Why Grand Theft Auto Is Unlikely To Return To A Futuristic Setting

Grand Theft Auto has become synonymous with sprawling, contemporary crime sandboxes that remix recognizable American cities. Yet the series once took a very different turn with Grand Theft Auto 2, a top-down sequel set in a stylized futuristic metropolis. Recent comments from former Rockstar North technical director Obbe Vermeij, reported in multiple interviews, suggest that experiment left a lasting mark on how the studio thinks about setting and tone for the franchise. A return to a full-on sci-fi Grand Theft Auto now looks extremely unlikely.

This article explores why the GTA team felt disconnected from GTA 2’s future city, why players also struggled to embrace it, and what that tells us about Rockstar’s broader design philosophy leading into GTA 6 and beyond.

From Top-Down Chaos To Futuristic Experiment

The original Grand Theft Auto, released in 1997, introduced a simple but potent formula: a top-down crime game set in tongue-in-cheek versions of real cities, letting players steal cars, cause mayhem, and climb a criminal ladder. The setting, while exaggerated, was recognizably contemporary and grounded in the crime films and urban culture of the 1990s.

Its sequel, Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999), took a bold detour. Instead of a minimally fictionalized city, it placed players in a strange retro-futuristic locale with hover cars, neon-soaked streets, and looming corporate gangs. The city—commonly referred to as “Anywhere City”—blurred the line between dystopian sci-fi and satirical urban parody.

According to contemporaneous accounts, GTA 2 received mixed critical reception and only moderate commercial success, especially compared to later entries that would cement the franchise’s identity. Reviews at the time often praised its chaos and mission variety but criticized aspects such as repetition and technical limitations, highlighting that the experiment didn’t quite land as a definitive new direction for the series.¹

What Made GTA 2’s Futuristic City Different?

Compared to the first game, GTA 2’s city differed in several core ways:

• Time period: Semi-futuristic or near-future, instead of a present-day or slightly stylized setting.
• Technology: Futuristic vehicles, weaponry, and urban infrastructure that departed from familiar real-world analogues.
• Factions: Stylized gangs with more outlandish aesthetics and corporate themes, leaning toward dystopian satire.
• Visual identity: A more surreal, neon-heavy cityscape with less obvious resemblance to specific real cities.

On paper, those changes offered creative freedom and an opportunity to differentiate the sequel. In practice, they made it harder for both developers and players to connect with the world in a way that later grounded entries would.

Why The Team Struggled With A Sci-Fi GTA

In interviews discussed by outlets like GamesRadar and Notebookcheck, Obbe Vermeij describes how some developers who worked on GTA 2 “hated” making that futuristic entry. Although he wasn’t directly on the GTA 2 team, he worked close enough to hear their frustrations. His comments paint a picture of creativity under strain rather than playful experimentation.

The Burden Of Reinventing Everything

One of Vermeij’s key points is that shifting GTA into the future forced the team to rethink almost every design element that had worked in the first game. Moving away from real-world inspirations brings both freedom and risk:

• Weapons: In a near-future setting, you can’t simply drop in recognizable firearms and expect them to feel coherent; designers must invent new types, balance their power, and communicate how they work to players.
• Vehicles: Hover cars or high-tech designs sound exciting, but they require rethinking physics, handling, and visual cues that players use to understand speed and weight.
• Urban behavior: Pedestrians, police, and traffic systems feel intuitive in a realistic city. In a speculative world, you need additional design work to explain what is normal.

For a team already pushing the limits of 1990s hardware, that reinvention added complexity on top of core technical challenges. As game development has grown more expensive and resource-intensive over time, major studios have become more cautious about large-scale reinventions without clear evidence of audience demand.²

Loss Of Familiar Anchors

Grounded modern settings give developers a large toolkit of shared cultural reference points: car brands (fictionalized but recognizable), street layouts, crime tropes, and visual shorthand for different neighborhoods. GTA 2’s sci-fi city stripped away many of those anchors.

