22 years after its release in 2004, beta footage of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has been recovered and published by a user on YouTube by the name of Adam Doree. In the caption of the video, Doree explains that a fan of the series reached out to him to ask if he had any pre-production gameplay footage from Rockstar that was published on Kikizo.com. The first two minutes of the video published by Doree is a previously unseen cutscene that was apparently pulled from the game just hours before it was officially released. Initially thought to be lost media by Doreen, the final three minutes of the video were also given to Kikizo by Rockstar a few months after the release of San Andreas.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ugWf8Jv7dg?si=5EBsQbBpEoYdjgkl]
It seems that the footage that was released by Doree differs from the final release of the game, with many users commenting on how different the walk cycles of the characters are, the reflective nature of windows and that there are red X’s marking the doors, similar to the ones seen in the missions of Red Dead Redemption (another prolific Rockstar title) instead of triangles like in the final release of the game. One Reddit user has pointed out that a few of the clips in the video are mini trailers from Rockstar’s website that were uploaded to market the game before its release in late 2004.
It does seem, however, that 18 years ago, 3 years after the release of the game, another YouTube channel by the name ja750 had also uncovered some beta footage and published it. In this footage, the game looks very different to the final version of the game, with the Police Officer models, sound effects and walk cycles all changing when the game was published officially.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdbHUpBROEA?si=vXix9__J_iLTWjys]
The release of the beta footage for San Andreas has also led to many fans asking if there is any Beta footage for Bully, another beloved Rockstar Games title. Hopefully, with this recent discovery, there may be more of a push for the release of these beta builds in the future! As for now, Rockstar has remained silent (which is very unsurprising for them!).
