Grand Theft Auto Won't Return to London

Grand Theft Auto is a series unafraid to revisit the cities it's used in the past, but London is one setting it's unlikely to return to, Rockstar Games has revealed.

In an interview with The Guardian, Grand Theft Auto V writer Dan Houser stated that, as interesting as London is, it may not be right for a future GTA game. "I think for us, my gut feeling is, GTA London was cool for the time, but games were more limited then. These days I think we would love to set a game in the UK, set in London, whatever, but I don't know if it would be a GTA game. I think there are plenty of great stories we could tell about the UK, great environments to showcase, great gameplay mechanics that could have a UK bent to them – I just don't think it would be a GTA necessarily."

Dan Houser, along with brother Sam, the two founders of Rockstar, are originally from London. The city was used at the setting for a pair of expansions back in the GTA series' 2D days: Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, which used the original GTA's engine, was released in 1999 on PC and PlayStation, and was followed shortly thereafter by the free release London 1961 on PC.

Houser was also asked about whether Rockstar considered including a playable female character in GTA V's campaign, which features three male characters. "We didn't really think about it this time," he explained. "That's not to say that we couldn't or we wouldn't. This character set is just what came to us: it wasn't, 'we've got X and Y so we need Z,' we weren't trying to do it off a checklist - I don't think that will ever give you something that's believable or engaging.

"In the future, could we do a game with a lead female character? Of course. We just haven't found the right game for it yet, but it's one of the things that we always think about. It didn't feel natural for this game but definitely for the right game in the future - with the right themes, it could be fantastic. But for GTA V, this was the organic thing that came up, these were the characters what would display the themes we wanted to think about."

Grand Theft Auto V was released earlier this week. It earned a 10 in IGN's review, which described it as a "landmark game," and it generated roughly $800 million in worldwide sales on launch day. The game's multiplayer component, Grand Theft Auto Online, goes live on October 1.

Chris Pereira is a freelance writer who found it difficult to write this story when he could have been playing Grand Theft Auto V. Follow his struggles on Twitter and check him out on IGN.

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