Dan House Says GTA is Too American for 3D Entry to 'Work in London or Anywhere Else' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 November 2025 / 3,315 Views
Former Rockstar writer Dan Houser in an interview Lex Fridman stated the reason there has never been a 3D Grand Theft Auto game set in London or anywhere else outside the US is because the American culture is a core part of the franchise.
" You know, there’s a reason why GTA kept coming back to Miami, New York, Los Angeles," said Houser (via VideoGamesChronicle). "I think they’re all very good for exactly what you laid out. You could move it to any of those and it would work, you know?
"There’s a melting pot aspect to [cities like] LA. There’s glitz, glamour, underbelly, immigrants, enormous wealth in all of them. I think those are what are really fun for not even just GTA, but for anything where you want a slice of life.
"It’s almost like a psychotic version of a Dickens book. He did it with London, you know, this psychotic version of all these kinds of characters in a melting pot. Any of these global cities work well for that."
Houser was asked if there was ever an attempt by Rockstar to make a 3D open-world Grand Theft Auto game set in London as there was the Grand Theft Auto: London mission pack released in 1999.
"We made a little thing in London 26 years ago, GTA London, for the top-down game for the PS1," replied Houser. "That was pretty cute and fun, as the first mission pack ever for PlayStation.
"I think for a full GTA game, we always decided there was so much Americana inherent in the IP, it would be really hard to make it work in London or anywhere else. 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. That was so much about what the thing was that it wouldn’t really have worked in the same way elsewhere."
The next entry in the series, Grand Theft Auto VI, will launch for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on May 26, 2026.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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I fail to see how this is true...
GTA is already a wild exaggeration of real life, there's no reason they couldn't do the same in London, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, Moscow, Seoul, Osaka, Wuhan, Istanbul, Dubai...
I'm looking forward to GTA6 but I've been tired of the American setting since GTA4
A wild exaggeration ? Not really.
Yeah, mostly meant the rate of crime rather than the individual stories themselves
maybe "wildly condensed" is more accurate
The GTA6 trailer made reference to many real events, but those real events were from the last 10-20 years shrunk down into what will likely be a 40-80 hour game
Because most of these places don' have guns...
I promise you, legality and ownership per capita may differ but you can absolutely find guns in every single one of these cities
Well, if they are dead set on this, how about a 1930's GTA set in Chicago?
I’d like to see them have the balls to make a game set in Texas.
i can see the houston area work for this, very ghetto
I could see a San Andreas approach to this type of game, with three cities based on Houston, DFW, and San Antonio-Austin. The main villain could be a parody of Elon Musk.
And they already have a setting. They can just make it a modern day version of New Austin, the setting of the RDR games. Armadillo could be the game's version of San Antonio/Austin.
That is really good
I think we got that vibe with mafia games, but id still play it
Games are fictional are they not? Crap excuse, you can have a realistic London with guns if you wanted to create that fictional world.
Cops don't have guns in England.
You missed the part of fictional; put alien space ships in it if you wanted to. GTA games are not real; they are fictional recreations of real cities. It is not hard nor would it cause any uproar if they decided to give British police officers guns.
You bring up the point about GTA being fictional, but the game draws heavily from real-life scenarios, cultural references, and societal issues, much like movies do. GTA's stories are inspired by films that often reflect true events or themes.
So yeah, even if it's a game, it's still rooted in reality. That makes the conversation about how it portrays things like law enforcement and culture super relevant. We’re not just talking about some random fantasy world. this is about how we see the world reflected back at us.
I know, too bad.
"So yeah, even if it's a game, it's still rooted in reality. That makes the conversation about how it portrays things like law enforcement and culture super relevant."
In GTA5, there is a mission where you rob a security truck, when you do, cops arrive and you can kill all of them. Upwards of 30 cops with the use of literal RPGs in a major city.
Is that a normal thing in the USA?
I'm sure if said event happened it would make world wide news for weeks and there would be a massive man hunt for those involved.
In GTA5, it's the 3rd mission.
Lol Rockstar choosing not to base GTA in a city such as London because the cops can’t carry guns would be funny. What happened to the concept of “limitations often breed the most innovative ideas”? I say they should base the next GTA in Antartica and see what they can come up with.
If anything, making cops carry non lethal guns in the game will only make it more realistic, given that you can't die in GTA, just get "wasted".
The wild west didn't have zombies...
That didn't stop us from getting them in RDR1
I understand what he's trying to say. The problem with a lot of other big cities is that there's not enough diversity, for example. I live in Guangzhou, one of the top 4 countries in China. I go many days without seeing another foreigner. But in any American big cities there's lots of different type of people, a lot more freedom in what you can do.
For example, in Guangzhou, it's illegal to own a motorcycle， and any type of muscle car, or car that makes a lot of noise, unless you live on the far outskirts of town. Then there is the issue of infrastructure, which is nice in the major city centers, but when you leave them, its a different world.
Drones are also illegal in many parts, so are a lot of pets (a lot of dog breeds are banned in big cities) that you find everyday in America.
So I understand what he means, but thats their problem to solve.
well, you compared that with Guangzhou which most of us probably can't say much about but why shouldn't a GTA work in Paris if it works in New York? I even get that L.A. is something else but New York as example is really not offering so much "craziness" which you couldn't also have in a game located in Paris, London or whatever...and then you read comments from Americans on the internet who tell you how there are 20 American cities which would be a great GTA as if the rest of the world really doesn't exist. Not leaving USA for your whole life not to experience other countries/cultures doesn't mean those aren't there. It's as if only cities you know from many Hollywood movies are offering something. If Hollywood would be in London, people would think only cities from GB are worth it lol.
I tend to agree that keeping it in America is a good idea, but I do wish they would move beyond repeating the same 3 cities with larger map sizes each time. America has plenty of other cities they could do, Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston, etc. After GTA 6 they really need to give the NYC, LA, and Miami rotation a rest for at least 1 game. Revisting Las Venturas (Las Vegas) or San Fierro (San Francisco) from GTA San Andreas, enlarged into a proper full sized modern GTA city, would be acceptable as well, just please don't go back to NYC again so soon.
To be fair, it takes them so long to develop new GTA games that there’s an ample tome gap between instalments of the same location. By the time GTA 6 comes it, it will have been 24 years since GTA last went there (not including remaasters).
There is literally a San Andreas mod that was very popular here in Brazil, called GTA Rio de Janeiro. You might have seen that city in the news recently.
I think there are lots of South and Central American cities that could work, without even having to change core elements of the game. I think Rio, Mexico City, Bogata, and several others would work much better than any other non-US cities I can think of.
There was an a crime action dark comedy set in Bruges. Archer created one of the most violent terrorist organizations based out of Nova Scotia, Canada.
I’m sure someone at Rockstar North has the imagination to make London work… or any major city.
Also, is the host of this show on heroin? He seems like he’s simultaneously psychologically empty and half asleep!
The more this fuckwad talks the more he legitimizes my friends complaints about him working at R*
Gta5 was pretty tame by gta standards. I'd love a gta set in london, Australia, japan, korea, china
What he really means is that they fear US-Americans wouldn't care about a GTA in London or Paris. I doubt you can't have the same experience in these cities. Sure, there are cultural differences but you can usw these as well to make fun about
GTA in London? Urk... Leave that idea for bad GTA-likes. I'm sure ubisoft will love the idea...
"There’s a melting pot aspect to [cities like] LA. There’s glitz, glamour, underbelly, immigrants, enormous wealth in all of them"
I'm pretty sure London has all that...
"You needed guns"
Oh, ok. London doesn't have so many if them.
