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Obbe Vermeij, the former Technical Director at Rockstar North, has been revealing fascinating GTA Trilogy secrets since November 2023. He started with a blog where he talked about some behind-the-scenes facts but soon closed it after supposedly receiving an email from Rockstar, who didn't seem to like it.
Since then, he's been revealing some GTA Trilogy secrets from his days as a developer for the original 3D Universe games — GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas — on X instead. So, here's a list of some of the best GTA Trilogy secrets Obbe Vermeij has revealed so far.
GTA Trilogy secrets revealed by Obbe Vermeij
1) Why we couldn't fly in Liberty City
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It's not that Grand Theft Auto III didn't have any aircraft, as there was a Dodo that you could get in and operate. However, its wings were chopped off, and you couldn't lift off high enough for it to actually matter. Obbe Vermeij explained why we can't fly in Liberty City, and it's not what everyone thought it would be.
A popular rumor is that Rockstar removed the ability to fly because of 9/11, but the real reason has more to do with how slow the texture streaming was for the game on the PS2.
2) Canceled multiplayer in GTA 3
The first proper multiplayer in the Grand Theft Auto series started with Grand Theft Auto 4, but Rockstar had been trying to implement this feature since their first 3D Universe release — GTA 3. Vermeij explained how they canceled multiplayer in Grand Theft Auto 3 because it involved too much work.
Since then, dataminers have found evidence of this in the game files and even pulled out some of the completed maps and the names of the game modes meant for multiplayer.
3) Random plane crashes in San Andreas
One of the funniest and most intriguing GTA Trilogy secrets is the crashing planes in San Andreas. You will witness a random NPC-driven aircraft crash while exploring the open-world map. Sometimes, if you're unlucky enough, a plane will crash directly on you.
The reason for this, as the former Rockstar North Technical Director explained, is a bug that causes the planes to not detect obstacles and crash in the air. In other cases, they would spawn in the air and lose altitude quite fast, crashing before recovering.
4) Same cars spawning in traffic
Most players have had a moment in the original 3D Universe games where after they hijacked a rare car in traffic, every subsequent NPC car would be replaced by that supposedly rare model. For the longest time, this used to be one of the most intriguing GTA Trilogy secrets, and it happened apparently due to the vehicle limitations on the PS2, as explained by Vermeij.
This occurs when the game has no vehicle to choose from to replace the ambient vehicles in traffic, and the one it chooses happens to be the one driven by the player.
5) How the mirrors worked in San Andreas
One of the most fascinating GTA Trilogy secrets that prove the developers' ingenuity is the one surrounding mirrors in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. Instead of rendering an actual mirror, the developers rendered a mirrored version of the in-game scene. One glaring but funny issue with this was that many objects in the mirror world would face the other way.
Besides, if you think about it, this fact can be quite creepy and can lead to fans making up creepypastas about the game's mirror-world. The fact that characters and items from the mirror world can jut out of the mirror makes this even scarier.
