Details are often what enrich a game and Rockstar’s open worlds in the Grand Theft Auto games have often felt alive in a way that few other game developers manage. But not all of these details are always agreed upon, and now a former employee has shared some information about something as simple as the rubbish we see on the streets.
Obbe Vermeij who worked on both Grand Theft Auto III and San Andreas has said that the streets in the third instalment felt far too clean, so he added litter. He shared the following on X: “It is a single rectangle that occasionally moves with the wind. It can also be dragged along by passing cars. The artists created four textures for it. Two newspapers and two leaves.”
When it came time for San Andreas, however, he had to remove it because other developers at the studio didn’t like it:“Not everyone on the team liked the litter. I removed it for San Andreas because I eventually lost the argument.”
It remains to be seen how dirty, or clean, the streets will be in the upcoming GTA VI.