GTA 3 dev thought riding the train was "boring," which led to the creation of the series' cinematic camera: "The team found it surprisingly entertaining"

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Because of "streaming issues," the devs couldn't just let players "jump ahead to the next station"

GTA 3
(Image credit: Rockstar)

Former Rockstar Games technical director Obbe Vermeij is no stranger to revealing tidbits of information about the development of some of the older GTA games, and he's now explained how GTA 3's cinematic camera first came to be – it turns out we can thank the train for being kind of "boring" at first.

In a new thread on Twitter, Vermeij – who worked on GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas, and GTA 4 – reveals that he "found riding [the train] boring," but even though he "considered letting the player jump ahead to the next station," this ultimately would have led to "streaming issues." Down in the replies, he elaborates: "If the player jumps to a new destination, the whole map has to suddenly be loaded there."

Because of this, Vermeij took a different approach, and "made the camera switch between random viewpoints near the track. This made the ride more interesting." As we know though, things didn't stop there, but it was thanks to another dev's idea that the same concept was applied to the game's cars. "Somebody suggested trying the same in a car. I added the wheel cam, as well as the view from chasing cars," Vermeij continues. "The team found it surprisingly entertaining so the cinematic camera stayed in."

From then on, the cinematic camera became a returning feature in GTA. While it was "unchanged for Vice City," things were altered a bit in San Andreas where it was "revamped" by Derek Ward, who Vermeij explains "joined us after finishing Manhunt." Beyond GTA, the cinematic camera also features in Red Dead Redemption 2, which Vermeij didn't personally work on, but says it "was cool" to see his creation pop up there. "In some way the cinematic camera is better suited to RDR than GTA," he adds. 

Considering how the feature keeps on coming back, it seems pretty likely that the cinematic camera could make an appearance in GTA 6, too. For now, we'll just have to wait and see, but Rockstar's upcoming blockbuster is currently set to release at some point this fall. 

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Catherine Lewis
Catherine Lewis
Deputy News Editor

I'm GamesRadar+'s Deputy News Editor, working alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.