GTA Director to Create Iranian Revolution Game

Marshall Honorof

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GTA Director to Create Iranian Revolution Game


The director of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City wants his next game to explore Iran's Islamic Revolution with multiple protagonists in an open world.

Gamers have pretty much seen it all: alien invasions, heroic quests, and worldwide fighting tournaments are all old hat. But when was the last time you explored a controversial moment in recent world history in a videogame? Navid Khonsari, who worked on Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, and San Andreas wants to give you that opportunity. His upcoming game 1979 will tackle the titular year's Islamic Revolution in Iran, using open-world gameplay and a variety of playable characters to explore subjects ranging from the infamous hostage crisis to the impending war with Iraq.

Khonsari, who left the GTA series a few years ago to develop titles like Alan Wake and Homefront, is uniquely suited to develop a game about this subject matter. He and his family emigrated to Canada at the start of the revolution. Now, Khonsari wants to use some of his real-world experience to create a more nuanced game world. "I'm interested in having good and evil within the same character," Khonsari explained in an interview with CNN. "I think that's true to life, and I think you can design a game around that, too."

In order to explore some of the subtleties and moral gray areas, the game will take place in an open world and give the player control over multiple protagonists with differing abilities. Over the course of the game, players can expect to have shootouts, solve linguistic puzzles, drive vehicles, engage in diplomacy, and barter for goods.

Any game dealing with recent Middle East history is a ripe target for controversy, and Khonsari seems well aware of this. "Iranians are going to criticize me because I'm making a game that 'promotes American imperialists going in and shooting Iranians," said Khonsari. "Americans are going to criticize me because I'm making a game that 'glorifies Islamic fundamentalism,' or something. I'm not going to please everyone, and the point of the game isn't to do that."

1979 may raise a few hackles, but it sounds like a relevant, earnest project. For now, the game is in an alpha state, but may see release as early as late 2012.

Source: CNN [http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/gaming.gadgets/08/11/grand.theft.auto.iran/]

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robert01

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Although the director may have experience in immigrating from a hostile country to a peaceful one, I think this game will cause nothing but a shit storm, which is good because it will probably sell well and Fox News will hate it.

But all the power to this guy because he is going to need it.
 

TheIronRuler

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YES!
Woohoo!
Finally someone have the balls to make a grade A game revolving the middle east which doesn't involve american farm boys shooting at brown people!
Developer, I salute you.
Most of the people I know have no knowledge of the... erm... revolution that occured in 1979 in Iran. Goodbye friendly, capitalistic(?) and western Iran, hello modern day religious Iran.
 

Kargathia

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The subject matter certainly is interesting enough to be able to make a great game out of it. What remains to be seen is whether it survives the controversy.

I'm pretty sure it'll get banned anyhow in Iran itself, but with a bit of luck we'll for once have a game about Iran that doesn't treat it as "towelhead target practice".
 

Neonit

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yeah, i cant see how this could possibly go wrong.... not at all...

because lets be honest, if there is someone capable of making a game of islamic revolution then it is the director of gta.

oh well.... at least it will be interesting
 

GrizzlerBorno

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I make my identity no big secret on this site, especially when I need to prove a point, so some of you may already know I hail from the small, relatively little known nation of Bangladesh. Slightly more of you may know that we had a Liberation War just 40 years ago. Well only one of you know that I've always wanted to make a game about that, just to pay my respect to the brave Bangalis who died in said war. Also we've had some amazing films about it, so why not a Game?

Hence I give two thumbs up to Navid Khonsari. Do what I haven't been able to.... because I'm incompetent and you're NOT.

I think we should have more games about relatively obscure historical events though. I'm sick and FUCKING tired of World War 2 and the Cold War. You know stuff happens even when America ISN'T there, right Games industry? So yeah Kudos to Mr. Khonsari. Cna't wait to hear more about this.
 

Cousin_IT

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Will become unpublishable the moment someone remotely connected to one of the embassy hostages goes on TV to complain about it.
 

HassEsser

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All I can say is: Yes. Yes yes yes. Finally, a different game; definitely looking forward to it.
 

Corporal Yakob

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Cool!!!! I am definitely keeping an eye out for this-although I can already taste the moral outrage from FOX.....
 

ph0b0s123

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GTA game dev is doing a game about a revolution, where there will be lots of people causing trouble in the streets. Wow, the British media got it right then: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112200-British-Media-Stops-Claiming-GTA-Caused-Riots-Sorta ;-)
 

Jodan

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go for it man i studied the revoloution in school an dwould love to try this
 

Sixcess

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So it's Six Days in Fallujah all over again, only this time you get to play as the 'bad guys' as well.

Yeah, this is never going to get a release.
 

Jumplion

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This sounds very interesting, but whether or not the game treats its subject matter with nuance and subtly remains to be seen.

I have very low confidence in game developers to create a mature, thoughtful, and complex story/narrative with their games. With the pedigree this guy comes from, I highly doubt this will be as complex as he thinks it is. The GTA games have inconsistent, schizophrenic narratives between gameplay and story, and Homefront was a pitiful attempt at making a "Your home is invaded, what do you do?" kind of story (they even had the chutzpah to claim that they "concentrated on multiplayer", which is complete and utter bullshit) that was just "Red Dawn" in linear game form. Haven't played Alan Wake, but I heard it was predictable and treated it's audience as if they couldn't remember what happened 2 minutes ago.

Forgive me if I sound bitter, but considering some of the complete crap that this industry passes off as "deep, edgy, mature" I can't help but feel cynical about this game which tackles a very volatile topic. I don't think this guy has the nuance or the integrity to do something like this.

Please prove me wrong. I would love to be proven wrong.
 

Albino Boo

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TheIronRuler said:
YES!
Woohoo!
Finally someone have the balls to make a grade A game revolving the middle east which doesn't involve american farm boys shooting at brown people!
Developer, I salute you.
Most of the people I know have no knowledge of the... erm... revolution that occured in 1979 in Iran. Goodbye friendly, capitalistic(?) and western Iran, hello modern day religious Iran.

What happened was a brutal, murderous, American backed regime, was replaced by Islamic fundamentalist, brutal, murderous regime. Both states are unfree its just the justification for the repression is different. No room for nuance, its pretty much like Tsarist Russia being replaced by communist Russia.