History Trivia / GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas

** Persistent rumors had it that Bigfoot is in the woods somewhere. It is a mod, and not a very visually impressive one at that. However, a Sasquatch not only ''did'' appear in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption''[='s=] [[HalloweenEpisode Undead Nightmare]] DLC, but that game let you ''kill and skin him''. And the achievement you get for doing so? "Six Years In The Making". Undead Nightmare was released six years after ''San Andreas'', to the day. The final bonus mission in ''GTA V'' [[spoiler:also had Franklin being enlisted by a man who'd been looking for Sasquatch for nine years (the amount of time between the releases of ''San Andreas'' and ''V'') to help him hunt one. It turns out to be a guy in a Sasquatch suit, though.]]

** The exterior of Liberty City is only used in a cutscene and can't be acessed normally. But, when acessing it through a glitch or mod, the player can see that it is much bigger than it appears (but incomplete) as it was supposed to take a larger role in the mission "Saint Mark's Bistro".

* OrphanedReference: The mission "Doberman" as-seen in the final game is repurposed from a completely different mission that was cut, which would've seen Tenpenny ordering CJ to murder an informant named Poncho to prevent him from potentially talking to the DEA about C.R.A.S.H.'s corruption. This was changed to Sweet asking CJ to help kill a drug dealer who had been selling to the Grove Street Families. Two major aspects from the original mission remain despite now lacking their necessary context. First, the name "Doberman" references the original introductory cutscene, where Tenpenny gave it as a nickname for CJ. Second, after finding the drug dealer, he exclaims that Tenpenny set him up. This dialogue makes perfect sense for Poncho, but is an odd non-sequitur when said by the drug dealer.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** The mission "Saint Mark's Bistro" was originally going to have the player chase the target through the streets of Portland Island. Due to the large amount of work that implementing an entire district of a city for one mission, the mission was instead placed inside the Bistro.
** According to Rockstar, they played around with the idea of multiple protagonists for this game, presumably one for each city. While this was eventually dropped, it resurfaced later in ''GTA V''. The idea was scrapped probably because of hardware limitations, but this could explain C.J.'s slight personality quirks throughout the storyline.
** [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity Tommy Vercetti]] was supposed to make a cameo appearance, but Creator/RayLiotta was under the impression that he was underpaid and refused to return.
** Due to the Definitive Edition accidentally leaking studio files, it was find out that there was supposed to be a mission for C.R.A.S.H involving CJ having to drive Tenpenny's car with Hernandez's body in the trunk while avoiding road blocks, then escape from a chopper and finally burying the body in the desert airstrip through a minigame. The reason why it was cut is unknown, although probably because it was too ambitious (it would be the only mission, aside from '"End of the Line", divided into three acts). It's believed that the mission "High Noon" was made to replace it late in development, which would explain the jarring differences between said mission cutscenes and actual gameplay. More information can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv2I3Rs3MEE&t=93s&pp=ygUQY2hvcHBlciBvdmVyaGVhZA%3D%3D here]].
** "King In Exile" and "Fish In A Barrel" were originally full missions, instead of the mere cutscenes in the final game. The former would have required escorting Cesar and Kendl from the Verdant Bluffs observatory to Angel Pine while being attacked by rival gangs. The latter would have required escorting Ran Fa Li to the Four Dragons casino while being attacked by the Leone mafia (who would have been disguised as public of a carnival). Interestingly, the initial cutscene for "Fish In A Barrel" had CJ [[PetTheDog being concerned about Rosemberg, Paul and Maccer's safety]], with Woozie asking if CJ is getting too soft. In the phone call that unlocks "Breaking the Bank at Caligula's", Woozie still makes reference to this moment, which in the final game is a non-sequitur.
** There are so many things that were planned or removed from the game before release, it would be impossible to list them all here. [[http://gta.wikia.com/wiki/Beta_Releases_in_GTA_San_Andreas This article]] on the GTA wiki and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEOKEtRhhNM this video]] list most of the known changes.
** Youtuber [[https://www.youtube.com/user/NationalPepper Vadim M.]] has done quite a few videos on beta GTA SA content, as well as other GTA games, finding out even MORE unused content!

** Some missions got cut during development, including one involving rescuing The Truth in Bayside after he stole the green goo.

** There are so many things that were planned or removed from the game before release, it would be impossible to list them all here. [[http://gta.wikia.com/wiki/Beta_Releases_in_GTA_San_Andreas This article]] on the GTA wiki and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEOKEtRhhNM this video]] list most of the known changes.

** Creator/DavidCross admitted that he hated how annoying his character was and hated the R.C. missions his character is involved in, and when he did voicework on the ''[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV GTA Online]]'' radio station [[Radio/GTARadio Kult FM]] as Zachary, he went on to mock his role as Zero in this game.

