GTA 3 multiplayer was in the works, but creating the open-world blueprint for the next 20 years meant there "was too much to be done"

A character walking down the NYC streets in GTA 3.

Rockstar Games' former technical director has revealed that the studio, at one point, was developing multiplayer for its three-dimensional debut Grand Theft Auto 3.

In response to a player who wondered why the series gave up multiplayer offerings for a while after GTA 2, former technical director Obbe Vermeij tweeted that he did in fact code multiplayer for GTA 3, it just never crossed the finish line to release. "Since GTA 1 & 2 had [multiplayer] we thought GTA 3 should have it as well," Vermeij explains.