Without a clear real-world analogue, the team had to define everything from scratch: the city’s history, its architecture, its social order, even its slang. That kind of worldbuilding can be rewarding, but it also makes it harder to rely on players’ prior knowledge. When the audience doesn’t recognize the environment, designers must spend more of the game’s runtime simply teaching them what the world is, leaving less space for layered satire or emergent chaos.

Why Players Didn’t Bond With GTA 2’s City

Vermeij has also noted that, in his view, players “didn’t connect” with GTA 2’s city in the same way they did with the original game. While individual fans still have affection for the sequel, it never embedded itself in popular culture to the same degree as later 3D entries like GTA III, Vice City, or San Andreas.

The Importance Of Recognizable Places

One of GTA’s defining strengths is its satirical but recognizable vision of American cities. Liberty City riffs on New York, Vice City on Miami, and Los Santos on Los Angeles. These spaces tap into a broader tradition: films and novels that use real or lightly fictionalized cities as stages for crime stories and social commentary. Players don’t just see a map; they see an exaggerated version of places they know from media and real life.

There is some evidence from media studies that audiences engage more strongly with stories set in recognizable locations, because they can bring their own knowledge, expectations, and emotions to the experience.³ In GTA’s case, a familiar city makes the satire sharper: jokes about celebrity culture, real estate bubbles, or corrupt politics hit harder when they mirror headlines.

GTA 2’s futuristic city didn’t offer that same shorthand. Without clear links to New York, Miami, or Los Angeles, the satire landed more as generalized corporate dystopia than pointed social critique. For some players, that made the world feel generic rather than universal.

Top-Down Limitations And Identity Confusion

It’s also worth remembering that GTA 2 arrived before the series’ big breakthrough into fully 3D open worlds. Its top-down perspective and technical constraints made it harder to sell the fantasy of inhabiting a living city, futuristic or otherwise. By the time GTA III launched in 2001, the franchise had pivoted to a more immersive format that better supported character-driven stories and cinematic worldbuilding.

When players look back, they often see GTA 2 as a curiosity sitting between the rough charm of the original and the revolutionary leap of GTA III. The experimental setting only heightens that sense of being an outlier rather than a template for the future.

Risk Versus Reward: Why A Futuristic GTA Is Unlikely

Asked whether GTA might revisit a futuristic or dystopian world, Vermeij’s answer has been blunt: it would be a risky move for a franchise that has become one of the most valuable entertainment properties on the planet. That caution reflects both economic realities and cultural considerations.

The Value Of A Stable Brand Identity

Many of Rockstar’s biggest hits share a core design philosophy: richly detailed open worlds grounded in specific historical or contemporary periods. Consider:

• Grand Theft Auto V — A satirical, present-day Los Angeles analogue.
• Red Dead Redemption 2 — A meticulously researched Western set in a fictionalized late 19th-century United States.⁴
• LA Noire (published by Rockstar) — A post-war Los Angeles crime drama with heavy period detail.

These games lean into a sense of place that feels plausible, even when exaggerated. Shifting GTA into a speculative future would disrupt that brand identity, requiring not just a new city but a new tonal balance between satire, science fiction, and grounded crime drama.

For a series that regularly appears among the best-selling games of all time, the financial incentive is to refine what works rather than gamble on overturning the formula. Market analysis shows that development costs for AAA open-world games have soared, increasing pressure on studios to minimize risks in flagship franchises.²

Memes, Culture, And The Modern Media Ecosystem

Vermeij has also pointed out that GTA’s cultural footprint extends far beyond game sales. The series generates memes, viral clips, fan videos, and endless social-media commentary. Much of that appeal rests on how GTA exaggerates things players instantly recognize—luxury cars, influencers, real estate scams, political scandals, and online culture.

