'We simply can't do subpar': Behind the scenes with GTA 1991, the ambitious San Andreas prequel whose creators are on the cusp of something special

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.

I spoke to project leader and founder deltaCJ a few years back for PC Gamer's sister site GamesRadar+, and was delighted to learn his ambition hasn't wavered in the interim.

"I've always said it: We want Rockstar quality in this project," says deltaCJ. "We simply can't do subpar. We're working so hard on it, trying to get everything to the highest level, and that's been one of the reasons it has taken a little bit longer than I'd first hoped."

All roads lead to Los Santos

It's true that deltaCJ had once hoped to have GTA 1991 in the hands of the public at some stage in 2023, but, as is often the case with hobbyist projects, life has invariably set things back. Contributors have come and gone, but deltaCJ remains forever grateful for all levels of input big and small—"Shout out Seemann, shout out Blaue, shout out Cesar, shout out to everybody that's in the Discord right now, much love to you guys"—in a portfolio of work he's certain spans multiple thousands of hours across dedicated modding and animation software, research on forgotten internet forums, and, of course, time spent signed into GTA: San Andreas itself.

As a prequel, GTA 1991's narrative hook explores the beginnings of the Los Santos crack epidemic through the eyes of Little Devil, a side character who died prior to the main San Andreas timeline. Mentioned only in name by Sweet Johnson (brother of main game protagonist Carl, and the leader of the Grove Street Families gang), Little Devil sets out to avenge the death of his cousin Dopey, who has been felled by rival gang member Top Dawg. The San Andreas heads among us will recall Grove Street's overarching disdain for crack use in their neighbourhood, therefore the fact that Little Devil's best mate Sebastian happens to be a drug dealer puts him in an awkward position. The fact that the GTA 1991 protagonist winds up inadvertently kicking off the crack epidemic that goes on to strangle Los Santos muddies the waters further still.

"Little Devil and Big Devil's [Little Devil's brother] story is open to interpretation, but I've ended up rewriting my take on it four, maybe five times," says deltaCJ. "I'm happy with where everything is story-wise now, but I'm still ironing out little cracks in the narrative and lore, making sure everything is matched correctly. As we already know, Grove Street, Temple Drive and all the other families had pretty much disbanded by the time the San Andreas timeline hits in 1992, so it's about working out who would be the prominent characters before then, what their lore would be, how their stories would tie-in with Carl's and Sweet's and everyone else's a year or so down the line.

"It's exciting putting yourself in that position. I obviously can't bring in voice actors for existing characters like Sweet, but they'll be mentioned off-hand in the same way Little Devil and Big Devil are in San Andreas."

Crack in the wall

Naturally, all of this is underpinned by a suite of new features that mirror the OG 2004 sandbox, such as purchasable properties, vehicles and weapons across 20-30 missions. From the outside looking in, however, GTA 1991's most intriguing feature is its bespoke drug dealing system. Again tapping into that inflated sense of moral ambiguity, deltaCJ explains Little Devil starts out sidestepping hand-to-hand street transactions by organising bigger drugs deals for his peers. But in typical Grand Theft Auto style, things snowball, fast, and before we know it Little Devil is capturing zones and building safe houses that act as the bedrock of his narcotics empire.

"Once you take over safe houses, you can manufacture and sell drugs out of them," says deltaCJ. "The system then works sort of like Saints Row's tier lists. First, on tier one, you can only manufacture a certain amount every week. By tier two, you can do more, by tier three more again, and so on. Every time you expand, you'll have access to new missions. Completing missions helps you level up your manufacturing process."

deltaCJ adds that while not a priority right now, reintroducing San Andreas' robbery mechanics could help bolster GTA 1991's drug manufacturing system as rival factions seek to raid one another, but stressed this would be something to consider post-launch. What I'm far more interested in myself is how the system lays the foundations for the Los Santos drug epidemic, and how Little Devil's trials and tribulations define his character's trajectory which, in turn, will pave the way for CJ et al as we see them in San Andreas one in-game year down the line.

Of course, one real-life year down the line, Grand Theft Auto enthusiasts far and wide will be revelling in the neon-kissed hedonism of GTA 6 and its return to Vice City. But it's an equally exciting time for the community's fan-made ventures, with everything from the 12-years-in-the-making Shine 'o Vice to the made-for-PSP Sindacco Chronicles and, of course, GTA 1991 flying the flag for creative projects operating on a purely voluntary basis. Would-be players don't always appreciate the work (and blood, sweat and tears) that go into these endeavours, granted, but they epitomise the essence of a passion project.

In more recent times, deltaCJ has moved his mod work into a dedicated office where he pores over motion capture and neat animation sequences he excitedly shows off during our call. "Motion capture is ridiculously hard," he says. "It took me and my buddies about five days to get, probably, 5-10 seconds of animation in one sequence. But it's a process.

I could be creating textures one day, then getting voice actors in to do lines on another. My creative liberty is through the roof and now I'm coming into my office at three o'clock in the afternoon, and I'm like, 'Alright, what can I get done? What can I show? What can I do?'"

deltaCJ's excitement is infectious, especially when the end product strives to flesh out the groundings of one of the most revered open world games of all time. GTA 1991 is a massive undertaking—the idea alone was bold at inception, and now, seven years on, the goal has grown in scope beyond recognition—but it'll always be driven by deltaCJ and his team's unshakable ambition.

He adds: "You don't want to just half ass something or just shoot something out and hope people eat it up just because you spent your time on it. Sometimes when you want something done, it's either go big or go home. And we know which way we want to go with GTA 1991."

GTA 1991 is lining up a gameplay showcase for this month, and you can read more about the total conversion mod's development on GTAForums.