It's unclear why Rockstar chose not to pursue an official origin story for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Given the success of Liberty City Stories and its Vice City counterpart—fully-realised prequel offshoots for GTA 3 and its faux Miami-set successor—in the mid-2000s, a return to Grove Street felt inevitable. Fast forward 21 years, and we'll likely never know the reason behind that decision. In the meantime, we have player-made projects to fill in the blanks.
GTA 1991 is one such undertaking. In fact, this hobbyist endeavour began life as a theoretical San Andreas Stories, in that it is indeed a prequel that aims to explore the road to its source material in great detail. But while GTA 1991 could have easily leaned into the obvious collective longing for a coming of age Carl Johnson tale, it has, over the course of its seven-year development, instead grown into one of the most promising total conversion mods the Grand Theft Auto creative community has ever produced.
