Intrepid Grand Theft Auto fanatics have spent the last week poring over the GTA 6 trailer, speculating on every tiny detail, and asking themselves (and anyone else who'll listen): what does this or that, or this and that mean? I speak from direct experience, of course, but speculation is something that's underpinned Rockstar's enduring open-world crime sim series since its inception over 26 years ago – and it shows little signs of slowing down today.
When considering the deep and intricate timeline of the series as a whole, one particularly noteworthy nugget of intrigue dates back to the turn of the millennium, involving a cut character from Grand Theft Auto 3. A so-called "street urchin" by the name of Darkel, this NPC was supposedly designed to offer players Rampage jobs (or Kill Frenzy missions as they were otherwise known in the 2D universe before then), but never made it into the final release version of the game.
Despite being shrouded in mystery for some time, Rockstar officially addressed the character in a 2011 interview while promoting GTA 3's 10 Year Anniversary Edition, but dismissed Darkel's suggested dark side as nothing more than a "funny rumor".
Still, that hasn't stopped players speculating about the character – with internet chatter mentioning Dakel in the same breath as everything from the September 11 attacks on New York City, to blowing up in-game school buses, the reason the in-game Dodo plane has clipped wings, and the real-world international dance and electro DJ, Tom Novy.
Can't stop the rumor mill
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I discovered the existence of Darkel when I became aware of GTA3D, a hobbyist total conversion mod whose creators sought to recreate GTA 3 from the ground up. By researching the game's files, promo materials in its build up to release, and prototypes that made it into the public domain at the time, GTA3D reimagines Grand Theft Auto 3 in its unreleased beta form, restoring a number of models, lines of dialogue, missions, and, of course, characters that hit the cutting room floor before final release.
Having spoken to the GTA3D team on a couple of occasions over the years, I know that one of their driving motivations while creating the mod was to (attempt to) get into the same mind space as the GTA 3 devs at the time. It's worth remembering that the third numbered Grand Theft Auto game was delayed by several weeks in the immediate wake of the 9/11 terror attack, however Rockstar has long-maintained Darkel's omission had nothing to do with this whatsoever.
The GTA3D team, on the other hand, maintains that despite Darkel's absence in GTA 3's full release, his name appears in GTA 3, GTA: Vice City, and GTA: San Andreas' code, as a C++ class named "CDarkel". The GTA3D team also reckons that Rockstar wrote this code to handle Rampages in GTA 3, and it's the same code class that facilitates the same features in its two immediate successors.
Everything else about Darkel is even more speculative. Darkel is said to have once operated from GTA 3's abandoned Harwood tunnel. His pedestrian model is said to be one of the homeless NPCs you'll otherwise find in the same location. It's suggested Darkel would have provided the player with several high-chaos missions, similar to how Cesar deals out Rampage-esque challenges in GTA: San Andreas; and it's suggested one of these missions involved loading an ice cream truck with explosives and killing as many pedestrians as possible.
For the GTA3D team, speculation drove much of their research in recreating the character, a process that entailed digging through old magazines, pulling concept scans from archived databases, and then filling the gaps with a healthy dose of artistic license. An in-game advert in the game's final release, for example, speaks of homeless people mixing and selling moonshine. One of Darkel's missions as per the GTA3D mod, then, was selling bootleg booze; while another was dealing with the hostile fallout of civilians drunk on you and Darkel's home-brewed illicit goods.
Character dismantling
"One rumor the GTA3D team squashed during their process, however, pertains to the game's Dodo seaplane."
Moreover, Bill Fiore, the actor who apparently voiced Darkel, still features in GTA 3's end credits despite the character's absence in the final product. I reached out to the late actor's representatives a number of years ago, and while they couldn't say for sure why Darkel was cut, they believed Fiore was offered little explanation at the time.
A similar situation applies to German dance and electronica DJ Tom Novy (whose 2006 chart hit Your Body may ring a bell). Novy's song Back To the Streets was originally intended to feature on GTA 3's in-game radio station, Head Radio, and the DJ's likeness was once intended to feature as a pedestrian character model. I likewise reached out to Novy a while back, who repeated a similar message about decisions dev-side being made above his head. As you may have already guessed by this point, Novy's character and song have been reintroduced in GTA3D.
One rumor the GTA3D team squashed during their process, however, pertains to the game's Dodo seaplane. With clipped wings and stubborn controls, some pockets of the GTA community once claimed the model was altered in response to 9/11, in turn preventing players from being able to fly the aircraft into buildings. Rockstar has long denied this assertion – something the GTA3D team was able to verify when they uncovered the game's original files from the year 2000 (and therefore well before 9/11) complete with a Dodo vehicle model with clipped wings.
For what it's worth, the GTA3D team also believes Darkel's omission had nothing to do with 9/11 either, which leads us nicely into Rockstar's official rebuttal while promoting the GTA 3 10 Year Anniversary Edition. During a Facebook Q&A back in 2011 – archived in this Newswire post titled, 'Grand Theft Auto III: Your Questions Answered – Part One (Claude, Darkel & Other Characters') – Rockstar was asked specifically about Darkel:
After that, one Facebook user asked: "Will we ever see a release of the beta Darkel missions?" to which Rockstar replied: "No. The guys at Rockstar North are far too busy working on future stuff to ever figure out how to fix these old unfinished missions and get them running."
Since then, Rockstar has indeed kept itself busy with GTA 5 across three console generations, Red Dead Redemption 2, the myriad evolutions and updates of GTA Online, and, of course, the development of GTA 6. Those games will invariably have had their own cast of cut characters, chopped dialogue, axed missions, and more – but that still doesn't take anything away from the intrigue that these decisions leave behind. Darkel is among the most interesting of these forgotten remnants of a bygone era, but he definitely won't be the last.
The best games like GTA are filled with carnage and chaos
