15 Video Game Mysteries Answered Years Later

The third mainline instalment in the GTA series was the one that really put the franchise on the map. One of the first truly ambitious 3D 'open-world' games was a true force to be reckoned with and is regularly cited as an inspiration even to this day, 25 years after its release. The game was packed full of things to see and do, and it also contained a couple of bizarre secrets and glitches. One in particular seemed completely pointless- players discovered that if you shoot the moon with a sniper rifle, it actually changed size, cycling between 3 different versions.

What did this mean? Did it unlock a cheat? Was it Rockstar's way of secretly communicating with fans? Was it just a glitch? The answer would eventually come decades after the game's release, when Rockstar North technical director Obbe Vermeij revealed the explanation. This blog explained that, during development, four of Rockstar's artists couldn't agree on how big the moon should be in the game. Two wanted it smaller and more realistic, whereas the other two wanted it larger and more cinematic.

As a solution, Vermeij suggested making the moon's size temporarily changeable via a sniper rifle shot, allowing the artists to decide which version looked better. However, the artists never came back to him, meaning this temporary mechanic was bizarrely left in the final version of the game.