GTA III: Your Questions Answered Part 1

After a long wait and surely a lot of time sifting through fan mail, Rockstar has released the first round of answers to fans' burning questions about Grand Theft Auto III. These center around characters. Check them out below...

Claude

CrazyNiko187
Was Claude always intended to be silent with no spoken dialogue?
SCORPIO7188
Is Claude a mute or is he a man who doesn't talk? I remember CJ calling Claude a mute in the race in San Andreas.
XxMETALMONSTERxX
Why doesn't Claude talk? I mean he doesn't even react when he's on fire lol.

Rockstar Says:

"It may now seem obvious that people should all talk in games, but this was not necessarily the case in 2001, certainly not in an open world game. We were making up a lot of procedures as we went along, and we decided that the NPCs (Non Playable Characters) should talk and we would have to figure out how to make them talk (using motion captured cutscenes, something that had never really been done before, at least not on the scale we were doing it). So we decided that the game’s protagonist would not talk, partly to aid people identifying with him, but mostly because we had so many other problems to solve and this did not seem like a major issue. We started to discuss introducing a talking lead character when working on Vice City, but it was a lot of work. While the structure of GTA3 may seem obvious or natural now, and the use of cutscenes made in the game’s engine that look and feel like the game may seem simple and easy, it really was not the case back in 2001 when we had to figure out all of these things for the first time. Oh and in San Andreas, CJ calls Claude a mute because he does not talk and CJ finds this unnerving."

D.E.LB
Please shed some light on if this is actually Claude's voice from a beta version of III: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOGs2w40SyA
Liberty_King
Actually, I heard Claude yawn sometimes when he falls from a big height, and/or drowns in sea. Also this is interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddJ_SF596HE. At 0:18 Claude seems to say quote "Get out of the car" quickly, it seems he had a voice at some point, this is really a mystery
fan_GTA
On one of the trailers GTA3 beta, Claude says, "Get out of the car". What were the reasons that Claude did not say any words?

Rockstar Says:

"This is fake. This is an old bit of gameplay footage, for sure, but we think the voices were added at a later date by someone online as at no point did we plan for Claude to have a voice or even design how a speaking protagonist would be implemented until Vice City."

ARMORALLL
After the last mission is complete is that Claude who says "When the chopper finally got taken out, better than the fireworks on the 4th of July"??? I've always wondered about this!

Rockstar Says:

"No – it is a witness in a news report who says that."

Vortex94
Who was the inspiration for character Claude? I really like his attitude i.e silent but deadly.

Rockstar Says:

"There wasn’t any one single inspiration – we just liked the idea of a strong, silent killer, who would be juxtaposed with all of these neurotic and verbose mobsters in an amusing way. He seems stronger and in control, while they seem weaker and frantic. "

-AlSar-
Can you tell us more about Claude's biography?
Dapunkilla
What’s the backstory on Claude? For example his last name, family relatives? Where he's from? Or maybe even a short bio?

Rockstar Says:

"He’s a bank robber with a noisy and psychotic girlfriend. More than that, it is hard to say. Definitely a drifter, probably from the west coast, new to Liberty City. Surname may or may not be Speed."

Dapunkilla
Did Claude kill Maria?
nikobelic2500000
At the end of Grand theft Auto 3, did Claude actually shoot Maria?

Rockstar Says:

"We are not sure about this. Some think he did, and some think he didn’t. Certainly in an original version of the script, Maria had a longer, really annoying speech, but then someone in the audio department wisely put an end to that. Quite what that means for Maria, who can say."

Dapunkilla
What became of Claude’s fate? Is he dead in the GTAIII canon or he alive?

Rockstar Says:

"He certainly isn’t dead. What else became of him, we don’t know."

therealtreefitty
How did Claude's appearance change or take shape during development?

Rockstar Says:

"We iterated his look many, many times until we were happy – usual sort of things, weight, face, some clothing."

Darkel

BenDeR.
Darkel, such a strange character... Pictures of him are available on GTA III's official website and his name appears in GTA III's booklet. I heard somewhere that he was supposed to give you some kind of "rampage-like" missions. What was exactly his purpose? Why wasn't he included in the final version of the game?
GTAOVER9000
Hey Rockstars... tell me if you can. Is it true that removed character from Grand Theft Auto III named Darkel was a Russian communist ?
11205885
What was the whole fuss with Darkel? Was there really a mission where you blew up a school bus full of children?
Tbirdsc
Who was Darkel?

Rockstar Says:

"Darkel was just a crazy bum who gave you some crazy missions. They were removed a few months before the game was done and long before 9/11 because they just weren’t as good as the rest of the game, and tonally they were a little odd. He started with 5 missions and they were slowly all cut. When only one or 2 were left, they were all removed as the character just didn’t work alongside the other characters.

None of these missions involved blowing up buses of school children although that is a funny rumor! "

Etoddgta
Will we ever see a release of the beta Darkel missions?

Rockstar Says:

"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."

Other Characters

SammiiDoogles
There are many references to GTAIII characters and brands (El Burro graffiti in LC for example) in GTAIV, but do any characters (other than Lazlow) actually exist within both 'universes'? Is that where Donald Love went? Did he hop dimensions into the GTAIV universe?! Plot twist!! Are the two universes completely separate? I understand it'd make almost no sense having two Liberty City's but is there any way we'll see characters from GTAIII return? GTAIV has some amazing characters, but some of the characters in the III era are just unforgettable.

Rockstar Says:

"El Burro is referenced as he was also referenced in GTA 1, so it felt appropriate that he should cross “universes” – the “universes” are the worlds interpreted at different definitions, 2d, 3d and high definition, so we felt brands and radio / back ground characters would exist in both, but 3 dimensional characters would not. This is the logic (as far as it could be considered logical) behind it – so no, we don’t believe any GTA3 characters could exist in the GTA4 universe."

FeelThePayne
Why was Ray so paranoid? lol < He was also voiced by Robert Loggia too WOW!

Rockstar Says:

"He was a bent cop who knew his luck was almost up and he was about to come to an unfortunate end – this would make anyone paranoid…"

VladTheZenga09
Guy with the baseball bat on the artwork.. who is he? I'm pretty sure it isn't Toni Cipriani 'cause on the artwork he is the guy with hands in his pocket, and these two guys are not the same.. at least to me.. cheers.
eat-THE-phoenix
In celebration of GTA III's 10th birthday, I decided to dig up the game to play it again for old time's sake. However, every time I look at the cover, the guy with the glasses and pistol always make me wonder... Who is the guy with the glasses prominently features on the cover, manual, and loading screens?

Rockstar Says:

"He is a character from an early piece of concept art by our long standing character concept artist at Rockstar North, Ian McQue, that Stephen Bliss (who is one of the guys who illustrates our Grand Theft Auto cover art) liked and used to make a cool piece of montage art that embodied the game – we were less concerned with the art really representing characters as much as capturing the vibe of the game – so some of the characters in the art are not necessarily game characters. We did not really think the characters would be such a big deal until after the game came out."

Look for the final part two of this special series next week where Rockstar will officially address some of your questions about a few of the long-standing rumors related to the game’s content. Stay tuned and check out rumors and info about GTA 5 at iGTA5.com!

UPDATE: Read Part 2 here.