GTA Online, the multiplayer mode for GTA 5, is an enormous success. It’s helped the game remain popular–and lucrative for Rockstar and Take-Two–in the 10+ years since GTA 5 originally came out in 2013. As it turns out, Rockstar Games wanted the GTA series to have a multiplayer mode much, much earlier.
Obbe Vermeij, who worked on GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas, and GTA 4, told GamesRadar that Rockstar’s teams wanted to incorporate an online mode „since the GTA 3 days.“
„For GTA 3, I prototyped a simple deathmatch. Players could kill each other, drag each other from cars, and respawn around the city,“ he said.