Grand Theft Auto Leak Shows GTA Online Was Originally More Roleplay Focused

A new GTA Online leak shows that the game was in Rockstar’s mind for well over a decade before it was released and it was much more roleplay-oriented. Rockstar Games is a video game juggernaut. Grand Theft Auto V is the second best selling game of all-time by a large margin and the studio’s follow up game, Red Dead Redemption 2, doesn’t trail far behind it as the sixth best selling game of all-time. Despite only having released two games in the last ten years, Rockstar is still on top of the industry and a large part of that is because of its success with GTA Online.

The ambitious online mode was introduced back in 2013 with the release of Grand Theft Auto V. It allowed players to make money through all kinds of nefarious activities, buy cars, clothes, apartments, and more. It’s an online mode that doesn’t really exist at this level anywhere else. There have been similar games, but none with the level of quality that Rockstar offers. Part of that may be because Rockstar Games was dreaming of GTA Online since at least 2001. MMOs were really big as online gaming took off in the early 2000s, spawning games like Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest, World of Warcraft, and Final Fantasy XI. It seems like Rockstar was eager to get in on this action at the time too.

As part of a new series of leaks courtesy of some drama between GTA community members, design documents for early GTA games have been unearthed. One such document was for GTA Online back in 2001, seemingly as part of Grand Theft Auto 3. Rockstar Games had big aspirations for the project and frankly, a lot of this stuff actually ended up in the 2013 version of GTA Online. The interconnected world where players could seamlessly do missions in the open world, customize themselves, and have ownership over their items in the game was something that Rockstar dreamed up over 20 years ago now.

One key difference, however, is that Rockstar seemingly wanted to focus more on roleplay for GTA Online in this iteration. The design document notes that things like factions would play a big part in the game, allowing players to side with particular groups and even take on certain roles with unique gameplay features. The biggest one was the ability to play as a cop, allowing players to enforce the law against other players. They’d be able to arrest other players and have access to free weapons and vehicles, but would be forced to adhere to strict rules within the game. If found violating said rules, they’d be subject to demotion or being fired. That doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be corrupt, they just had to be a bit sneaky about it.

Players who got arrested would be able to go to court to make their case against one of several NPC judges that had their own opinions on certain crimes. If they got convicted, they’d have to spend jail time, of course.

Similarly, there’d be “meeting places” for each faction such as the back of a restaurant for mafia members and an office building for those that are part of the Yakuza. Players also had unique skills, some attributed to their factions, such as the ability to lockpick, appraise stolen goods, fence said stolen goods, create disguises, and much more. It sounds pretty ambitious, but it also meant that other players can leverage each other beyond just another hired gun. If you needed a flashy necklace appraised, you could find another player to help. However, you also run the risk that they just kill you and run off with the necklace.

Beyond firing back, you could notify other players via a “snitch board” about how someone wronged you. This would not only make others weary of dealing with the evil doer, but maybe encourage them to take action, similar to the bounty system in the current version of GTA Online. A lot of this would later become possible in fan mods such as San Andreas Multiplayer and FiveM RP servers, but it obviously is a lot better when it’s official and has that extra layer of polish attached to it.

Perhaps GTA 6‘s multiplayer mode will try and embrace RP a bit more. Rockstar Games acquired FiveM, the team behind the popular mods for GTA 5 which could open the door to better support for RP servers, including ones for console. Even if there aren’t fan mods, Rockstar may naturally choose to build GTA 6 Online with all of this in mind after laying some of the foundation with the GTA 5 version. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but it’s cool to look back on how GTA Online began as a concept and evolved over the years.