Obbe Vermeij, a former employee of Rockstar Games, revealed why GTA 3 Claude was a silent protagonist in the game, citing practical restraints faced by the audio team.
Reasons Why GTA 3 Claude Was Silent
For those who know gaming history, GTA 3 made a lot of renovations at the gaming industry. With being GTA 3 to be first open world and also TPS game in the series, GTA 3 did change the direction of the Rockstar Games and also Grand Theft Auto franchise.
Over the years, fans were still wondering why the GTA 3 Claude is silent. At the Q&A answered by Rockstar Games, the company answered that question like this:
It may now seem obvious that people should all talk in games, but this was not necessarily the case in 2001, certainly not in an open world game. We were making up a lot of procedures as we went along, and we decided that the NPCs (Non Playable Characters) should talk and we would have to figure out how to make them talk (using motion captured cutscenes, something that had never really been done before, at least not on the scale we were doing it). So we decided that the game’s protagonist would not talk, partly to aid people identifying with him, but mostly because we had so many other problems to solve and this did not seem like a major issue. We started to discuss introducing a talking lead character when working on Vice City, but it was a lot of work. While the structure of GTA3 may seem obvious or natural now, and the use of cutscenes made in the game’s engine that look and feel like the game may seem simple and easy, it really was not the case back in 2001 when we had to figure out all of these things for the first time. Oh and in San Andreas, CJ calls Claude a mute because he does not talk and CJ finds this unnerving.
Aside from that answer, one curious GTA fan asked a question to the Obbe Vermeij, who served as Rockstar North’s Technical Director during Grand Theft Auto 3’s development and got respond. “At least part of it was that we had to cut corners,” Vermeij states, adding, “The audio dept [was] busy as it was.” Vermeij’s response suggests that the audio department had to navigate certain limitations or obstacles, though he did not elaborate as to whether these were related to budget, technical issues, or something else.
It’s interesting to imagine an era where Rockstar Games was significantly restrained by technical or budgetary limitations. Rockstar has been massively influential when it comes to open world games, and many consider the company to be unparalleled in the realm of technical polish, with games like Red Dead Redemption 2 featuring dozens of knockout voice performances and a level of detail that likely did not come cheap or easy. Indeed, the gaming giant having to “cut corners” at one point in time may seem almost hard to believe, considering its current reputation.
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While Vermeij’s tweet hints that Claude’s lack of dialog was impacted by outside forces, there’s an argument to be made that his silence benefits Grand Theft Auto 3. While fully voiced Rockstar characters like Arthur Morgan are iconic, there is still space in the modern gaming landscape for silent protagonists, as they can help the player insert themselves into the game world and project their own story onto the hero.
Claude is a good example of a silent protagonist done right, still managing to be memorable and recognizable despite his apparent aversion to speech.