A futuristic GTA would struggle to plug into that ecosystem in the same way. Jokes about speculative technology or imaginary corporations might amuse some players, but they’d lack the instant legibility of parodies based on actual brands, apps, or news events. In an era when shareable moments help keep games in the public conversation for years, that matters.

GTA 6 And The Return To A Familiar Formula

Rockstar has already signaled its continued commitment to grounded settings with the reveal of Grand Theft Auto VI, which returns to a modern-day, Vice City-inspired region. Publicly available information from Rockstar’s official announcements emphasizes a detailed fictional state, diverse biomes, and a focus on contemporary American culture.⁵

That direction fits neatly with the lessons inferred from GTA 2’s reception:

• Recognizable geography: A clear analogue to Miami and its surrounding areas.
• Contemporary themes: Social media, influencer culture, and modern crime economies.
• Grounded tech: Realistic vehicles and weapons with room for exaggeration, not speculative sci-fi.

Rather than treat the future as a playground, Rockstar appears to be doubling down on exploring how chaotic and surreal the present already feels.

Could Rockstar Ever Revisit Sci-Fi… In Another Series?

None of this means Rockstar will never build a futuristic open world. It simply means doing so under the Grand Theft Auto banner looks unlikely in the near term. The brand is too heavily associated with contemporary crime stories to risk a full tonal shift.

If the studio wanted to experiment with speculative settings, it could:

• Develop a new IP focused on dystopian or cyberpunk themes.
• Use smaller projects or experimental modes to test futuristic mechanics.
• Explore limited-time events or dream sequences in existing games that hint at alternative futures without redefining the brand.

For now, though, premium Rockstar projects appear tightly focused on detailed, plausible worlds where the satire hits close to home.

Comparison Table: Grounded GTA vs Futuristic GTA 2

Key Takeaways

• GTA 2’s futuristic city demanded a complete rethink of weapons, vehicles, and world logic, which frustrated many developers.
• Players struggled to connect with its ambiguous sci-fi metropolis compared to the more grounded, satirical cities of other entries.
• Given the franchise’s massive economic value, Rockstar is incentivized to refine proven formulas rather than risk a radical sci-fi pivot.
• Modern GTA games derive much of their cultural impact from parodying contemporary life, something a distant future setting would blunt.
• While Rockstar could explore sci-fi in a different IP, a fully futuristic Grand Theft Auto appears improbable in the foreseeable future.

Frequently Asked Questions

Was GTA 2 a financial failure?

Grand Theft Auto 2 was not an outright failure; it achieved moderate commercial success and kept the series alive. However, it did not define the franchise in the same way that GTA III and later 3D entries did, and its experimental futuristic setting was not carried forward into subsequent mainline games.

Did the futuristic setting cause GTA 2’s mixed reception?

The setting was only one factor. Technical limitations, the overhead view, and design issues also contributed to mixed reviews. Still, comments from former Rockstar staff indicate that the speculative city complicated development and made it harder for some players to relate to the world, which likely influenced how the studio evaluated the experiment.

Could GTA ever feature small futuristic segments?

It is plausible that Rockstar could include short sequences, dream scenarios, or satirical in-game media that depict exaggerated futures without changing the main setting. This would let the studio play with speculative ideas while keeping the core game grounded in a recognizable present.

How does GTA’s setting influence its satire?

GTA’s satire depends heavily on reflecting—and exaggerating—real-world trends. When the game mirrors actual cities, brands, and cultural phenomena, jokes and storylines land with more immediacy. A distant future would make that reflection more abstract, potentially weakening the social commentary that many players now expect from the series.

Will GTA 6 be more realistic or more over-the-top?

Based on Rockstar’s official materials and its trajectory since GTA IV, GTA 6 will likely continue to blend grounded worldbuilding with over-the-top missions and characters. The key difference from GTA 2 is that its world is expected to feel like a heightened version of present-day America rather than a speculative future, preserving the formula that has made recent entries so influential.⁵