The iconic Grand Theft Auto cover design only exists because of 9/11 and was created at the last minute

The franchise's famous cover design was apparently designed in about 48 hours

The franchise's famous cover design was apparently designed in about 48 hours

One of the most famous features of the Grand Theft Auto series is its consistent use of segmented covers with cartoon drawings of characters and vehicles from that particular episode. It all started with Grand Theft Auto 3, but that wasn't actually the planned coverage for the game. Instead, the events of 9/11 led to its rapid creation at the last minute.

In a new IGN interview with former Rockstar VP and head writer Dan Houser, GTA boss explained that GTA 3's iconic cover came about because of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. With GTA 3 coming the very next month, 9/11 was very fresh in people's minds and the original cover was fresh.

"The cover art that became GTA's iconic cover art," Houser explained. Steven Bliss did it in about two nights because the old cover art was probably too offensive for a post-9/11 release with buildings being set on fire. So, if it wasn't just 9/11, it would be nice. "So this appearance of the shards, the squares that became so iconic, only appeared because of 9/11."

"There were a few bits of content that were good, but right after 9/11, it was maybe a little too much. So we had to cut them out, and the team would get together and cut them out. They edited them out and edited out a few lines of dialogue and came up with quick content and I think it's good." As Houser explained in 2011, some of these changes included repainting police cars.

Houser has previously mentioned that the 9/11 attacks led to the need to create new art for the game, but in this new interview he further explains how strange and ironic it is that this last-minute cover change for GTA 3 resulted in something so popular and a famous piece of pop culture.

"GTA has become part of a wider cultural fabric. 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. "So, I think you started to see that creep about 10 years ago."

Grand Theft Auto 3 became a huge hit for Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive, essentially saving the publisher and making Rockstar Games a household name overnight.

"So I remember in early 2001, Take-Two was at a very low economic point at that time," Houser said.

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… in October 2001. Until Christmas 2001 until early 2002, and it didn't stop selling. It's not like any of the weeks weren't huge. It was that every week he was just making a fuss."

Grand Theft Auto 6 will use the franchise's famous cover design when it launches on Xbox and PlayStation on November 19.

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