GTAgot its start on the PS1 with top-down, 2D games, before pivoting to the revolutionary 3D open-world of Grand Theft Auto 3 on the PS2. But what if that revolution came just a bit earlier? YouTuber Jushton has given us a glimpse at just that with a reimagining ofGTA 6’strailer in the style of a PS1 game.

The leap from PS1 to PS2 washuge,just play the first twoSilent Hillgames back-to-back. Character models improved a lot, as did the scope of its worlds.Spider-Manleaped from a linear, mission-driven game to several open-world titles you could swing through. So, to imagine what GTA 6 would be like on the PS1, you have to cut it down to size, strip it bare, and then gut it completely.

The PS1 was released in 1994 and was superseded six years later by the PS2.

Firstly, there aren’t many skyscrapers and you can see the edge of the world. Islands are also square, there’s no variation to the terrain - it’s all flat - and the population is nil. The only ‘people’ are the few cars driving along a straight bridge that has no barriers. It’s just a floating road, really.

Lucia looking out of a window is just her looking at a flat, premade texture, and the character models are… terrifying, with lips that don’t move. We get a peak at the beach, which is empty now bar a grid of parasols.The swampis much simpler, with far less grass and a very basic boat model, while people speeding across the ocean are awkwardly strapped to the front of rectangular shapes vaguely reminiscent of speedboats.

It’s an estimation of what a modern GTA would look like on the PS1, since we haven’t ever had a 3D open-world entry on that console. But it goes to show just how far the medium has come.

We’ve gone from low-poly nightmare fuel that we used to think was revolutionary andincredibly realisticto actual realism (I say we, I was born the same year the PS2 came out, so I missed the PS1 era - sorry).

The first GTA was also set inVice City, so this video shows us what this Miami parody might’ve looked like had Rockstar made the leap to 3D in the same generation, rather than the next.

For some reason, Far Cry 3’s Vaas and Breaking Bad’s Walter White make a cameo in the video.

Since the PS1, we’ve had four mainline GTA games across two eras - 3D and HD. GTA 6 will be the first new GTA since the PS3, with GTA 5 being ported to PS4 a year after its launch. It’s been a long time coming, but for a minute, it’s fun to look back at what things used to be like.