkled throughout Liberty, all of which he kept living in a high standard of. Also, Asuka's original concern about Ray was  his growing arrogance and air of untouchability, which is leading to the end of his  usefulness as a police contact. "This is it, I'm way over my head and I'm starting to drown here!" "The CIA seem to have a vested interest in SPANK and they don't like us screwing with the Cartel." Kenji is described a 6 foot, 28 year old man  with delicate almost elfish, Japanese features. Kenji is one of a new breed who's managed to blend ancient Yakuza traditions with the modern  capitalism of the States seamlessly and regularly supplies the black  market in Japan with American cars. The counterfeit project was his idea  and he saw it as an opportunity to show the Yakuza what an excellent head of the  criminal organization in Liberty he'd make. Above all, he first wants to make  a good impression on Toshiro. We've heard the name before but now it's  time to understand the man behind the name. According to the document, Toshiro is  a 62 year old, 5' 6'', heavily lined man. His face conveys a serenity and benevolence that bellies the power he wields and the number of people he has killed. Impeccably dressed, he carries an ivory handled cane. Toshiro came to the States as an eager young man in the late '60s and started work  as a runner for a family betting shop. He experienced the lingering post-war  antipathy toward Japanese immigrants that increased as Japanese manufacturing  techniques caused mass unemployment in America. He soon realized that America was not its people, but its opportunities and  so began his Yakuza Empire. With the counterfeiting operation,  he will have gained the reputation and respect in Japan to allow him to return  to an honorable and wealthy retirement. He has a fatherly pride in  Kenji's progress within his Yakuza family and has every confidence  in leaving the concern in his control. So, according to his backstory, as Portland was  mainly focused on Claude working for the Mafia, Staunton Island was a territory exclusively   focused on the Yakuza - but we'll get into that later. For now, just know that  Shoreside was also Yakuza turf. Upon reaching Staunton island  we started working for Asuka, moved on to Kenji, then Ray and lastly Toshiro, with the entire Yakuza arc mainly  focused on the counterfeiting operation, which is also the reason why we found  ourselves free at the beginning of the game. But here's where the document clearly jumps from a "Masks" centered story to a version more  similar to the one we ended up playing. In the final pages, The Masks  had been replaced for some time by the Colombian Cartel and Claude's  vengeance is now against Catalina, a woman described as Claude's ex-lover,  a fiery Latin American beauty. "A man-eater, a femme fatale  black widow praying mantis bitch with the kind of ambition that sees the dry husks of her ex-lovers fall by the  wayside like so many paper-dry corpses. Always climbing to her next goal, there  is always something more she desires. "Satisfaction" is an alien concept to her. She's currently using Miguel "La Vibora" and  the Cartel to further her boundless ambition." This describes her perfectly, not only  as the character we have in GTA 3, but also the one we met and  worked with in GTA San Andreas. "What the f- did you want?" "Nothing, I'm looking for a friend of mine's cousin. Mexican guy. He ain't here...." "You? But Cesar said you was a real man." And while these are all the info about the characters we could obtain from this document, there is more we can still learn from other sources. We already talked about a  character named Major Hale. Unfortunately, who the Major is, why  he's on the Zaibatsu base in Shoreside, and what kind of missions he  would have given us, is unknown. Considering his military background, Hale could have had the role that was  assigned in the final game to Phil Cassidy - someone who helped provide  access to military grade weapons. Thanks to never-before-seen artwork, we can  see how this character was supposed to look: middle-aged, heavily built,  and somewhat intimidating, Hale was clearly a serious person  - nothing like Phil Cassidy at all. He does however share some similarities with the artwork of Donald Love - despite the age difference. And speaking of Donald Love, many of  you may ask where he is in all this. Well, Donald simply isn't part of the game yet. Everything we know tied to the  multi-billionaire owner of the Love Media conglomerate either doesn't exist yet or is related to characters  we've already discussed - more on that when we examine the missions. Love was clearly created in a timeframe  between December 2000 and June 2001 and we know this because the character  is listed in the 2001 E3 document   and described as "a necrophiliac Donald Trump. Big business and a white  man making all the money. He instigates a power struggle between  the Yakuza and the Colombian Cartel." "If you have a unique commodity, the world and his wife will try to wrestle it from your grasp... even if they have little understanding as to its true value." At a certain point during its development, Sam Houser intended for GTA 3 to bring characters  like Bubba and Brother Marcus from the first GTA, along with others from GTA London. These intentions extended  to all the gangs from GTA2 because they had "the room to include them all." By the end of 2000, these plans ended up as nothing more than lore shared with  a journalist because as we know, none of any of those characters or gangs ended  up in GTA 3. The only exception being El Burro - which, thanks to the already  mentioned 2001 E3 document, we know was originally intended to be homosexual. "Now it's time for you to find out why they call me the donkey!" "I'm going to reward you personally this time!" Now, one of the more obscure, yet still widely known scrapped characters of GTA 3 is undoubtedly Darkel. Rockstar Games gave an official answer about who this character was in a Q&A article from December of 2011. According to them, Darkel was an insane  bum giving insane missions, five in total. He was removed long before the  9/11 related game changes, and none of his missions involved Russian communists, blowing up a school bus full of children or flying  planes into buildings as was always speculated. According to a preview dated February 2001, Darkel was a brooding old man who  wanted you to perform hideous tasks like stealing an Ice Cream Truck, filling it with dynamite and attracting as many people  as possible to it before detonating it. To those familiar with the game,  this task is almost identical to El Burro's side-mission "I Scream, You Scream" and this actually supports  Rockstar's words about Darkel: he started with 5 missions  and they were slowly all cut, when only one or two were left, they were all removed as the character  just didn't work alongside the others. Unfortunately, of the other four  missions we have no info or details. At a certain point, Darkel is  mentioned in the 2001 E3 booklet, listed between characters the player was  supposed to interact with exclusively via phone. In other words, a character that  would be heard, but never seen. This means that Darkel was still  part of the game until June 2001. "I want you to show these punk ass bitches how a real drive-by works." "Take these nines off of here!!" But more can be said about Darkel himself thanks to a page in the document. Darkel was originally meant to be used as a replacement for the Kill Frenzies we've seen in GTA 1 and 2. Darkel was a stinky, blind tramp who could  be found randomly wandering Liberty City and who always seemed to have  some heinous job for Claude. Those jobs weren't critical to the game, but sure were fun to complete. A typical Darkel job would be to kill 20 random  businessmen with a Rocket Launcher in one minute. If the player was able to complete the task, he was rewarded accordingly. Considering the mission detailed in the  article and the one shown in the document, it's pretty easy to understand why a  character like Darkel was cut from the game: civilians are never a direct target in game. There are no missions or odd jobs where the  game prompts you to murder innocent people. Rather it's always focused on gang members,  apparently bad people - or generic vehicles. Getting into his details, not many exist: Darkel's age