GTA 5 News: Rockstar Cofounder Talks London Gameplay Return, Lack of Female Characters in Trailers and Game

Grand Theft Auto 5 was released on Sept. 17 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and players have been flocking to the city of Los Santos and experiencing the game's many different missions. Players have begun learning the layout of the city, but some fans have been interested to see if the series will go to other locations in the future. In an interview with The Guardian, Dan Houser, cofounder of Rockstar Games, was asked about the series returning to London, but stated that he feels the series is centered around America and future titles belong there, rather than the U.K.:

"I think for us, my gut feeling is, GTA London was cool for the time, but games were more limited then. These days I think we would love to set a game in the UK, set in London, whatever, but I don't know if it would be a GTA game. I think there are plenty of great stories we could tell about the UK, great environments to showcase, great gameplay mechanics that could have a UK bent to them - I just don't think it would be a GTA necessarily...There are so many games we'd like to make that we just don't have the bandwidth to make at the moment. But we always think, well the future is long and varied, and that's what the future's for. Speaking for myself - and normally I'd be as militant about saying 'we' as much as possible, because it certainly isn't only me at all, thank god - but my own personal feeling is that GTA is America..."

Houser was also asked about the lack of female playable characters in Grand Theft Auto 5's campaign, and he explained that, while Rockstar is not opposed to having a female lead in the series, the team did not think to include one in the story of the game.

"We didn't really think about it this time. That's not to say that we couldn't or we wouldn't. This character set is just what came to us: it wasn't, "we've got X and Y so we need Z", we weren't trying to do it off a checklist - I don't think that will ever give you something that's believable or engaging. In the future, could we do a game with a lead female character? Of course. We just haven't found the right game for it yet, but it's one of the things that we always think about. It didn't feel natural for this game but definitely for the right game in the future - with the right themes, it could be fantastic. But for GTA V, this was the organic thing that came up, these were the characters what would display the themes we wanted to think about."

Look out for more news about Grand Theft Auto 5 right here as Rockstar prepares the game's online mode for its Oct. 1 launch date.