Like Fallout, Grand Theft Auto Will not Ever Depart the United States (Once more)

In a current interview, Dan Houser, one of many founders of Rockstar Games, revealed why the United States has at all times been the setting for Grand Theft Auto, save for a short outing to London in 1999. It’s an identical cause why Fallout, a famed post-apocalyptic franchise, received’t ever go away the United States.

In Houser’s phrases, there’s an excessive amount of ‘Americana’ within the DNA of Grand Theft Auto for it to work in some other nation. The stint in London in 1999 with a top-down traditional on the PS1 was an experiment greater than something, and Houser dubbed it ‘cute and fun’.

GTA and Fallout, Forever in America

During the Summer Game Fest showcase, we sat down with Bethesda Game Studios to find out about a current replace and the way forward for the franchise. One of the questions we had was relating to the continuing setting of the United States being the bottom components for the post-apocalyptic sequence.

I used to be instructed that Fallout ‘probably won’t’ ever go away the United States, and that’s as a result of it wants every little thing that occurred within the USA within the franchise’s universe to succeed. It’s deeply rooted in Americana and the post-war, atom-mad panorama that sort of existed in actual life.

Similarly, Dan Houser just lately defined on the Lex Fridman podcast that Grand Theft Auto can’t go away the United States:

We made a bit factor in London 26 years in the past, GTA London, for the top-down one for the PS1. That was fairly cute and enjoyable.

There was a lot Americana inherent within the IP, it might be actually onerous to make it work in London or anyplace else. You wanted weapons, you wanted these larger-than-life characters.

The sport was a lot about America, presumably from an outsider’s perspective. That was a lot about what the sequence was that it wouldn’t actually have labored in the identical means elsewhere.

(Thanks to GamesRadar for the quote)

Historically, Grand Theft Auto has taken gamers from fictional renditions of Miami to Los Angeles, and from New York to a minuscule foray into North Dakota. There are few locations outdoors of the United States that might function a powerful sufficient canvas for the artwork that Rockstar Games must create what it does greatest.

That’s the identical with Fallout, in fact. In 2024, Todd Howard backed up the sentiment that Fallout can’t exist outdoors the United States:

My view is, a part of the Fallout schtick is on the American naivete and a part of that. And so, for us proper now, it’s okay to acknowledge a few of these different areas, however our plans are to predominately hold it within the US. It’s okay to depart thriller or questions, ‘What’s occurring in Europe, what’s occurring right here’. The worst factor you are able to do to mysterious lands is to take away the thriller.

Do you assume Grand Theft Auto or Fallout may work outdoors the United States? Let me know what you’re considering on the Insider Gaming Discord server.

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