is unknown, but his height is 5' 2'' and  he may or may not be blind. His special features are listed as  "unkempt, unhealthy and vagrant." His smell is so tangible that pedestrians who  pass him hold their noses so as not to puke. Darkel is an enigma described as both a smelly  old tramp and shuffling prophet of the Apocalypse. Unlike any other game characters, Darkel moves  from area to area, being impossible to kill and always available for bizarre  requests known as "special jobs," which could reward anything from useless junk  to weapons, armor, snippets of information or even unlock previously  inaccessible areas of the city. The story clearly changed from its  first plot to what we ended up with. Unfortunately, we don't have a script of the  entire plot. We only have from the beginning, to when we unlock the second island, Staunton. This is what the page tells us: "Claude has just escaped a successful bank heist with the loot and his gang when The Masks ambush them." This is already a big difference. In the final script, Claude is betrayed by Catalina  who is in cahoots with the Colombian Cartel. Instead, Claude and his gang is ambushed by a group called The Masks who seem to be the main  villains according to the script. "Left for dead he is patched up, convicted  and packed off to Liberty to do time. He shares his prison truck with  8-Ball (an explosive expert), an old Japanese gentleman and a prison guard. 8-Ball's hands are bandaged up. As the small convoy crosses the bridge that leads into Liberty City's industrial  sector, they are ambushed by the Yakuza. Their aim is to free the Japanese gentleman (a plate engraver crucial to their counterfeiting plans) and they're keen for there to be no survivors." Almost everything is identical to the  final version, with the exception being here the convoy is stopped by  the Yakuza, not the Colombians and that we finally have information about the mysterious Japanese gentleman,  described as a plate engraver - plates are used to print cash, so an excellent engraver is fundamental  for producing credible counterfeit money. "A lucky break sees Claude and 8-Ball  escape into the industrial sector. Unable to drive but with knowledge  of his home turf, 8-Ball helps Claude get to a club in the red light  district where they meet Luigi. An old friend of 8-Ball's and a key member  of the local Mafia, Luigi offers Claude work. After doing errands in and around Luigi's  pimping business, Claude gets to witness the presence of a new drug on the  streets, Rapture and he meets Joey Leone." Actually, nothing new to see here,  with the exception of the drug's name, "Rapture" in this document,  "SPANK" in the final game. "There's a new high on the street goes by the name of SPANK." "Some wiseguy's been introducing this trash to my girls down Portland Harbor." "Joey is the son of Mafia boss Frankie  Leone, and runs a specialist garage down by the docks where he prepares  and boobytraps vehicles for missions. His specialty is robbery, hijacking and anything  else that might require mobility around Liberty. While driving on an armored car heist, the Masks ambush Claude and the loot is stolen." Apart from Frankie's name change  to Salvatore later in the game,   we have a few more details about  what Joey was actually involved with. There is no proof to support this description  is more than just background for the guy. By the way it's highly unlikely  that we would be able to actually use his services outside of specific missions. With that said, the last sentence is  again focused on this mysterious group, The Masks, who again ambush Claude. At this point its pretty clear that this  group is keeping tabs on our protagonist, exactly why and how is yet to be discovered. "The Mafia is put on a war footing and  Claude is introduced to Toni Fucile. Toni is Frankie's general, a mean little man who switches from subservient momma's boy to violent psychopath at the drop of a pizza. He feels that there is a period of  instability coming and that the Mafia must seek to reinforce its grip on the industrial  sector before a confrontation with the Masks." Toni here is described exactly the way he's drawn in one piece of early artwork - a little psychopathic man. Also by checking the second iteration of Toni, we can see a slight resemblance  to the actor Joe Pesci - so maybe that was the direction  Rockstar was going with this character. That said, clearly the Mafia isn't happy that  the Masks are moving into their business, so Toni's job is to prepare the  gang for a counter-offensive. "To this end he asks Claude to initiate hostilities  with the Thongs, a gang that runs Chinatown. Claude continues to run missions  for Toni throughout a bloody gang war before being introduced to Frankie Leone. The player's first meeting with  Frankie is also his first with Maria. Maria is young and beautiful and  totally trapped in a relationship with her much older and violent husband. A songbird in a barbed wire cage, she only gets to  fly when Frankie is doing 'business' at Luigi's. The player's first job for Frankie is to  chaperone Maria on one of her nights of freedom." A couple things here - first the name of the  Chinese gang: here called Thongs and not Triads. Secondly is Maria. The Maria we meet in the game  is clearly both the victim and the executioner. Sure she's a fine-ass woman, but she doesn't really channel the classic damsel in distress vibe, which is clearly what Rockstar was going for. "Yeah, yeah, yeah! I'm sure your new lap dog has everything covered, and isn't he big and strong?" "Frankie discovers a grass in the family  and Claude is given the job of tailing him. He follows Curly Bob to a meeting with the  Masks on a derelict freighter in the docks. He interrogates Curly afterwards and finds that  the freighter is a factory manufacturing Rapture." In the game we all played, this mission is clearly "Cutting the Grass." The differences again are the Colombians replacing  the Masks and the drug SPANK was called Rapture. But what's really interesting here, is that as Claude, we were supposed to interrogate Curly  after his meeting with the Masks... but how could we do that if our  character wasn't able to speak? "Frankie decides that enough is  enough and the Masks must go. While the Mafia sorts out the Masks on the street, Claude is charged with  destroying the Rapture Factory. He enlists 8-Ball and together  they assault the Mask's stronghold. Gaining some revenge for his  earlier hospitalization and conviction by killing one of The Mask Bosses in a brutal gunfight, Claude helps 8-Ball demolish the  freighter in a spectacular fireball." According to this script, Claude and  8-Ball's attack on the freighter was accompanied by the Mafia attack on the streets  of the Industrial sector against the Masks. During the mission Claude  killed one of the group bosses - and destroys the freighter, which actually remained in the final  version of the mission in the game. "On returning to Frankie's, the player  learns that Maria has run away. Frankie is furious and ready to order her death, but Claude persuades him that he  might be able to bring her back. As he heads into the Commercial sector, the  player receives a pager message from Maria..." And here we have another huge difference  between the script and the final game. According to this version Salvatore didn't plan a trap for Claude because Maria probably  didn't tell him that they were a thing. Maria simply left Salvatore and  Salvatore couldn't accept it. Again, we have another hint at the possibility  that our character was actually not mute 'cause otherwise how could he have  persuaded Salvatore to let Maria live? "I couldn't let him do that, I mean the worst thing is, it's all my fault... because I told him, we were an item. Don't ask me why. I don't know." With that being the preamble and first look  at the plot narrated like a short story, more details are given in the document  thanks to what we can call the Script. Like a screenplay, this part of  the document gives details on who is on the set, how cameras should move, what kind of effects should be used and,  obviously, the lines the characters speak. So, let's go back to the beginning of  the story and get into the details. "Claude is backing out of a bank with  two cohorts, all wearing ski masks, all armed, all carrying bags full of cash. The alarm is ringing and the