GTA 3’s Canceled Tokyo Sequel Means Rockstar Can Go Full Circle Now

The Grand Theft Auto franchise has visited numerous fictional cities inspired by real-world locations over the years. GTA 3 and 4 took players to Liberty City, a region loosely inspired by cities on the East Coast of the United States, such as New York City and Baltimore. GTA: San Andreas and GTA 5, on the other hand, were set in San Andreas, a state located in southwestern America that’s highly reminiscent of California and, more specifically, Los Angeles. As for GTA: Vice City and the upcoming GTA 6, they unsurprisingly take place in the titular Vice City, which resembles the Floridian city of Miami. So far, the only real-life city a Grand Theft Auto game has ever visited is London, as it was the setting of the fittingly-named 1999 installment GTA: London 1969.

At one point, however, series developer Rockstar Games may have considered expanding the GTA franchise to other real-world locations besides London. Recent rumors have suggested that, prior to the release of GTA: San Andreas, Rockstar was exploring a variety of non-fictional settings for the sequel to Grand Theft Auto 3, such as Las Vegas, Nevada and Bogota, Colombia. The company also reportedly considered making a Grand Theft Auto game set in Tokyo. This was corroborated by datamined evidence from December 2023’s GTA 5 source code leak. Assuming these reports are true, it’s a shame that none of these planned GTA titles have ever seen the light of day. Rockstar still has the opportunity to bring these locations back for Grand Theft Auto 6 in some shape or form, but it would be especially great if it reconsidered Tokyo as a setting.

Rockstar Could Bring the Setting of Tokyo Back in Grand Theft Auto 6

GTA: Tokyo Was a Successor to Grand Theft Auto 3 That Never Saw the Light of Day

Sometime after the launch of Grand Theft Auto 3, Rockstar was allegedly planning for a new installment in the GTA franchise called GTA: Tokyo. This title would’ve been the second GTA game, following GTA: London 1969, to take place in a city outside of the United States. GTA: Tokyo, as TimeExtension recently reported, was first considered at Rockstar Games after the studio’s co-founder, Sam Hauser, made numerous trips to Japan to promote the then-upcoming title, Grand Theft Auto 3. While Houser did find the idea of a GTA game set in Japan exciting at the time, GTA: Tokyo ultimately never made it past the pitching phase, in large part due to the difficulty Rockstar faced with incorporating Japanese culture into its trademark satirical approach.

It is understandable why Rockstar decided to scrap GTA: Tokyo at the time, but it’s still disappointing nonetheless. There are very few open-world crime games that take place in Japan, if any, that have the same tone and snarky social commentary as a GTA game. The Yakuza games are the closest that gamers have gotten to experiencing a GTA title set in Tokyo so far, but the popular Sega franchise doesn’t have much in common with Rockstar’s GTA besides some surface-level similarities.

Rockstar Should Make a Standalone, Tokyo-Themed Expansion for GTA 6

Although GTA: Tokyo was ultimately canceled, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the premise of the game can’t be revisited in the future. One way Rockstar can do this is by making a standalone singleplayer expansion for Grand Theft Auto 6 that’s set in Tokyo. Considering GTA 6 takes place in the fictional, Florida-inspired state of Leonida, which is obviously nowhere near Japan or East Asia, this may initially seem like a strange idea. However, this wouldn’t be the first time the GTA series has done something like this. After all, GTA: London 1969 was essentially an expansion for the original Grand Theft Auto, which itself was set in a fictionalized version of the United States. Some might be disappointed if GTA: Tokyo was a standalone DLC for GTA 6 instead of its own, full-length game, but this strategy would at least make it easier for Rockstar to release a Tokyo-based installment in the Grand Theft Auto franchise far faster.