2023-11-12 06:00:00
At the beginning of December, Rockstar will unveil the first trailer for its next blockbuster GTA 6, 26 years after the contrasting release of the first episode.
Did you know that GTA was… Scottish? One of the most powerful sagas in video games was not born in New York or Los Angeles, cities taken as models by the developers. It took its first steps in Edinburgh in the mid-1990s, developed by the DMA Design studio, renamed Rockstar North in 1999.
While GTA 6 is finally around the corner, the month of November is also an opportunity to celebrate the release of the very first episode, a video game UFO, which arrived in November 1997 on PC, then on Playstation a few weeks later.
At the time, Grand Theft Auto was not yet the acclaimed franchise that had sold tens of millions of copies. With this game, DMA Design offers a confusing, controversial and criticized title.
Aerial view and subtle control
However, the studio made a name for itself in the industry, with a very different atmosphere: in 1991, it published the puzzle game Lemmings, a real revolution for the time. After having capitalized on this franchise (with 4 new episodes), the team is launching into its new title. The idea is ambitious since you play a gangster, completely free to move, in three cities now well known to players: Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas.
Violent, the game already allows you to shoot pedestrians or crush them shamelessly. We already find known mechanics like carjacking or music that changes depending on the radio stations. On the other hand, the game is not yet in 3D (this will be the case with GTA 3) but in aerial view.
Gran Theft Auto, first of its name – Capture
If the franchise already offers this great freedom, its gameplay is more original: a button to move forward and directional arrows to direct it. Not really intuitive. At the time of the first Playstation and its impressive graphics, the game looks a little pale. “It’s so ugly and empty that no one will do the 200 missions,” said Joypad, one of the leading magazines of the time. “GTA turns out to be absolutely unclassifiable. In fact, you spend your time looking for your way,” complains Player One, another specialist magazine.
In reality, the game, although not sufficiently accomplished, nevertheless shows its potential. The second episode, released in 1999, will have better ratings.
But, like another violent game, Carmageddon, GTA has this sulphurous aspect which has already made it famous. The title is almost exchanged secretly, the children play it in secret. In January 1998, Senator Philippe Darniche even questioned the Minister of the Interior on “the existence and sale in our country of video game software that defies all human and civic morality.”
“Specially aimed at young people, they aim to ‘virtually’ incite adolescents to urban violence and street fights after having identified with a ‘hero’ mandated by the mafia and who is none other than a drug dealer. drugs,” he says.
The debate is not new and it will return with the incredible success of GTA 3, which will make the publisher Rockstar Games known throughout the world. Without compromising on its immorality, the saga is therefore celebrating its 26th anniversary this year with a new title to come, for which we are still awaiting a release date.
Thomas Leroy Journalist BFM Business
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