GTA: Tokyo 'Almost Happened', GTA 6 'Probably' Won't Be $100, Says Former Rockstar Technical Director

Grand Theft Auto games have largely chosen American cities as inspirations for their settings. Barring a London-set 1999 expansion for the first GTA title and Grand Theft Auto 2, which was set in a futuristic American city, all GTA games are set in fictional US cities based on actual US cities. But according to a former Rockstar Games developer, GTA: Tokyo “almost actually happened” at one point.

In a new interview with Gameshub last week, former technical director at Rockstar North Obbe Vermeij discussed wide-ranging topics, from the history of the Grand Theft Auto series to the upcoming GTA 6. When asked about whether a Grand Theft Auto game set outside the US was ever considered, Vermeij said that at one point, Rockstar thought about GTA games set in Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, Istanbul, and Tokyo.

“Tokyo almost actually happened. Another studio in Japan were going to do it, take our code and do GTA: Tokyo. But then that didn't happen in the end,” he said.

The former Rockstar Games developer, who worked on GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, and GTA IV, said it was unlikely for a future GTA game to be set in a city outside the US as major American cities like New York, LA, Miami were familiar globally, even to people who hadn't visited those cities.

Vermeij also said that a GTA game set outside the US would be risky, considering the series had billions of dollars riding on it. “I think it's unlikely it's going to be in Bogota next time, especially since there's just more and more money involved as the project gets bigger. It doesn't make sense to set it in some left-field location for novelty. GTA: Toronto? It just wouldn't work,” he said.

Vermeij said expecting a future GTA game set in Europe was “unrealistic” and Rockstar would likely revisit New York, LA or Las Vegas for future titles. “I'm afraid we're stuck in this loop of about five American cities. Let's just get used to it.”

The former Rockstar Games staffer's comment on the setting of GTA games echo what Rockstar Games co-founder, Dan Houser, said last month. Houser explained why GTA games were set in the US and may never be set outside the country.

“I think for a full GTA game, we always decided that there was so much Americana inherent in the IP, it would be really hard to make it work in London or anywhere else,” Houser said last month appearing on a podcast. “You know, you needed guns, you needed these larger-than-life characters. It just felt like the game was so much about America, possibly from an outsider's perspective. But you know, that was so much about what the thing was that it wouldn't really have worked in the same way elsewhere.”

Grand Theft Auto 6 will return to Vice City
Photo Credit: Rockstar Games

GTA 6 Price 'Probably' Won't be $100

In the interview last week, Vermeij also talked about GTA 6 and called the game's Vice City setting a “perfect match for GTA.”

“It's been so long since Vice City that it's exciting to revisit it and the trailers look absolutely amazing. I think it's a good setting for that kind of GTA game. I'm looking forward to it and I think it's going to be great,” he said.

He also weighed in on the speculation about GTA 6's prospective pricing. Considering the scale of the project and the development costs involved, many expect GTA 6 to be the first $100 game, up from the industry standard of $60 or $70 for a triple-A release. But Vermeij said that GTA 6 probably won't be priced $100.

“Rockstar haven't said anything about $100. This is just something that the internet has decided.

“I think that they probably won't do that because, although they haven't said anything about it either, they will have a GTA VI online component and they'll be thinking we want the biggest user base we can possibly have.

“Rather than trying to cash in that extra $30, I think they're just going to make it a regular priced game and then make the money on the back-end in the years to come,” he said.

GTA 6 was initially planned for launch in 2025 but was delayed to May 26, 2026. Last month, Rockstar pushed the game's launch date to November 19, 2026.