staff and  customers are all lying face down on the floors, the player's cohorts turn and run out the back door, while Claude armed with a shotgun, lets off two shots into the ceiling eliciting screams from those on the floor, showering them with chunks of polystyrene  tiling. He then turns too and follow his mates. The Player is gunned down and the lead mask  strolls over and takes the player's bag. Fade to black with the Dual Shock beating out a weak pulse. The players can hear paramedic, surgeons, judge and jury saving his life  and convicting him respectively. The clamor of voices becomes  louder and louder until the Judge's gavel silences the crowd like a gunshot. This marker coincides with a  sudden switch to bright white. The Player's view clears a little  as we soar in the sky above Liberty. There is no sound except the  hushed roar of the city below. The player gets a look at the different areas to be explored in Liberty as the camera sails about the sky." This entire scene in the game was replaced by a shot of a journal with the voice of a  journalist explaining what happened. Also, the entire presentation  of Liberty City was removed, probably due to an extremely  limited field of view. Showing an empty city with  details popping up here and there, surely ain't the best way to introduce a game. "We focus attention on the suspension bridge that leads into the Industrial sector  and a police convoy heading that way. The camera swoops down into the  thunder of the early morning traffic, dropping in behind the Prison Truck. While a botty kicking tunes starts, two black  vans speed past the camera, overtaking the convoy. Here the opening credits start to  punctuate and accentuate the action with freeze-frames and strobed visual effects. Inside the truck we see the player sitting beside  another convict (8-Ball) who has bandaged hands. The player looks up at an old Japanese  gentleman, flanked by a guard, sitting opposite. The OJG, Old Japanese Gentleman, turns his head away and looks out of the  thick armored glass in the rear door. Cut to a camera following  the truck at about 3 meters, we can see the OJG looking out of the rear window. The camera rises above the truck  to give a view of the road ahead. In the distance we can see two  black vans parked across the road. The camera zooms into the  roadblock at hyperspeed and stops, framing two Yakuza soldiers who have exited a van and are pointing a rocket  launcher at the oncoming convoy. Our POV is blinded by the flash of the rocket  launcher while the kick ass tunes stop abruptly. Camera POV changes to that of the rocket as it flies at hyperspeed towards the leading cop car. POV changes to above and behind the prison  truck as the police car is blown into the air, spiraling over the truck, and while the kick  ass tunes blast back into the action. POV switches to behind the Yakuza roadblock, looking towards the convoy as the  truck screeches to a sliding stop. The rear police car avoids the truck,  handbraking to a stop across the road. The police get out as the Yakes open up with  machineguns but they are rapidly gunned down. Camera stays behind the Yakes  as they advance on the truck, emptying their magazines into the truck cab (civilian vehicles continue to add to the  pile up a few meters behind the truck). They go around the back, point the rocket launcher at the rear doors and shout in Japanese. The doors open and a cop staggers  into the sunlight, hands in the air. The old Japanese gentlemen gets out, is greeted  with a bow from the Yakes and he is lead away. The cop keeps his arms in the air as he turns, following the OJG's progress and  keeping an eye on the Yak's guns. His arms lower slowly, then BLAM, he's  whacked in the jaw by a huge bandaged fist. The camera pulls back and we see 8-Ball  and Claude stood over the unconscious cop." And here is where Claude's  first lines of dialogue came in. As we can clearly see, the Hollywood  way of describing the scenes, the cuts and movement of the cameras,  the characters and everything else, is exactly the kind of stuff we expect  from a Rockstar Game production today, but just look at the beauty of what we're saying: this is how they were already  thinking 20 years ago. There's more in the script about the  upcoming missions, so let's peep them. We've already seen in an international 2016 exhibition called "GAME ON: Why are video games so interesting?" a whiteboard with the entire GTA 3 mission structure that included some additional info and artwork. What we have in this document is  basically a paper version of that board. It features dozens of pages focused  on how the game should be played, giving, as a primary objective, getting revenge on  the Masks by completing a string of 50 to 60 missions - each rewarding the player with  cash, useful tools or cutscenes. The main difference between  the document and the board, is that the latter was clearly updated to a point  that left it closer to the official game release. We know this because we got Donald Love and  other characters sporting their final names and pretty much the final names and  exact rewards for each and every mission. The document on the other  hand has all kinds of goodies, from lines of dialogue, objectives and more. But we decided the best way to do this  chapter was to do a line by line comparison. We're taking every detail on the missions  between the flowchart, the script and sketches, and comparing them with the missions we  ended up playing in the game - in order. According to the document, missions could have  started with the player briefed using a cutscene or by reaching a payphone where a  talk with the boss would happen. Another way was by "bumping" into characters. Them reaching us in the area we are, instead of us reaching them at their contact  points - like it would have been with Darkel. We already talked about the intro - the Masks instead of the Cartel shooting at Claude, the courthouse, the Yakuza instead of the Colombians attacking the police convoy and how Claude was supposed to talk with 8-Ball. The rest of the mission was supposed to be more  or less the same with the duo stealing a car, reaching the hideout, changing  clothes and driving to Luigi's. Finally, the mission name  "Give me Liberty" survived. Luigi's very first mission in the document  is called by three different names: "Whore Drop-off", "Ho Drop-off" and "Luigi's Girls". The introductory cutscene was supposed to end  with Claude entering the club from the back door and stepping out wearing new clothes,  probably a classic Mafia suit. Once in the right clothes we  were to steal a 4-door car, pick up Trixie and Misty - two of Luigi's  girls - by stopping in front of the club. We drop the first at Reverend Flannery's  and the second, Misty, at the Clinic. Once that's done, we were to return to Luigi. This mission clearly underwent various  iterations but thanks to the iOS version of the GTA 3 Anniversary Edition, we know that at one point  the sequence was inverted, and we had to get the girls from the Reverend and  the Clinic and then bring them back to Luigi's. From this point on, all missions were  supposed to start in the narrow alley with Muscles (Mickey), blocking  our way to the back into the club and telling us that Luigi's "busy" and that he told him to give us an  envelope with the details for the next job. "Don't Spank ma Bitch Up" was  called "Don' Smack ma Bitch Up" and while in the flowchart the mission  already mentions the new drug as SPANK, in the script it's still called Rapture. The mission was also shorter,  including only the first part of beating a drug dealer with a baseball bat - no cars to steal, repaint or park. Thanks to a screen from Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine, we can also see that in another iteration of this mission, the car we had to retrieve was a  bright pink Perennial, not a Stallion. "Drive Misty for Me", renamed "Misty Drive",  is unchanged if we ignore Luigi's words and the next two missions are inverted  between the flowchart and the script - with the flowchart using the same  order as the one in the final game. "Pump-Action Pimp" is mostly unchanged with  the script being about some random wise guy, while in the flowchart Luigi is already  pointing his finger at the Diablos. In "The Fuzz Ball" Muscles was supposed to  give us the pager - which we magically posses   in