Former Rockstar director reveals new details behind scrapped GTA: Tokyo project

A former Rockstar Games director has revealed fresh details about the scrapped GTA: Tokyo project, including its planned gameplay, weapons and the Japanese studio that could have developed it.

Former Rockstar North technical director Obbe Vermeij previously confirmed that GTA: Tokyo was considered alongside games set in Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Istanbul.

Now, Vermeij has explained just how the potential spin-off would have worked and revealed that Rockstar wanted to make a GTA III-style game featuring samurai swords.

GTA: Tokyo would have been developed like Bully and had swords

Speaking in an interview with Thunderpick, Vermeij said the project was primarily driven by Rockstar’s New York office.

Rockstar North knew about the plans, but its developers had no direct contact with the proposed Japanese studio.

Rockstar Games

Tokyo was the most advanced of several international locations discussed at the company, with London and Paris also joining Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Istanbul as possible settings.

The plan was to retain GTA III’s core formula rather than significantly alter how Grand Theft Auto played. However, its Tokyo setting would have introduced some new elements.

“Samurai swords were going to play a big part,” Vermeij revealed.

Development would have followed a similar model to Bully, which was created by Rockstar Vancouver after Take-Two acquired the studio formerly known as Barking Dog Studios.

Rockstar North supplied the Vancouver team with its technology and code before allowing it to build the game independently. The company intended to take the same approach with GTA: Tokyo by handing its existing tools to a team based in Japan.

However, the arrangement collapsed before development could properly begin. “The contracts were never signed,” Vermeij said.

Despite the Yakuza playing a major role in GTA III, the gang was not behind Rockstar’s interest in taking the series to Japan. Vermeij explained that GTA III’s Yakuza faction was simply carried over from the first two games, rather than being established as a setup for a future Tokyo title.

Rockstar Games

Instead, Rockstar believed a Japanese developer could capture the country’s culture more accurately. The series had also struggled to achieve the same level of success in Japan, so the hope was that a locally developed game could appeal to that audience before being exported to Western markets.

Rockstar co-founder Sam Houser visited the team and discussed the Tokyo concept, while GTA producer Leslie Benzies was more directly involved. Still, Vermeij confirmed: “It just never got to the production stage.”

He believes Tokyo could have offered unique opportunities, particularly through Japan’s street-racing culture, but the scope and cost of modern GTA games now make international spin-offs far less likely.

“We had our own idea in the Rockstar North office over what we’d do with Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Istanbul. We’d get drunk together and start thinking about all the cool ways we could take the game into those cities, and all these ideas,” he remarked.

“The problem really is that it’s so hard to commit to something when you’re creating a game, especially at the scale of a GTA game.”

Vermeij previously claimed Rockstar is effectively “stuck” revisiting its established American cities, as the country’s exaggerated culture is easier to parody and familiar to players worldwide. In fact, recent leaks have revealed that Liberty City, the GTA universe’s version of New York, was intended as GTA Online DLC.

That cycle will continue with GTA 6, which returns to Vice City and expands into the wider state of Leonida. Vermeij estimates that a modern GTA project could require an investment of around $2 billion, making an unfamiliar international setting a major financial risk.

GTA 6 is set to launch on November 19, 2026.