The design documents for the first entry in the Grand Theft Auto series have surfaced online. Titled Race’n’Chase, the game was originally planned 16 years ago with the intent of being “a fun, addictive, and fast multiplayer car racing and crashing game which uses a novel graphics method.” We all know that probably wouldn’t have sold well, hence the radical changes.
Mike Dailly, one of the lead designers on the game, uploaded 36 pictures of the documents to Flickr, including concept art, mission designs, and everyday activities users would participate in. The game would have required 8MB of RAM, and either 8 or 16-bit graphics would be used. “There will be three cities with a different graphic style for each city,” the documents read. “There will be many different missions to be played in each city.”
Several of the planned features have been incorporated into the Grand Theft Auto familiar to today’s gamers. “Pedestrians will be wandering about all of the time. They can be run over by cars,” one note reads. Another explains, “It will also be possible for players to get out of their car and steal another one. Trying to steal a car may result in an alarm being set off which will, of course, attract the police.” It’s stated that “police will be able to get out of their cars and shoot at the robbers.”
It’s interesting that Race’n’Chase planned to feature multiplayer. The Grand Theft Auto series always gone without the mode, probably for good reason considering each of the game’s elaborate stories. So far multiplayer has only appeared in Grand Theft Auto IV. One can ponder all day long about what could have shifted their focus, but given the state of multiplayer gaming today, the next GTA installment may have a robust multiplayer mode in place.