the game instead - and through it, receive the mission details. According to the script we need to  retrieve a bus, bring it to Luigi's to fill it with his girls and then reach the  Fuzz Ball on the corner of Street and Street. Not only does that last sentence show a  major difference in the mission we played where we had to retrieve  the girls around Portland, but also shows that early in development Rockstar's intention was to give specific  names to each street in the game, something actually done from  Grand Theft Auto 4 onwards. The number of missions for Joey changed with one  missing from the script, but let's go in order. "Mike Lips' Last Lunch" was called "Lips  Forelli's Last Lunch" but the mission was the same - steal his car, fit it with an explosive then park the car in the same place he left it and blow it up once Mike Forelli got in. In this version also, by reading Joey's words, it looks like we were supposed to  bring Mike's vehicle to Joey's garage, not to 8-Ball as explained some lines later. In the next three missions Joey was supposed to  be working under a car and pointing out to us an envelope on a bench containing  instructions for the next jobs. "Kill 'Chunky' Lee Chong" previously named "Kill Chunky Dave" was mostly the  same mission we ended up with. The difference being, according to the script, we were supposed to pick up a Pump-Action shotgun  in a store before reaching Chunky in Chinatown. In the flowchart "Van Heist" didn't change at all, but according to the script, the armored  van was doing the weekly pay run from the bank to the Chemical Plant we talked about before. The van was supposed to be unescorted,  giving us the chance to hit it hard, steal it and bring it to a warehouse  where Joey's guy could crack it. This is the famous mission where we were  supposed to be ambushed again by the Masks. This is how that event was to  unfold according to Rockstar: "The warehouse is a ramshackle  corrugated steel construction. The warehouse doors slide open and the Player  drives in. There is a scene of devastation. Numerous overalled bodies lie  in pools of blood and Mask One is standing there with his hooded  goons. A goon approaches the van. The Player kicks the door open,  knocking the goon to the floor, and dives out of the van,  grabbing the goon's dropped Uzi. The Masks open up with Uzi's and  the Player sprints towards some crates/drums and dives for cover. As the crates and drums gets riddled with bullets the Player uses the Uzi to cut an arc in the  corrugated wall and he kicks it through. Cut to alley outside. Claude runs  down the alley into the street. End cut. Just like in an action movie. Not all of this is available in  the flowchart - another indication of how the pages of this document reflect  various stages in the game's development. Joey's fourth mission was called  "Escort Toni Home" instead of "Cipriani's Chaffeur" and here too the  flowchart and script have discrepancies. In the script, Joey's introduction  is centered around the Masks and the mission only required bringing Toni -  with Fucile still as his last name - to his house. In the flowchart instead the mission is  almost identical to the one in the final game. "Dead Skunk in the Trunk" is the  missing mission from the script, while details in the flowchart describes  the same mission we actually played. The Last one is "The Getaway" in the document  called "The Bank Job" and "Daylight Robbery". The latter is the script name of the  mission that requires us to get a van, reach the guys, pick them up and drive to the bank. At this moment the robbery  would start - synchronized to an on-screen timer set to 45 seconds. We were to drive around the block during  that time to avoid raising suspicion and stop the van in front of the bank 5 seconds  before the alarm goes off to scoop up our boys. With the boys onboard, we had to reach a second  car they would switch to before disappearing, while we dispose of the van  at an automotive compactor. On the flowchart the mission instead was  far more similar to the one we played, the difference being one of the  boys had a line of dialogue, saying that we should have  dropped the team at the safehouse and then again, the vehicle used for the mission  should have been taken to the car crusher. Toni's contact point is unchanged:  he sits at a table outside his Mom's restaurant while various 'family  members' drop in to get their orders. Like with Joey, in the flowchart we  can see five missions tied to Toni, while only four are available in the script. This difference is explained  by another flowchart where we can see that Toni's last mission was  split into four smaller objectives, but we'll talk about that later. First of all, Toni's first mission in  the script "Taking Out the Laundry", was directly tied to Joey's mission in which  we have to drive Toni to his restaurant - in other words, those two missions were  consecutive, with Toni's starting as Joey's ended. Between the script and the flowchart,  the only real change was dialogue, but the mission itself was practically the same: to blow up three Laundry vans 'cause  they didn't un-ass that protection money. Now in the document they use Molotov cocktails  but, in the game, we ended up with grenades. The next mission started with the  player sitting at a table picking up the menu where Toni's instructions are written. Known as "The Pick-up" in the  game and on the flowchart, as "Thong Ambush" that name was clearly  too indicative of what was going to happen. The mission, again, really  didn't change that much. Next is "Salvatore's Called a Meeting" - again  same name on the flowchart as in the game, but different in the script: "Frankie & Maria". According to the flowchart, the mission was  exactly the same as we played in the game, but if we have to consider the script,  despite having the same introduction message, this mission was merely used as a bridge to bring  the player to Salvatore and unlock his strand. In the script Toni's fourth mission  was called "Thongs for the Memory" - while on the flowchart, and in the  game, it's called "Triads & Tribulations". But let's go in order by looking  at the script's version first. Upon picking up the menu,  the player sees this message. The objective of the mission is  clear - and even clearer on the other flowchart as the mission requires  completing four different objectives: 1. Destroying the fish factory; 2. Destroying the fish trucks; 3. Destroying the fish market and 4. Killing all Thong members. The purpose of this mission was to eradicate  the Thongs from Portland, once and for all. We know this mission was retouched and split into  two different ones from looking at the flowchart. In the first mission we originally had  to trash the Triads' fish market in Chinatown and kill at least 20 Triad gang members, while the next mission, called "Blowfish" - single  word in the document, two words in the game - required us to collect a dustcart  rigged with explosives and park it between the gas canisters at the  Triad fish factory, then detonate it. And now, to Salvatore's missions. As we said before, according to the  script the player triggered the mission when he arrives outside Salvatore's  whilst on Toni's third mission. The name of this mission was originally  "Pulp Friction" - a clear reference to Pulp Fiction's rather eventful dinner  date with Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace. "No, no, no, no, no." "I do believe Marcellus, my husband, your boss, told you to take me out and do whatever I wanted." Later changed simply to "Chaperone", in the  game, it evolved into something quite different: starting with us outside Sal's mansion  we see several mobster's parked cars. As the player exits his car,  he's approached by Salvatore. Sal tells the player that  he needs a ride to Luigi's and that Maria needs a chaperone for the night. The rest of the cutscene is Salvatore  and Maria yelling at each other with the duo finally entering the player's car at the end. Once Salvatore is dropped at Luigi's  for his meeting, the second part of this mission starts with us taking Maria to  "The Crazy Camel"... and doing some wild shit. The mission explanation on the flowchart instead is not that different from  what we played in the game with Salvatore and his lieutenants  in the house and Maria out for the night - first taken to a dealer, then to