Dan Houser Reveals How 9/11 Changed GTA Forever

25 years later, Dan Houser recalls how GTA's iconic cover art style exists solely because of the 9/11 attacks.

Arguably, there is no style more recognizable than the cover art of the Grand Theft Auto series. A collection of images featuring characters and locations from every open world that graced every game box from 2001's GTA 3 to the upcoming GTA 6 is etched in each of our minds. Although everything seemed almost different.

We spoke with Dan Houser, former Rockstar VP and writer of nearly every game from the studio from 1999 to 2018's Red Dead Redemption 2, as part of the IGN30 Icons series. While reminiscing about the creator's most famous series, Grand Theft Auto, Houser shared how elements of his creation permeated the real world.

"The GTA has become part of a wider cultural fabric," he said. I mean, you've seen it in YouTube clips and everything else that has a HUD on it, and people using logos and things like that. When you go to any major tourist resort, you'll find some sort of GTA cover inspired t-shirt available. "So, you started seeing that creep 10 years ago, so I think."

The bold and colorful style of the cover came out of tragedy, but Houser revealed that the original look of the GTA 3 box had to be changed at the last minute due to the terrorist attack on New York on September 11, 2011.

Funny thing is, the cover art became GTA's iconic cover art; Stephen Bliss did it in about two nights because the old cover art was probably too offensive to come out after 9/11, as Anhauser revealed, “So if it wasn't 9/11, it would be fine. "So that appearance of the shards, the squares that became so iconic, only appeared because of 9/11."

These changes, as well as some actual game content, meant a slight delay for GTA 3 from its originally planned release date of October 3, 2001 to October 22. Although it only lasted a few weeks, it put the pressure on Rockstar and Houser, who were by no means sure it would end up being a breakthrough hit.

"So I remember in early 2001, Take-Two was in the doldrums at the time," Hauser recalls. We were struggling to finish the game, but we thought it was going to be amazing and we took it to E3 on the show floor and no one cared. So it was discouraging to a point. And then the game came out six, seven months later. And this was right after 9/11.

GTA 3, of course, takes place in Liberty City, a fictionalized version of New York City, so you can see why a change of approach was needed. "There were a few bits of content that were good, but right after 9/11, maybe a little too much," Houser explained. “So we had to take them out, and the team gets together and takes them out and edits a few lines of dialogue and does a quick content pitch and thinks it's good. And then the game was released in October 2001. It was kind of gradual until Christmas 2001. In early 2002, it didn't stop selling. It's not like any week is that crowded. It was that every week he was just making a fuss."

Some of these tricks were detailed by Houser in a 2011 interview with Edge magazine. "As far as I can remember, we changed the color of the police cars so they didn't look like the NYPD, changed the plane's flight path so it didn't look like it was flying in or behind a skyscraper, and removed one of the missions because it referred to terrorists," he said at the time.

The first 3D Grand Theft Auto wasn't the only medium that had to make changes in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Other video games such as EA's Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 had to redesign their packaging, and Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty had segments that included the destruction of parts of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty removed.

Others include Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trailer, which had to be interrupted to retrieve a helicopter caught in a giant web between the World Trade Center towers. Men in Black 2 underwent extensive reshoots for similar reasons, and planned sequels to both True Lies and Forrest Gump were canceled.

25 years later, the same format is still used for GTA game covers. You can check out all the details we've picked up from the GTA 6 render here. For more on GTA 6, you can read our full interview with Rockstar studio head Rob Nelson, how the game deals with the current political climate, and why Dan Houser says he won't play it.

Simon Cardy is a senior editor at IGN who can mostly be found engrossed in open-world gaming, engrossed in Korean cinema, or despairing over the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.