Rockstar Used "Real Gang Members" To Record Dialogue For GTA San Andreas

Summary

• Rockstar Games has always been a secretive developer, but more behind-the-scenes info has been being shared by ex-developers.
• Former audio director and radio host Lazlow Jones recently revealed in an interview the lengths Rockstar goes to for audio authenticity.
• This included working with "real gang members" during the development of GTA: San Andreas.

Former Rockstar Games audio director and writer Lazlow Jones has revealed in an interview that the studio asked "real gang members" to record dialogue for GTA: San Andreas.

Rockstar Games has always been a bit more secretive than other developers due to the massive popularity of its games, but in recent years it's quickly gained a reputation as one of the most tightly locked-down studios in the industry. There's a heck of a lot that we don't know about what goes on at Rockstar, which makes even little discoveries like audio bloopers in Red Dead Redemption 2 a big deal.

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Interestingly, though, the past few years have opened Rockstar Games up a bit (no, I don't mean the hacks) and we've slowly found out more stories about the development of the 3D GTA trilogy on PS2. Most of those stories have come from former Rockstar developer Obbe Vermeij posting tidbits on Twitter, but it seems like more ex-Rockstar members are opening up about their time at the studio.

GTA San Andreas Used Audio Recordings From "Real Gang Members"

This time around, the behind-the-scenes information about Rockstar comes from Lazlow Jones, a veteran of the studio who worked as an audio director and writer on many of its games alongside acting as the host of many GTA radio stations. As reported by GamesRadar+, Jones appeared on Kinda Funny Games to talk about his past at Rockstar Games and his future endeavours at Absurd Ventures.

During one part of the interview, Jones talks about how his role evolved at Rockstar and how his job as audio director sent him to different places in the world to get a level of "authenticity". Jones revealed that during the development of GTA: San Andreas, Rockstar actually hired "real gang members" to record voiceovers for NPCs, which apparently led to some disagreements about the script.

"And even going back to San Andreas, we always had that ethic - the gang members in the game, those were real gang members that they recruited to come do voiceover. And we brought them in the studio and we'd show them the scripts and they'd be like, ''we wouldn't say that, we wouldn't say that, we'd say this', and we'd be like 'well say what you'd say then'."

It's an interesting detail that I don't think has ever been mentioned by Rockstar before (shocker, I know), but it's just one example that Jones brings up. He also notes that working on Red Dead Redemption 2 had the team travel to Santa Fe to record with Native American communities and New Orleans.

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