The "Ghost Tower" refers to an airport control tower building whose model was cut during the development of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, except for its LOD model. The LOD is also present in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories due to reused assets.
A replica of the control tower located behind the visible one was intended to appear as well; however, it was cut entirely from the game.
Description[]
The tower was originally intended to serve a second runway in the northern section of the Escobar International Airport, before this entire section of the map was replaced by the Fort Baxter Air Base in the final version.
While the map was altered for the final release, the old LOD model intended for the early version of the map was kept by the Rockstar North developers in the final version, including the visible "Ghost Tower". The tower is not a separate model, and is part of the LOD model of the greater Vice City Mainland terrain ("IslandLODmainland"), which is visible in-game whenever the player is standing in the Vice City Beach area of the map.
By using a helicopter and reaching the height limit, the player may spot not only the "Ghost Tower", but other early map changes that were not updated to the LOD terrain model as well (e.g. the removed runway and the missing Hyman Memorial Stadium).
Once the player enters any mainland neighborhood zone border (Little Havana, Little Haiti, Viceport or Downtown), the Vice City Mainland map is fully loaded, resulting in the "Ghost Tower" disappearing, as there is no fully detailed model for the airport tower in the final version.
In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - The Definitive Edition, the "Ghost Tower", along with many other original LODs, was removed due to Grove Street Games' use of Unreal Engine's automatically generated LOD system for the map's rendering.
Original GTA III Models[]
As with the northern airport terminal building, the "Ghost Tower" was also originally a reused asset from Francis International Airport from Grand Theft Auto III.
The northern terminal seen in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is an exact replica of the Francis International Airport's main terminal ("apterminalfront"), except for the logo and neon signs. The "false interior box" of the FIA terminal (Terminal B Entrance) seen during the mission Marked Man in GTA III is still present in the updated building model for the EIA's Northern Terminal (Terminal B Entrance) and is left unused in GTA Vice City and GTA Vice City Stories.
The "Ghost Tower" as well as its second replica, seen in the LOD terrain map and cut entirely from the game, were reused models of the two airport control towers with hexagonal roofs located behind the FIA theme building in GTA III, namely "airtower1" and "airtower2" – two separate building models attached to the FIA's second terminal building "apTerminalback".
This is further proven by comparing the lowest LOD of both tower models and the "Ghost Tower" (exact same LOD model) or simply by noticing the hexagonal shape of the building in the Vice City Mainland's LOD terrain model.
In addition, by porting the original GTA III tower model to GTA Vice City using third party modifications, one will notice that the "Ghost Tower" has the exact same height as the original GTA III towers.
See Also[]
- Ghost Town - A "hidden" section of Liberty City in Grand Theft Auto III, created for the introductory cutscene.