Is gta3 network game?

Since gta and gta2 had a LAN (network) game, we felt gta3 should have one too.

I spent around a month implementing the network game. At this point there was a basic death match. Players could drag each other out of cars and players could kill each other. When a player died, the killer would get a point and the deceased would respawn throughout the city. (Not at the hospital, to avoid camping)

It all worked but it was glitchy.

We evaluated and it was clear there still was a lot to do.

We would need more interesting game modes using scripts. We would have to tackle bandwidth & matchmaking issues.

The network game was also going to generate an avalanche of new bugs.

At this point we were running out of time and decided to scrap the idea.

For Vice we actually hired 2 programmers to work on a network game. Again it didn't work out. Mostly because there wasn't enough time between gta3 and Vice.

It didn't make sense to introduce a network game in SA as it was likely the last title of the hardware cycle. We implemented a coop mode instead.

With IV the time was finally right for a network game and with 4 programmers and a similar number of level designers the project got off the ground.