Rockstar Games have announced Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the next iteration in the globally successful Grand Theft Auto franchise. The game, codenamed GTA 5 by publishers Take Two, will be developed by Rockstar North.
Interestingly enough, Sony have managed to maintain exclusivity, for an unspecified period of time. Following the runaway commercial success of the series this must be seen as a blow to Microsoft who will definitely miss the title.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas will be available exclusively for the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system and is expected to be in stores in North America on October 19, 2004 and in Europe on October 22, 2004.
In the past couple of years, we have put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves to ensure we do everything possible to exceed people's expectations with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, stated Sam Houser, President of Rockstar Games. Even though we still have eight months to go, we are starting to become very proud of what we have achieved and we can't wait to get the game into players' hands.
For those of you wondering what the San Andreas installment could offer to the GTA experience, read what Leslie Benzies, President of Rockstar North, had to say: (it) will hopefully redefine the Grand Theft Auto series and revolutionize open-ended gameplay and video game production values.
As far as details are concerned, well don't expect any. The only information on which almost everyone seems to agree is that some multiplayer mode or other, will be implemented in San Andreas, after all Multi Theft Auto more or less sealed that deal.
If Rockstar remain true to form we will not get a chance to see or hear much about the title until it hits the stores in October. What we can look forward to however, is an enigmatic web site 2-3 months before the release and a highly regulated flow of multimedia material thrown here and there. We still have some hope that E3 will yield some, extremely, limited information about the characters involved and possibly the storyline. As long as Rockstar stick to their release date, they have built-up a reputation for doing so, no one will have enough time to complain too much about the limited information.
As a reminder of exactly what the GTA series means to video gaming, here are some figures: Over 30 million units of the Grand Theft Auto franchise have been shipped to date, including over 11.5 million units of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and over 10.5 million units of Grand Theft Auto 3.
