So, it looks like information about the next instalment of the famous Grand Theft Auto series may be ready for release by Rockstar. Rockstar have done very well to completely cover up the next GTA game, leaving GTA fans like me thinking, “What’s coming next?” There has been a lot of speculation on what the next GTA game might be, so here are my guesses.

The most rumoured destination for the next GTA game has to be Vice City, hands down. There are so many hints and references to Vice City through out the three GTA games based in Liberty City that have mainly occurred in the third episode in the saga, The Ballad of Gay Tony. The most noticed reference was the ‘Liberty City, Its over!” poster found in the Episodes From Liberty City manual and also in Star Junction in both The Lost and Damned (TLAD) and The Ballad of Gay Tony (TBOGT).  The poster features the words “Next stop” which are cut of by a tear in the poster, which reveals part of another poster behind it. The shape of the tear vaguely resembles one of the corners of France, but does not exactly fit, even so, people still don’t rule this out as a hint, and nor do I as I have noticed one other hint that most people haven’t. In the top right hand corner of the poster, there is a logo that states that the poster is for a movie that is an official entrant to the L.C. Film festival. Obviously that means Liberty City Film Festival, however one of the worlds biggest film festivals is held in Cannes in southern France, which could support the view that the next GTA could be in France although the tear in the poster doesn’t resemble southern France.

Another speculation that is some what supported by the ‘Its over’ poster is Vice City. The poster behind was later found to be for a company called ‘Mollis’ which were first featured in Vice City. The poster can be found around Liberty City (mainly in the sex shops) and also says the words “Prepare for the explosion” with a volcano in the background. Still need more proof that if could be Vice City from this one poster? Well, the poster also has the words ‘Vesuvius Citrate’ printed on it, what does this have to do with anything you ask? Vesuvius Citrate, VC, Vice City. These things are all here for a reason, and if I know Rockstar, that’s a definite hint to the next game. That’s the big Vice City hints over with; some of the other hints include the addition of Me TV, which can be found also in star junction, which are a company first featured in Vice City. The addition of Vice City FM to the radio stations in Episodes from Liberty City (EFLC), and finally characters through out the game rambling on about how much they want to move to Vice City. Personally I think this could be a little too much. Knowing Rockstar, they will make us think that the next game will be set in Vice City, then actually make it somewhere completely different.

 

Another big speculation (yes I’ve used that word a lot in this article, I do realise these things) is Los Angeles. This is mainly because Rockstar did a lot of research about L.A. recently. I personally think that was for the upcoming game L.A. Noire, but I could be wrong, after all the recent voice actor listings made by Rockstar are very Hollywood and could well be for the next GTA, but still, I am unsure about this one. The next guess at the new GTA is more what people want, and may not be completely realistic, and if you haven’t already guessed, its San Andreas. Although people want this, there are little hints in the game that actually support this. One I found whilst exploring one day was in the newly added Rotterdam Tower (Empire State Building) where it lists the names of four cities, Los Santos, San Fierro, Las Venturas and Vice City. Could this finally be the long awaited GTA game where you can fly between cities? Well, another hint found by our CEO Alex may well add to how genuine that guess may be. He noticed that there are some Dock Yards being constructed near heli-tours in Algonquin (The second island for Old School GTA-ers), maybe we can catch an overnight ferry to another city, who knows.

 

To round of this article, I would like to finish with one of my personal speculations. During the TBOGT credits, you see Packie getting dropped off at the Francis International Airport with a bag. Could he finally be going back to the old country as he always said he would? This leads me to believe that the next GTA game could well be set in Ireland and you could well play as Packie. I think this would be an excellent move in bringing GTA out of America, it seems a great place to start off, but we will have to wait and see what happens at E3 this year. Until then we would like you to get involved. Head over to our forums and post your speculations and guesses, you never know what you may discover. Also feel free to post pictures of your found hints, who knows, you may well be rewarded for this! So, that’s the end of my speculations as to what the next GTA game will be, but one thing people don’t seem to mention to often is will it actually be any good? Well, I have my own theory to his as a hardcore GTA fan. This is where all hints and guesses end, if that’s all you came for, you may as well stop reading now.

 

My theory is this, GTA III (3) was a new type of game on a new console, this was completely new to Rockstar for this type of game. I see GTA III as an experiment that went well as it started the GTA revolution. Vice city was the second instalment of the PS2 GTA games and was a massive improvement as they were getting to know the system they were working with and honestly, there wasn’t a massive margin for improvement at the time, or so it seemed. GTA San Andreas was the third and final instalment of the PS2 GTA Games (excluding the Liberty and Vice City stories games) and what a game it was. Rockstar really pushed the PS2 to its limits and fully knew what they could do with this system. San Andreas was so good in fact, that people (including me) still play it now and still believe it is one of the best games in existence. San Andreas really did sign off the final game in the PS2 GTA trilogy with a bang.

So we finally get to GTA IV, I remember being so excited when I saw the first trailer for this game, and couldn’t wait to get it. The graphics looked so amazing, and the city just had more life to it. This was all possible thanks to Rockstars new RAGE engine (Rockstars Advanced Game Engine) which gave the game excellent graphics for an open world game, ground breaking physics and brilliant realism in terms of driving, walking, character acting and causing all round general peril for the people of Liberty City. Despite all this, many gamers saw GTA IV as a failure and got bored with it after a week or so because it lacked so many features that San Andreas brought to the table. Realising their mistakes, Rockstar greatly improved GTA IV with the second episode in the series, GTA The Lost and Damned which introduced updated bike physics that stopped you from flying off every time the road got a bit bumpy. The game was great compared to the original, but it still felt very GTA IV-ish. A while after this Rockstar game back to give Liberty City its last hoorah with a truly amazing game which I often refer to as ‘San Andreas, but in Liberty City’.

GTA The Ballad of Gay Tony was simply awesome, it brought most of the fun left behind in GTA San Andreas back to GTA, it was like shaking hands with an old friend. My theory is that Rockstar had their two experiments with GTA IV and TLAD and they did all that they could with TBOGT, so if my theory is correct, the next GTA is the big one. Rockstar know the capabilities of the consoles it’s developing for and knows what they can handle but most importantly, as proven in TBOGT, they know how to push the system as well, and there is a lot more space before the game reaches the PS3’s limits. So its time to prepare for the explosion, this is the big one.

 

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