New GTA will focus on London

AFTER THE CREATORS of the beloved Diablo franchise decided to go solo and started to work on their vision of Diablo 3, named Hellgate: London - there have been rumours in the industry that The Next Big Thing in gaming will be tbe virtualisation of real-world cities. So, instead of running around in realistic, but non-existent enviroments - you have live cities which you can actually visit for less than the price of the game, if you don't mind flying low-cost airlines.

First proof of theory is the fact that Rockstar Games has, more than probably - placed the next installation of Grand Theft Auto franchise in the capital of Blightyland.

Under the name GTA: London, you will experience a game based upon a totally new engine which is going to be the ground base for next series of GTA games, developed with PlayStation 3 capabilites in mind.

The Engine comes with multi-threaded support, and the graphic capabilites are those of Graphzilla's G70 marchitecture, which actually is at the heart of PlayStation 3. Of course, with no operating system hogging the hardware, you can expect quite spectacular recreation of London, and I'll definetly park my car at least once next to the house I once lived in, in Bayswater.

The concept of the game remains the same, so forget about racing in whole of London at the very start. The city is separated into several areas, like Central (City of Westminster, probably unlocked last), East End, West End. Who knowns, perhaps there is even a Mageek house hidden somewhere... and you'll hear industry secrets and roadmaps while trashing yourself in the now world-famous Porcupine Pub.

Hmmm...racing on Heathrow or London City... yummie... and perhaps even running all those special combos when stunting around a certain white jellyfish named Millenium Dome.

And of course, the sad part. As you already know, Grand Theft Auto is a key game in the console world, and one of three jewels in Sony's crown. So, the game comes out on PlayStation 3 in Q4 2006, but the PC and Xbox 360 versions won't show up for another world wearying six months later. Unless Microsoft opens up its pockets and does its best to snatch the series from PlayStation world. µ