a rave, etc. - obviously if we don't consider  the lines of dialogue between Maria, Chico and Claude which we've already discussed. From this mission on, the script explains that  Salvatore is never available as a mission contact, but that he's the one approaching  the player when he needs something - he would have sent us a message  on the Pager telling us to reach a specific payphone and call him for the details. Anyhow, Salvatore's second mission  is called "Cutting the Grass", a name kept unchanged for the game. According to the script, Bob was sent  on an errand, followed by the player. Grabbed after his meeting with the Masks, Bob's  brought back to Luigi who squeezes him for info. On the flowchart instead the mission is  quite similar to the one in the game. Follow the guy after he's inside a taxi,  let him meet with the Columbians labeled the baddies - that's right, no more  Masks from here on out on the flowchart - then kill him and call Salvatore  from a payphone for updates. The mission "Bomb da Base" was always  marked as a money-wall kind of deal - in other words a mission that  won't start unless the player meets specific requirements. In this  case, a specific amount of money. In the game the mission has  the same name as in the script, while on the flowchart it's simply  identified as "Buy explosives". The next step is the actual mission, in the game called "Bomb da Base: Act II". The flowchart explains the mission  exactly as the one we played, while in the script things go a little different. The objective is still the freighter but  while Claude and 8-Ball are focused on that, the Mafia goons attack the Masks  on the streets of Portland. After reaching the freighter  and killing all the Masks, 8-Ball would "run onto the ship,  kneels by 'funnel-thang-wotsit'" - which we believe is a placeholder to  indicate a ventilation duct or some such object - and he "fiddles about it, then throws the case  with the explosive down the 'funnel-thang-wotsit'. Cut to Claude and 8-Ball running  down the quay towards the camera. There is a dull, deep 'whoomp' noise, then  secondary explosions rip through the hull, culminating in a final blast that destroys  the upper super structure in a huge fireball, breaking the ships back." And this brings us to Salvatore's last mission, "Last requests". A name used in  both the game and the flowchart, while in the script the  mission was called "AWOL Moll". According to the flowchart, before starting this  mission we had to complete all of Toni's missions, then Salvatore would ask us to get a car  from around the block from Luigi's and take it to the compactor before the cops find it. Upon reaching the car, Maria pages us  and wants us to meet her at the pier near Liberty Bridge - this was  Callahan Bridge's beta name. Once there, we discover that Sal was  sacrificing us to the Cartel to make a pact. Maria however was having none of it and  decided to escape her gilded cage with Salvatore and let us know that now we were a marked man on Mafia turf. With the help of Asuka we were  then to move to the next island. There was no jealousy, or passion whatsoever in Salvatore's motives  for selling us out... it was just business. The script instead tells a different story. Like we said - the mission name was "AWOL Moll"  and was focused on Maria leaving Salvatore. With him not keen on letting  her go, he sends us find her. We would then receive a page from  Maria saying "Claude? It's me, Maria. I can't explain everything but  you've got to meet me at <location> in the Commercial District. Please hurry!." After receiving the message, we were to  move to Staunton Island and once there, a cutscene showing the place triggered. This specific part is explained  as such in the script: "Because the player can use different  routes into the Commercial District, the scene should be a generic intro  to this second level. Go crazy." And this is where the script ends, but luckily for us, the flowchart instead continues, including the missions for El Burro, the leader of the Diablos. Missing are the missions for Marty Chonks,  owner of the Bitch'n' Dog Food Factory. On the flowchart we have  five missions for El Burro, the first of which was to be called  "Low Rider Race" instead of "Turismo". The mission was practically the same:  a race around the Industrial area, starting at the top of the bridge,  against three other Hispanic rivals. The second mission was called  "Drive By/Uzee Lu" or someshit. This is the missing mission focused on performing  quick drive-bys on two Forelli restaurants. The idea was to ruin the chain's reputation by gunning down their customers. And if you ask me, that'd do it. But clearly one can see why something like that got cut. Again - random civilians are never intended to be targets in the game. El Burro's third mission is "Fried Ice Cream" a different take on the in-game  mission called "I Scream, you Scream". According to the flowchart, in this mission we  were supposed to steal a Forelli Ice Cream Truck, rig it with explosive, bring  it to a busy pedestrian area and use the jingle to attract customers. Get a nice crowd around it, start the  time bomb and get the fuck outta dodge. If this sounds familiar, it's because you remember  a similar plan from Darkel explained by IGN. In the flowchart this mission ended up tied to  the Hispanics attacking the Forellis instead. The mission actually exists in the game,  but with various major differences. First, we have to retrieve a generic  "Mr. Whoopee" truck - not a Forelli one - secondly, we have to use a remote detonator  to trigger the bomb, no timer, no running. Lastly, but most importantly,  the targets are not civilians, but a rival gang who'd been threatening El Burro. The next mission in line on the flowchart is "Donky Porn Shipment", which is now known as "Big'n'veiny". The only difference is that  the truck wasn't stolen, but was simply dropping its  cargo we had to retrieve. Also, between the game and the flowchart,  the last two missions are inverted. This takes us to "Burn them, Burn them all!" renamed in game as "Trial by Fire". The mission is more or less the same - killing  a bunch of Triad members using a flamethrower. The reason however is quite different. In the game El Burro is mad because the Triads stole and burned his favorite car, but on the flowchart what the Triads  stole and burned was his pet donkey. And that brings us to the missions in the  second district, a.k.a. Staunton Island. The first person we would have worked  for was Maria according to the script, but unfortunately, as we said, we don't have info about the  missions from the script anymore, just the flowchart that was clearly made  months after the first version of the story. So, the first mission in Staunton is  instead "Farewell Salvatore", called "Sayonara Salvatore", for Asuka with the mission  being exactly the same as the one in the game. The next two missions for Asuka were  inverted between the flowchart and the game. "Paparazzi Purge" is unchanged, while "Under Surveillance" was called  "Sniper Surveillance" on the flowchart. The mission is basically the same, except it didn't involve any Mafia  goons, but rather five FBI agents. The deal was to kill them using a sniper  rifle before the time available expired - also after killing the third  agent, we'd have the FBI after us. So, the mission was supposed to be way,  way harder than the one in the final game. "Payday for Ray" is exactly the same  on the flowchart as it is in the game, while "Two-Faced Tanner" was  called "Kill Two Faced Tanner". Tanner's car by the way was an  Eldorado - which could easily be the name of the Esperanto during the beta. And that brings us to Kenji's missions. "Kanbu Bust-Out" is identical in every way. The second mission, called  "Grand Theft Auto" in the game, in the script is named "Gone in 60 seconds"  exactly like the 2000 movie with Nicolas Cage. While in the final game we had to steal  specific vehicles and bring them to a garage, according to the flowchart we were actually able to also steal those vehicles  if we found them around the city. The drop point in this case  was supposed to be a warehouse. Next, we have "Deal Steal", while the mission  kept its name, everything else was very different. Instead of simply stealing a Yardie Lobo, we were supposed to find and kill the  Yardies that were going to the deal, steal