Why Rockstar chooses fun over realism

By Tom Bramwell Published 21 April, 2008

GTA IV art director on building cities.

Grand Theft Auto IV art director Aaron Garbut has said that the developers "never reproduce real world locations" in GTA games because it results in "hollow" environments.

"It's about taking inspiration from real places and producing something that captures the essence of it. We're trying to take our impression of New York and keep it as that, an impression, not a laboured reproduction," Garbut said in an exclusive interview with Eurogamer.

Grand Theft Auto IV's Liberty City location has a lot in common with real life New York - the Statue of Happiness, Broker Bridge, the island structure, and the city's cultural diversity, for instance - but the team stopped short of a facsimile out of a desire for "more flavour" and "more intensity".

"I've seen it in other games that set out to rebuild a city street by street, not only do compromises get made that favour realism over fun but a lot of the life is lost and all that's left is a hollow representation of a real place," Garbut said. "I'd rather have the right vibe than an accurate roadmap."

Elsewhere in part one of the interview, Garbut revealed how development of a GTA game actually begins, and how the character of Niko Bellic took shape. Look out for part two tomorrow.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (15) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Redeye #1 4 years ago

    The Getaway, I'm looking at you with your excellent but utterly soulless replication of London.

  • Darren #2 4 years ago

    Slow news day eh, EG? ;)

    Does this really warrant a separate article when people can comment on it in the comments section of the interview...?

    How about reporting that the European Metal Gear Online beta has been delayed in Europe? Surely that deserves a mention?

  • DDevil #3 4 years ago

    Darren, EG always have a news item highlighting the more interesting parts of their interviews. Works nicely for me as I don't have time to read the interview right now.

  • Darren #4 4 years ago

    Fair enough, seems like a lazy way to pad out the website with duplicate features to me, that's all.

  • vegard #5 4 years ago

    Darren: i'm sure EG will continue doing this as long as people leave comments

    :)

  • miiiguel #6 4 years ago

    GTA news (or whatever) always score coments, and coments ~ popularity; popularity ~ ads; ads ~ money; money ~ good stuff.

  • ecureuil #7 4 years ago

    Reminds me of True Crime. I'd completely forgotten about that game until just now.. man, that game was crap.

  • Ryze #8 4 years ago

    Yep, all the others that came after are mere imitators.

    Turbo Esprit, Technocop, Chase HQ, Micro machines. They all remind me of my GTA experiences over the years. Quality games.

  • wizbob #9 4 years ago

    Technocop? I wouldn't call it free-roaming but it certainly ramped up the ol' ultraviolence. Thank you Robocop for your pernicious influence on gaming culture.

    special message for all the kids watching at home? RoboCop: Stay out of trouble

  • TagemandBagem #10 4 years ago

    Finally some gameplay footage!!!1

  • Mashum #11 4 years ago

    "fun over realism"

    ....so can I save mid mission on longer missions?

  • smelly #12 4 years ago

    Fun is ALWAYS preferable to realism imho

  • Fab4 #13 4 years ago

    I had realism once...I didnt like it.

  • sailesh #14 4 years ago

    he sounds like he knows a few things he does.

  • Slipstream #15 4 years ago

    Let's not forget the stale enviroments of the True Crime games, impressive scale wise, but lacking in everything else.
    R*'s sense of humour has worked exceptionally well, not just for GTA, but Bully and Manhunt aswell. They have a knack for turning simple concepts into something more appealing and fun. They are more subtle but now expected features. (Mini-games, Radio ads, pedestrian dialogue, all sorts of references, etc)

    and then of course their large scale achievements such as their enviroments, full of character and life, (even more so in GTA IV) we then have the controvertial plot and character building of GTA and Bully to the psyco gameplay physics of Manhunt, yet none of it feels out of place, threatening to our society (like certain publications like to claim) or devoid of atmosphere or the traditional Rockstar Humour.

    In a few words. I've always seen R* a developer with great awareness. This article has proven that.




    Edited by Slipstream at 22/04/08 @ 11:45