uniladtech homepage
  • News
    • Tech News
    • AI
  • Gadgets
    • Apple
    • iPhone
  • Gaming
    • Playstation
    • Xbox
  • Science
    • News
    • Space
  • Streaming
    • Netflix
  • Vehicles
    • Car News
  • Social Media
    • WhatsApp
    • YouTube
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • LADbible
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Archive
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
TikTok
Snapchat
WhatsApp
Submit Your Content
Behind the scenes footage showing creation of first GTA shows how far the game has come

Home> Gaming

Published 15:03 12 Dec 2023 GMT

Behind the scenes footage showing creation of first GTA shows how far the game has come

It’s mind-blowing just how much the game has changed.

Prudence Wade

Prudence Wade

google discoverFollow us on Google Discover
Featured Image Credit: Credit: BBC / YouTube
Gaming
Rockstar

Advert

Advert

Advert

Behind the scenes footage of the first Grand Theft Auto has resurfaced, and it really shows how far the game has come.

Rockstar Games - the company behind the GTA franchise - released the trailer for GTA VI on December 4, and fans went wild for it.

Returning to Vice City - an amped-up version of Miami - the game is 10 years in the making... And we can see why it needed all that time to create, after looking at its development back in 1996.

Advert

Ahead of the GTA VI’s release in 2025, let's take a trip down memory lane to see how the first-ever GTA game was made.

The original Grand Theft Auto was released in 1997 and created by DMA Design Ltd, which is now the Rockstar North studio based in Scotland.

Before the first GTA was released, the BBC got a first-hand look at how it was created.

Technology journalist Rory Cellan-Jones spoke to one of the software designers, named Dave, to find out what the hotly-anticipated release was all about.

Dave was filmed on a chunky, white computer, playing a game which looks vastly different to the GTA we know today. It looks like a top-down view of a street with cars driving in both directions - hardly that high-octane.

Explaining the game, the designer told Cellan-Jones: “Well, it's a mission-based driving game, where basically you're driving around the city, stealing cars, running over pedestrians."

Cellan-Jones joked: “Pretty tame stuff, then.”

The original game looks hilariously basic now.
BBC

The BBC journalist spoke to people in the music department, as well as the team who tests and plays the game before it was released. Our main thought - imagine getting paid to play games all day?!

A segment also revealed the behind-the-scenes of motion capture and hilariously showed a young guy, called Darren, putting the tech to use.

He was seen grappling with thin air and throwing punches at nothing whilst wearing a black skullcap and kneepads with white dots all over him, so the team could pick up his movements and capture them into the game.

"You might think Darren here's gone completely mad but what he's actually doing is executing punches in the motion capture department," Cellan-Jones explained.

"Those punches that he's doing, they're actually being picked up on a computer here [and] will be used to animate models in another game."

It is safe to say the franchise has come a long way, as the new GTA VI trailer shows. And anticipation still remains sky-high - but you'll have to wait until 2025 to get your hands on it.

Choose your content:

an hour ago
3 days ago
6 days ago
10 days ago
  • Konami
    an hour ago

    PlayStation's next big video game movie rises from the grave after 20 years in development hell

    Oscar Isaac was once attached to play the lead

    Gaming
  • Rockstar Games
    3 days ago

    GTA 6 insider says 'this game will produce millionaires' as he teases major new feature

    It all surrounds one key feature

    Gaming
  • Emanuele Cremaschi / Contributor / Getty
    6 days ago

    PlayStation 5 users don't realise this common habit is damaging their controller's battery health

    We've all been guilty of this at some point

    Gaming
  • Roger Kisby / Stringer via Getty
    10 days ago

    Star of one of 2026's biggest movies slammed over controversial Luigi Mangione comment

    Some are calling for a recast ahead of the inevitable third movie

    Gaming
  • GTA 6's 'insane' production calculated as Rockstar attempts to release the biggest game of all time
  • YouTuber praised for getting 'better footage than NASA' as he goes behind the scenes at Artemis 2 launch
  • GTA player explains how the game literally 'saved their life' in terrifying situation
  • 'New GTA' is officially crowned the worst game of 2025