their car and pick up a load  of Yakuza gang members - not just one - then get to the location of the deal. Here the Yakuza would have killed  just about every Colombian, but some of them were to have been  able to jump in a car and get away. To complete the mission, we had to kill  all the remaining Colombians in the area, then chase down the car and kill those in it too. "Shima", the next mission, also  kept its name in the final game but in executing the mission  there was one small difference: after reaching the last pickup, we were  supposed to find it trashed and with a sprayed tag over the front of  the shop from the Hispanics - at this point still named  as such - not the Diablos. This is the point where things start to  change and a lot from the final game. Instead of "Smack Down", the  next mission for Kenji was called "Save the Old Japanese Gentleman", a mission in which we have to  steal a Colombian gang car, use it to infiltrate the Colombian's compound, kill the enemies and save some Old Japanese  Gentleman that managed to get kidnapped... again. In the final game this mission is called  "Liberator" and it's Donald Love's first mission. As we said before, in this document  there are no traces of Love, but despite his absence, those missions are still in the flowchart  - they're just from different characters. Kenji's strand would have ended at this point  while Ray's would start with "Silent Witness". The mission is more or less the same as "Silence  the Sneak" the only difference being its target. In the flowchart it's a witness  to the hit on Salvatore Leone, while in the mission it's Ray's  former partner, Leon McAffrey. The mission "Arms Shortage" was called "Arms  Protection" with it being the same as we played. "Evidence Dash" kept the same name  and more or less the same gameplay, but the reasons were quite different. Instead of retrieving six pictures of  Donald Love feasting in the morgue, we had to retrieve eight packages of  documents collected by Internal Affairs about Ray's activities in one of Ray's old haunts - lastly, with all the packages retrieved, we were supposed to bring everything back to  Ray's hideout, instead of torching the vehicle. "Gone Fishing" and "Plaster Blaster"  in the final game are exactly the same, from the names to the missions themselves. In the game at this point we're supposed to be working for Donald Love, but as we said, Love is not a character in the Design Document. Instead of him we have Toshiro with his  first mission called "A Drop in the Ocean". Exactly like in the namesake mission for Love, we were supposed to retrieve several  packages dropped from a Cessna into the bay - thanks to the flowchart we know that the  packages were supposed to contain forging plates and that the mission was a decoy to lure  the cops away from the real forging plates. Toshiro's second mission was called  "Getting into the Airport" and it was the second paywall in the  game after "Bomb da Base" - the real plates were in the  Cessna and the Customs officials stripped the plane at the airport. To retrieve them we'd have had to pay a huge cash bribe to either airport  security or the customs officers. Completing this mission would  have opened the third district, also unlocking the mission  "Grand Theft Aero" for Toshiro. Before continuing with Toshiro's missions, let's talk about the Yardies and  the Southside Hoods for a minute. The Yardies had three missions instead  of the four available in the game. The first was called "Drug Rush" and it wasn't  a simple race like "Bling-Bling Scramble". The objective of this mission was to deliver some new drug to some freelance  pushers before the rivals. In "Gangcar Round-up", called "Gang Cars",  we had to retrieve a Mafia gang car, a Triad gang car and a Hispanic  gang car within a time limit - in the game this mission's only difference is the name and the Triad gang car  was replaced by a Yakuza gang car. "Kingdom Come" was called "Suicide Bombers" and I don't think I need to explain  why that name was changed. The mission itself however didn't change much, the Colombians found out that  we were working with the Yardies and they set a trap by rigging some psychos high  on Rapture - SPANK in the game - with explosives. The player knows only that  he has to steal a car for Muff Daddy - the working name for the character who later became King Courtney - and after discovering the trap he has  to either kill all psychos or escape. The Southside Hoods, simply called  the "Hoods" on the flowchart, are also lacking one mission of the  five we ended up with in the game. The first mission for Dr. G, renamed D-Ice in the game, was called  "RC Assassin" instead of "Toyminator", but the mission itself was almost  identical save one small difference: the armored vehicles were police vans, not  Securicars used by the Nines to run SPANK. "Rigged to Blow" is the same mission,  with the only difference being that the garage to reach was 8-Ball's,  not another one in Portland. Next in line is "Bullion Run", again, same name, same mission, the difference being that we had  to collect gold, not platinum and that there was no Federal Reserve flight, just a van damaged by some Hoods  that's now losing gold all over the city. The last mission was called "Baseball bats  at dawn", renamed "Rumble" in the game. The flowchart explains that there is a regular, organized rumble between the Zeros  (the Purple Nines in the final version) and the Hoods (renamed as  Red Jacks) and that we were invited to drive everyone there and then join in. The two missing missions for the Yardies and the Southside Hoods in the document  are "Uzi Rider" & "Uzi Money", both similar missions where while in  a vehicle we have to kill a specific number of gang members from the opposite gang.   With the optional missions covered,  let's get back to Toshiro's missions assuming that we've found the amount  of money necessary to unlock Suburbia, the third district we all know as Shoreside Vale. As we said, the mission was called  "Grand Theft Aero" and was more or less the same mission we can play for Donald - reach the plane while some Palantic  Construction vans speed away, fight the Colombians in the hangar, discover  that the plates aren't there anymore, reach the Palantic Construction site using  a heavy vehicle to break down the fence and fight our way through the Colombians to  reach Catalina, Miguel and the plates. A bit of clarification here if we may: yes, the company was called "Palantic  Construction", not "PanLantic Construction." Second, the construction site wasn't  supposed to have such easy access. Third this is the first time ever in the  entire document that Catalina is mentioned. We've already dropped the mysterious Masks for the Colombians some time ago, but this is actually the first time both  Catalina and Miguel became part of the game. "No es nada! No es nada!" "I left you pouring your heart out into the gutter!" "Don't shoot amigo." Toshiro's fourth mission was called  "One of the gang" and it's a unique one. After liberating the Old Japanese Gentleman  and retrieving the plates from the Colombians, the Counterfeiting operation can start and  Toshiro organized a party to celebrate it. We were supposed to reach Toshiro at an  illegal fight at an underground car park where we would have the opportunity  to bet on one of the fighters. With that done, we had to bring Toshiro to  the Casino where the party was to be held, but upon our arrival at the party we  were to be attacked from a rooftop. A sniper kills Toshiro despite our reaction  time in grabbing a rifle and picking him off. With Toshiro dead, Kenji replaces him as the Yakuza's head in Liberty City. This also opens two new strands of missions:  one for Kenji, the other for Asuka. Let's start with Kenji's second strand. The first mission is called "Smack Down" in which Kenji asks us to kill all the Yardies  pushing Rapture - SPANK - for the Cartel. The mission is more or less the same  as the one we play in the final game, the difference being that sometimes  the pusher may have a backup vehicle according to the flowchart, making the mission a little harder. "Boss Meat", the second mission, was another  unique mission available only in this document. According to the flowchart, the Yardie posse lords are meeting a Cartel representative at a defunct factory. In this fun mission we had to find a