Edge Interview: Rockstar's Dan Houser

Edge writes: "Visiting Rockstar's HQ for a look at Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, we also felt duty bound to talk with vice president of creative Dan Houser about the wider world of Grand Theft Auto, and specifically the fourth instalment, on which he and the Rockstar North team are obviously still working as they prepare the first of two episodes of downloadable content, due for release over Xbox Live.

Q: Looking back at the launch of GTAIV, what was it like from your perspective?

A: Nerve-wracking, always nerve-wracking. The bigger the game, the more nerve-wracking. It was a smoother movement from GTAIII to Vice City to San Andreas, and then we hit various political roadbumps in the intervening years, and also we had to deal with a movement on to the new hardware, with technical roadbumps and so on.

The challenge in some ways was outside of the process of making a game, in terms of what we do using experts from Microsoft and Sony to come in and work with the hardware – there was the American government and the crap that went on through 2005 to 2007. So I suppose there was more pressure than there was even with San Andreas. So the sense of relief when it all went off was even greater."