Here’s his appearance in the mod: GTA 3D mod team/ In pre-release versions he was either paler, had a different hairstyle, a wider head, or all three. Here’s a gallery of side-by-side comparisons, the mod is at the left and the 2001 game is on the right.Ĭlaude, the mute Luke Perry lookalike who is the game’s protagonist, also gets a makeover. The original HUD is a notable inclusion of course, many buildings fans may remember are gone altogether from the mod, replaced with a vacant lot or a smaller structure. (Cop cars, among other things, changed their appearance at the last minute, largely because 9/11 had happened less than two months prior to launch.) The 12-member mod team has also re-tuned the cars’ handling, among other gameplay changes that attempts to revert this portion of the game to its pre-release state. It isn’t just a makeover of certain designs. Grand Theft Auto 3D uses “in-game leftovers, HD texture sources, and handmade assets” to remake Portland. Grand Theft Auto 3D’s makers acknowledge that a 2008 mod, called GTA3 BETA also served as an inspiration and guide, showing how far back this curiosity really goes. Screenshots, marketing materials and other recollections of the game before its October 2001 launch are also found in abundance in forums and YouTube channels. Grand Theft Auto 3’s alpha and beta versions had all kinds of details later removed or altered, and fans have spent years combing through code and cataloging the differences.

Usually this wonder is reserved for big canceled games like Star Wars Battlefront 3 but this shows that even released games - and released games that were among the most influential of all time - can still excite that kind of imagination.

Kotaku stumbled across the project this morning.īut the developers’ commitment here taps the fun what-iffiness that’s woven throughout video game fandom. Grand Theft Auto 3D’s current state is called “Public Build 1-Back to the Streets,” and is described as an “unfinished public beta test.” Modders released it Jan. The project, in development for more than four years now, is an attempt to “recreate Portland in DMA’s original vision.” Portland being one of the map’s three islands and the first area of the game, and DMA being DMA Design, the original name of Rockstar North. Grand Theft Auto modders have taken on an unusual, but still fascinating project: Recreating Grand Theft Auto 3 according to what it showed and looked like in mothballed code and its pre-release marketing, way back at the turn of the century.

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