way onto a roof and throw Molotov cocktails into their midst making sure that no-one got out alive. The third mission is another  unique one, called "Defender". After our attack, the Cartel starts  hitting Yakuza businesses with sushi restaurants marked as likely targets. Thus we had to patrol Yakuza territory and  rush to the aid of any business paging us. "Escort Service", Kenji's fourth mission, is another one of those we play  for Donald Love - more or less. We have to escort and eventually  defend a van holding the first batch of counterfeit cash  from the Cartel's attacks. The reason why Kenji is worried is because  one of the counterfeiters has gone missing and he fears he might have  been kidnapped and tortured or simply turned informer for the Cartel for money. Either way, the van was supposed to  start from the counterfeiting set-up and end up at the Casino where  the money will be laundered. Kenji's fifth mission was  called "Swat the S.W.A.T." and it's another one that  didn't make the final game. According to the flowchart, Ray  tips off Kenji that the Liberty PD is going to mount a raid on the  Yakuza's counterfeiting operation. Three S.W.A.T. vans are going  to approach the hideout from different directions to corner any escaping cash, equipment or Yakuza and our job  was to allow the Yakuza to get away by taking out the S.W.A.T.  teams by any means necessary. Kenji's last mission is called "Kenji's Dead". The mission was meant to be a simple  cutscene in which we find Kenji dying. But before he bites it, he manages to  tell us that Maria's been kidnapped. This brings us to Asuka's second strand of  missions with the first one called "Bait". This mission isn't that different from  its namesake we know from the game, in fact the gameplay is exactly the  same, with just details changing. We have Yardies selling SPANK - instead of death squads. The objective being to drive near a group of Yardies, use the horn button to piss them off so  that they will chase us into a kill zone filled with Yakuza gang  members armed with bazookas. The following mission is "Expresso to Go", renamed "Espresso-2-Go!" in the game, but this is the only difference. "Coffee Co.", is the name of the  third mission and while it's unique, it's still a direct segue from the previous one. Miguel reveals that the Cartel is using  a Coffee company to import cocaine. Our job was to sneak in, open a door and let  in the Yakuza to kick start a major shootout. "Plane Sailing" is the fourth mission and  it's more or less like the mission "S.A.M.". Except that we were supposed to get  a boat to a runway light pontoon, shoot down the aircraft that brings  fresh, monthly cocaine shipments, collect the crates from the debris in the sea  and stash them in an old dockside warehouse. Our fifth mission was called "Emergency Services"  and it's another cut mission from the final game. In this one Asuka is informed that the  Cartel is flying in reinforcements. After hitting the cocaine shipment, the airport security has been stepped up, making it impossible for us to bribe our way in. We were supposed to steal a Fire truck, gather some Yakuza members dressed  as firemen and drive to the airport. Here, we were to throw a Molotov Cocktail  over the fence hitting any flammable materials to set off the airstrip fire  alarm so we can get access to the gates. Once inside, we had to reach the plane and  massacre the Colombians as they try to deplane. "Asuka's Dead", was the sixth and last  mission of this second strand for Asuka and again was probably just a cutscene  showing Asuka and all the others dead. With both Kenji's and  Asuka's second strands ended, we would unlock the mission "Marked Man" for Ray. According to the flowchart the CIA  is making money from Cartel deals and is concerned that the Yakuza  are hindering the operation. They discovered that Ray is helping the  Japanese gang and decided to 'rub him out'. Now Ray is running scared and  needs a ride to the airport - no one's at his contact point, so he sends  us a message via pager asking us for help. From this moment on, the C.I.A. is after us too. When we catch up to Ray, we find him dressed  in a Hawaiian shirt and with two packed bags. With the C.I.A. hot on our heels, we have a limited time to get him  to the airport for his flight. To make matters worse, the C.I.A. may even  have assistance from Black Ops helicopters. After ending the mission, Ray gives us a shitload of cash. It's a bit more complicated than its namesake  mission in the game, but not by much. And that brings us to the end, hitting the third  and last paywall in the mission "Cash for Maria". Now we need to raise enough money for Catalina to replace the drugs we stole during  Asuka's mission "Plane Sailing". With enough money on our hands, the last two missions can be triggered. The first is merely a cutscene called "Exchange" - nothing more or less than "The Exchange" opening cutscene. When the Player arrives at the Colombian Mansion, he's frisked. Stripped of weapons he's taken to Catalina. After taking the money for Maria's and  our freedom, Catalina orders us killed. Claude quickly sows some seeds of doubt in the remaining Colombian goons  concerning Catalina's motives and in the confusion, he fights his way free  grabbing as much fire power as he can on the way. With the cutscene ending, the next mission  called "Catalina's Escape" would have started with the player following Catalina  to the dam where her helicopter is waiting. After fighting his way through goons to her, the player would find her injured and a cutscene would have started  giving the player the choice to execute Catalina or leaving her to the police, concluding the story with alternate endings of  which, unfortunately, we have no details at all. And there you have the details  for each and every mission, without considering a page full of  ideas of possible other missions like: knocking out the power plant; recovering  a body from the dumpster - limb by limb; kidnaping a baddie, taking him  out of town and shooting him; stopping a plane taking off or chasing and destroying a plane dodging  in and out of moving jets. Or pick our mom up from the hospital; kidnap a rich guy's daughter; deliver a music demo to a radio station and hear it on the radio later. Or using a funeral to lure gang members  together, then killing them all. The possibilities were literally infinite and  it's a shame that some of those ideas or even some of those removed missions  never saw the light of day... probably due to that time's limited technology. From its inception, GTA 3 was supposed  to feature multiple languages - not voiceovers, mind you - we're talking subtitles, menus, tooltips etc. We do know the game was  translated into five languages: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. At the time Portuguese and Japanese  were other possible choices. While Portuguese never saw  an official localization, Japanese became available two years  after the initial release of the game. Once Rockstar Games made an agreement  with Capcom to allow them to localize, publish and distribute the blockbuster  title in the Land of the Rising Sun, things were off and running. "So keep your hands on the wheel!" "If you don't mess this up, maybe there be more work for you." The document also states that they were  planning only 6 radio stations - then, just a couple paragraphs after  the number is raised to 8 - against the 9 we got in the final game. It also even mentions,  albeit with a question mark, the Country\Western genre - one of the  few music genres absent from GTA 3. Radios were supposed to have loop times of  16 minutes each, with 32 tunes more or less. They were to be unlocked by reaching new areas in  the game - with just 5 radio stations in Portland, a couple more in Staunton and the remaining  available only after unlocking Shoreside Vale. As the document stated, the game would  have made inventory visible on the HUD, containing not only the weapons but any  other pickups the player might have. Now we don't know if it only applies to items like the detonator, or if health and armor pickups, for example, were collectables that could have been  used at different times as well or not. And speaking of health, Claude was supposed to  gain health not only by going to the hospital, but also when visiting a pharmacist - known as chemist. Another idea the