Asked if Rockstar Games ever considered bringing Grand Theft Auto beyond the United States after the GTA III trilogy, Vermeij answers affirmatively. «We had ideas for GTA games in Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Istanbul,» he says. «Tokyo was close to being a reality. Another studio in Japan was going to develop it […] Vermeij says that people love to have crazy ideas, but when there are billions of dollars at stake it's very easy to go back to what you already know how to do.
Furthermore, Vermeij considers that the United States is the epicenter of Western culture, so everyone knows its cities even if they have not visited them. «Everyone has an image of cities in their head,» he adds. The developer sees it as very unlikely that a GTA game will leave the United States, considering that it makes no sense to set it in a lesser-known place just for the novelty. «GTA Toronto? It just wouldn't work,» he says. About 20 years ago Take Two registered the names GTA: Bogota and GTA: Tokyo.
And the Old Continent? Vermeij was proposed the idea of a GTA in Europe, either to set it in London, as in an expansion of Grand Theft Auto, or covering the entire continent to visit different criminal underworlds. In this case, he assures that it is not a realistic option, although he says that he would love to. «[…] If the games will still take a year to develop, then yes, sure, you could have some fun, but that won't happen when a GTA comes out every 12 years,» says the developer. His bet is that Rockstar Games will revisit New York, Los Angeles or maybe Las Vegas. «I'm afraid we're stuck in a loop of about five American cities,» he adds.
Today a new installment of Grand Theft Auto costs many years and hundreds of millions of dollars, so in Vermeij's opinion it is extremely difficult for Take-Two to decide to risk with an installment set beyond the United States. Perhaps one day the editor will want to focus on smaller projects and the idea of making Grand Theft Auto travel through Tokyo, Bogotá, Barcelona or Madrid can be recovered. However, today the next installment is GTA VI, whose action takes place in its own version of Miami (Florida).