Viz Magazine Inspired a GTA: London Detail

British magazine Viz inspired one of the most irreverent details in Grand Theft Auto: London. Artist Ray Larabie placed small pieces of dog mess on the game's sidewalks and created an interaction that lets cars leave a brown mark after skidding over them. He shared the story in a making-of feature published by Shortlist and covered by Rock Paper Shotgun.

Although GTA: London depicted a British city, the work was assigned to a newly acquired Canadian team that was renamed Rockstar Canada. According to the account, only a few people at the studio had previously visited London. The group had to adapt the structure of the original GTA into a 1960s version of the British capital.

The team managed to recreate London's geography in broad terms using the same tools as the first game. Cars were made to travel on the left side of the road, as they do in the United Kingdom. Drivers also entered from the appropriate side to reach the right-hand-drive steering wheel.

The limitations of those tools still left an American mark on the streets. Instead of more natural curves, the roads remained wide and connected through right-angled corners. The result resembled the urban layouts associated with New York and Los Angeles more than actual London streets.

It was during this long-distance production process that Viz magazine became important. The British humor and parody publication had reached Canada and caught Larabie's attention. The artist said he was a real Anglophile and that part of his view of England came directly from the magazine's pages.

Larabie said Viz had taught him about references including Newcastle upon Tyne, curry shops and the Kray twins. When he visited the United Kingdom, he asked local people about the magazine. They told him that adults did not read it and that it was intended for juvenile young men.

One of the expressions used by Viz eventually made its way directly into GTA: London. Larabie said 1960s London was known for dog mess in the streets, so he added small piles to the sidewalks. The magazine jokingly referred to them as “dogs' eggs.”

The detail was not limited to environmental decoration. Larabie configured the game so that performing a handbrake turn over one of the piles would produce a large brown skid mark. With a sense of humor, he described the interaction as the only innovation he had ever made in video games.

The story shows how GTA: London emerged from an unusual combination of influences. A Canadian team was working with British technology originally built to depict American cities. Rather than recreating London with complete accuracy, the developers filtered it through the cultural references that had reached them.

Rock Paper Shotgun connects that process to a recurring trait across the GTA series: places are represented through a cultural lens. The outlet points to Badfellas posters in GTA 3, Vice City scenes inspired by Scarface and GTA 4 missions recreating heists from Heat. In GTA: London's case, a British magazine read by a Canadian artist helped shape part of that perspective.

For players, the discovery does not announce new content, an update, another platform or a rerelease. It clarifies the origin of an interaction already found in GTA: London and shows how a visual joke became a small game mechanic. It is a direct example of outside references affecting not only the look of a setting, but also what vehicles could do within it.

The account also helps explain why the game's version of London combines careful local details with a road network that does not feel especially British. Left-side traffic and right-hand-drive cars existed alongside streets shaped by the original GTA's limitations and conventions. That mixture became part of the 1960s expansion's distinctive identity.

It remains unclear how many other specific references to Viz were incorporated into the game, as the account confirms only this detail. There is also no count of the piles placed around the map or a broader technical explanation of how the interaction was implemented. According to Rock Paper Shotgun, Larabie revealed its origin in Shortlist's making-of feature about GTA: London.