developers had was to offer the  players various styles of HUD's to choose from - something never added to the game, but that  gave GTA that extremely recognizable look. Among many other things, cash was also meant to buy special cars of which  unfortunately we have no details about. There were supposed to be five wanted  levels, not six like we ended up with. In the first two wanted levels we had only Cops - who won't use their firearms at first, but they would if the wanted  level is raised to two stars. The third level was for the SWAT Team aided  by helicopters with miniguns and searchlights. The fourth level was for the FBI. They rolled in unmarked cars and dressed in sharp suits and shades. The last one was for Army soldiers,  armed with Rocket Launchers, who were actually supposed to drive  around in tanks, jeeps and APC's. Changing cars unnoticed was a way to  confuse police and lower your wanted level - along with heading away from the police,  using respray garages or completing a mission. Like the player, the pedestrians were also  supposed to have their problems with the cops. The list of possible felonies included: running over pedestrians, running red lights, speeding,  crashing into cars or objects, shooting pedestrians, stealing cars, possessing a firearm and fleeing cops  in vehicles - leading to car chases. Cops would only chase wanted  pedestrians that are within range but the cops were also supposed  to be able to arrest them, shoot them down - just like in real life  - or use their "whackers", or nightsticks. They would have followed the  pedestrian on foot or in their cars. If the ped left his car, they'd continue the chase on foot. If they happened to lose him or their cars  got destroyed, they would return to HQ. Almost all of this actually happens in GTA 4 - it seems all they needed was  a more powerful platform. There's an entire paragraph on the page  explaining how peds should behave when injured - there is even a sentence considering the  death of the ped and whether or not such deaths would have been a problem for censors. A way to "solve" the problem was to let the  pedestrians 'get up' after a small pause. Uninjured peds were to have been  able to do everything as normal, but an injured one was instead supposed to have access only to a specific  set of "injured animations", again something only added years later in GTA 4. According to their vision, injured peds were supposed to act according to the type and severity of the injury, from stumbling along slowly dragging  their leg behind if the leg was broken or having their arm hanging  limp if their arm got broken, while with serious injuries, peds would lie  on the ground and crawl along very slowly. Clearly not all of this was possible and dead  peds weren't really that much of a problem considering the dismemberment and gore that  later became a much beloved feature of the game. Speaking of gore, violence was a topic discussed in almost every  preview and review of Grand Theft Auto 3. Every article adhered to the concept  that Rockstar Games wasn't interested in creating a video game for kids, but for adults. That their interest was to trigger  an evolution of video games, not only as wider media, but as  something created by adults for adults. This somehow collided with a snippet that we read from an article inside the Official Press Clippings where the journalist talks about  the possibility that DMA was considering developing two  different versions of GTA 3, the "real" game for adults, but also  another version with muted violence, swearing and adult themes  that aimed for a T rating. Somehow tied to the police  are the "grasses" - a special type of pedestrian that enjoyed  ratting out any criminal activity. For example, if they spotted Claude doing some  gangster shit, they would run to the nearest phone-booth shouting 'Police, Police'  to inform the law of his wrongdoings. If, for some reason, the grass didn't make it  to a telephone, then Claude gets off scot-free. This feature was actually added later in  another Rockstar production, "The Warriors". "We need some damn police down here!" Pedestrian-wise Rockstar's vision  was simply ahead of its time.   Rockstar was already thinking  of gangs working together - members who had just been  walking down the street, come running to a fellow gang member's  aid fighting some enemy or cop. Peds stopping and talking  to each other like friends, leaning against walls, laughing and shaking hands, while other peds look at  store windows, sexy people, cars or whatever else they're programmed to like. ATM machines were supposed to dot the map and  be used by the pedestrians to withdraw money. Day/Night cycles were intended  to be actual gameplay features of the experience, rather  than just graphic aspects. And according to the document, 24 hours in  game was to have lasted 30 minutes, not 24. Plus the type of peds walking around would have  been different according to the time of day, with violent people mostly on the prowl at night. Certain missions are tied to specific  hours, but the game was also supposed to make some missions easier or harder  depending on whether it was day or night - escaping the city center during rush hour  would've been harder during daytime than doing it during the night for example. As we said in our Hot Topic episode  focused on Beta content from GTA 3, the game was originally intended  to include a multiplayer mode. While there are no additional details to add  to what the community has already uncovered, it is a fact that some game modes  could have been played in split screen on one console - so, not only as an online feature. At this point of development there  were five distinct game types: Death with the objective being to kill  as many of your opponents as possible; Points where you had to score  as many points as possible; Race and Stunt Race where the first to finish wins and lastly Tag, where the player surviving being hunted the longest, wins. This amazing document ends with a "to add" list, that ranged from ads and cinema  trailers, character lists, save game features, rewards and  more even "taking ideas from wall". The document is dated December 29th, 2000, almost a year before the release of  the game that truly changed the genre. One thing that's clear from  reading these pages is that Rockstar has always looked at their  productions with a cinematic eye. By pushing themselves and throwing everything  into their steaming cauldron of ideas, then busting their asses to make  the absolute most of all that amazing hardware to accomplish  exactly what they envisioned. Some of the ideas in this document  had to be postponed and implemented in subsequent titles only to surface  one, three, five or more years later. Sometimes because those ideas were just too  complicated to develop in such short time or simply because the hardware wasn't  powerful enough to give the developers the tools they needed to turn those  ideas into actual gameplay features. Well there you have it. We've learned a lot about the past of a truly  trailblazing game that has become a true, international, cultural icon. We discovered a host of different names, features, and stories that lacked some of the  game's most recognizable characters, and featured missions that were maybe  a little too damn good to be true but through it all we became  better acquainted with the very soul of Rockstar as a company  and Grand Theft Auto as a game. While this surely was a long video we hope  you thought it was as interesting as we do. Above all, we hope you enjoyed it. So keep following us on Twitter,  Facebook and Instagram or jump in our Discord server to holla at other fans of Rockstar Games. From GTA Series Videos this was Gary7 MT. Peace.

Channel: GTA Series Videos

Views: 1,235,900

Keywords: gta3, gta 3, grand theft auto 3, grand theft auto iii, gta iii, gta 3 design, gta3 design, gta 3 gdd, gta3 gdd, gta iii gdd, grand theft auto gdd, grand theft auto 3 gdd, design behind the game, gta 3 game design document, gta 3 design document, game design document, gdd, design document, gta 3 beta, beta, hot topic, gary7mt, gta3 design document, beta cars, beta missions, beta characters, grand theft auto beta, design behind gta 3, documentary, history, story, design of gta 3

Id: qUI0moGiNuw

Length: 107min 55sec (6475 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 08 2021