Train2Game students will naturally be very aware of iconic Grand Theft Auto series and how it has arguably revolutionised gaming. Various other titles have used game design elements, such as open world environments, pioneered by the games in the series and Grand Theft Auto III in particular.

But despite Grand Theft Auto III breaking new ground with open worlds when it was released a decade ago, Rockstar’s Dan Houser believes there’s still plenty to come from that particular type of game design.

“I think there’s something really interesting in the open world experience. Obviously we’ve made like ten of them now and they still don’t feel boring to me. It still feels that we’re only scratching the surface of that potential. But who knows what we’ll be doing?” he told IGN.

When asked what Rockstar will be working on in future, Houser says he doesn’t mind so long as the games are of high quality and the developer is still running well in another ten years.

“We’ll hopefully have done a bunch of interesting games in the next ten years. That’s always the goal. I’ve never been that good at the futureology side of game-making. We never really care what the name is on the box, either. The name Grand Theft Auto, the name Max Payne, the name’s Red Dead, the name’s Table Tennis, it doesn’t really matter as long as the game’s cool,” he said.

“I would never have believed you would have been talking about this in ten years time. We were still talking about Space Invaders [ten years ago], and that was already 20, 30 years old then. Hopefully we’ll continue to do interesting stuff, that’s you know, that’s kind of all you can hope for.” he added.

To celebrate the ten year anniversary of Grand Theft Auto III, the game is being released for iPad and Android tablet devices. And while there’s been no official word on Grand Theft Auto V, the Train2Game blog has previously reported that analysts believe it’ll arrive in 2012.

Train2Game students may be interested to hear that the original Grand Theft Auto project was almost scrapped, before a bug made the game more exciting to play. It’s a lesson to Train2Game QA Testers that bugs aren’t always a bad thing!

So Train2Game, what are your thoughts on the legacy of Grand Theft Auto? How do you believe game design of open world titles can be improved? And do you believe Rockstar will still be doing what they do in ten years?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: IGN]