Beta Releases in GTA (1997 game)

Before the release of Grand Theft Auto, there were features that were changed or removed from the final product.

Race'n'Chase
The first installment of the franchise would have been called Race'n'Chase and it was being developed as an open-world racing game where players would either choose the role of the police or a racer. During development, a glitch with the police cars made them go crazy and ram into the player. It proved so popular with testers that the developers changed direction and built the game around it, giving birth to what became Grand Theft Auto. It shared similarities with the first two Grand Theft Auto games, with a top-down perspective.

Vehicles

 * An unnamed red car used during the development of Race'n'Chase wasn't used in the final version of Grand Theft Auto.
 * Sprites of an unnamed helicopter can be found in the game files. The aircraft can be spawned with a third party trainer. When spawned, it behaves like a regular car rather than having helicopter characteristics, because there is no mechanics for aerial vehicles.
 * Accessible Trams were removed early in the game's development for San Andreas.
 * The SWAT Van was removed, despite being shown on the game's website.
 * The TV Van originally had an antenna.

Locations

 * A Race'n'Chase render released by Rockstar Games shows a small block of a city, likely a very early version of a neighborhood from Liberty City.

Other

 * The soundtrack would have included a version of the "".