Our persistence paid off -- we finally got Rockstar Games to talk about Grand Theft Auto IV. The good news: It sounds like the game is going to be everything we hoped for. The bad news: We still have to wait until October to play it.
Dan Houser, Vice President of Creative at Rockstar, tells us what to expect.
What's the most incredible aspect of Grand Theft Auto IV?
We hope it's the overall experience -- everything coming together into one coherent package. A world brought to life in a way nobody has ever seen before and full of people. This, together with your character Niko arriving into this world, and being able to explore it or develop relationships or follow a narrative that bends around decisions you make. And all of it links together. It is the feeling of this all being one world and one experience that makes Grand Theft Auto IV what it is, and unlike any other video game.
What do you want fans that play Grand Theft Auto IV to take away from the experience?
We are trying to make the greatest crime story of the 21st century, in any medium. We hope people love it. Above all, we want people to appreciate that we have taken video games a step closer to what we think their ultimate destiny is -- the most powerful and engaging form of entertainment -- and an incredible way to tell a story.
From what we know so far, Niko Bellic looks like he has a dark, mysterious past. What more can you tell us about him?
Niko is the hero, or antihero, of Grand Theft Auto IV. He arrives in Liberty City, our reinterpretation of New York, from Eastern Europe to meet up with his cousin Roman. Roman claims to have been living the American dream since his arrival in the US, but he has neglected to tell Niko that he is just struggling and is in debt to some Russian mobsters. At the same time, Niko claims to have left Europe simply for the adventure of America, but he is also looking for someone... and running away from some recent mistakes.
What makes this game unlike any other game out there?
We are trying to make a truly next-generation interactive experience. Too many games over the last two years have been games that could have run on an old console -- all that separated them from the previous generation of games was pretty graphics. Obviously, Grand Theft Auto IV looks beautiful, but the game design and storytelling have also evolved to match the new visuals. We have set out to make a game that is, in all its facets, a high-definition experience. It is a game unlike anything we or anyone else has made before.
Why are you so passionate about gaming as entertainment? What do games offer that TV, movies, and books don't?
We love every medium, but each has its own strengths and limitations as a way of engaging people. Video games have a unique power to turn imaginary worlds into some kind of (admittedly virtual) reality and it is this that makes them so fascinating. You can actually create a world and let people explore it at their own speed, in their own way. This is why the most important personality in any Grand Theft Auto game is the city, not the lead character -- because the city that you explore is the most memorable thing. It is the freedom people have to explore that makes video games so powerful and, potentially, so expressive as a medium.
Liberty City in GTA IV seems more realistic than past GTA games. What kind of challenges did that present?
We wanted to make a city that buzzes with life, with the personality and the energy of a real metropolis. Creating a believable and alive virtual world was one of our major goals with this game. In terms of challenge, creating a city that both looks and acts more realistically is exponentially more complicated than making something less alive. All of the details in the buildings and nuances in behavior have been lovingly crafted by the team. The realism is one of the reasons the game has taken three years to make, but for people with new consoles, we were determined to give them a game that would not have been possible to make on a previous machine -- and this means, among other things, added detail and fidelity.
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