** From Vice City, Bill Fichtner returns as Ken Rosenberg and Danny Dyer returns as Kent Paul.

* NamesTheSame: San Andreas is either a town in California or a crime-ridden state strongly based on California, or a fault line that runs along many of California's major cities, including San Francisco.

** ''San Andreas'' is also missing the interior for the San Fierro Police Department (which is why you respawn on a nondescript street corner near the building and you can't enter it, unlike the other ones,) presumably because entering it crashed the game or they didn't have time to clean up the programming for release, and hospital interiors as well.
*** Several other interiors were dummied out, including some that seems to be brothels and were probably intended to be related to the "Hot Coffee" minigame.
** There is also text data for a skateboard hidden in the game's main files as well (which is why Los Santos has a skatepark.) The skateboard was scrapped for the presumably much easier to program and animate bicycles.
** The Andromada plane and the FBI truck are two vehicles that can't be obtained by the player in a normal gameplay, but everything indicates that it originally could, as both are fully functional when accessed with a mod or trainer. [[note]]Although the Andromada's door is not animated, CJ simply pass through it [[/note]] The andromada can still be seen in game in a mission and flying in the sky sometimes, but the FBI truck never appears under normal conditions.

* LifeImitatesArt: One cutscene shows Wu Zi Mu beat Carl at playing video games, all despite his blindness. A blind person playing (and beating) video games may seem like an impossible task in RealLife, but a gamer named Terry Garrett, who lost his eyesight when he was 10 years old in 1997, managed to [[http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/blind-man-beats-legend-zelda-ocarina-time-article-1.2485783 beat]] ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' all by using positional audio cues, albeit in a span of five years and on an [[UsefulNotes/{{Emulation}} emulator]] using save states.
** And as for Woozie's driving, it is possible for a blind or blindfolded man to drive through a course assuming you know the route or are given [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mHzoRPWrus the exact directions]] through it.

* UrbanLegendOfZelda: ''San Andreas'' was the first game in the series to be hit with rumors on a large scale. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was also the first game in the series to feature a [[DontGoInTheWoods widespread countryside]] to explore. Persistent rumors had it that Bigfoot is in the woods somewhere. It is a mod, and not a very visually impressive one at that. Similar rumors, disproven, held that it's possible to find aliens wandering the desert around Area 69 and Leatherface from ''Texas Chainsaw Massacre'' around The Panopticon. Another rumor involving the woods is the odd beat-up cars found in the Back O' Beyond, dubbed the "ghost cars", due to one of them rolling down a hill upon spawning, spooking some players.
** However, a Sasquatch not only ''did'' appear in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption''[='s=] [[HalloweenEpisode Undead Nightmare]] DLC, but that game let you ''kill and skin him''. And the achievement you get for doing so? "Six Years In The Making". Undead Nightmare was released six years after ''San Andreas'', to the day. The final bonus mission in ''GTA V'' [[spoiler:also had Franklin being enlisted by a man who'd been looking for Sasquatch for nine years (the amount of time between the releases of ''San Andreas'' and ''V'') to help him hunt one. It turns out to be a guy in a Sasquatch suit, though.]]
** There were also rumors about zombies being in the game, fueled by a rather mysterious corporate building in San Fierro.

** Many similar rumors abound, such as the existence of Film/{{Jaws}}[[note]]sharks, along with other wildlife, would show up for real in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV''[[/note]], the Loch Ness Monster, [[Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre Leatherface]], etc. Most of these have been officially refuted.

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: With the announcement of the [=PS2=]-era trilogy remasters, the original version of ''San Andreas'' and its predecessors were promptly delisted from digital distribution platforms for consoles, PC, and mobile. Those with the PC version on Steam can still redownload the original version of the game if it was purchased prior to the game's delisting, however, console players will have to track down a secondhand copy elsewhere. The original [=PS2=], Xbox, and "Second Edition" releases on PC can be found for relatively affordable prices.

* BadExportForYou: Since German politicians are extremely touchy with the subject of violence in video games, the German version of this game had to undergo some censorship. Some of the changes are only visual (people don't get mutilated by headshots anymore, for example), but there are changes that directly affect gameplay as well. Most infuriating is probably the fact that people [[DifficultyByRegion don't drop money anymore when killed]], which effectively robs the player ([[AccidentalPun no pun intended]]) of one source of income.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: A little bit ironic given that the game itself is a period piece.
** The ads for fictional fast food chain "Cluckin' Bell" satirize the controversy KFC faced in the 2000s over their use of factory farming, which prompted animal rights activists to protest outside their stores. (''Cock-a-doodle-doo! We're a huge corporation! / Cock-a-doodle-doo! And we can't be stopped! / All you protestors can go to hell!'')
** The street racing and car customization mini-games were a ThrowItIn to appeal to the early 2000s street racing craze sparked by ''Film/TheFastAndTheFurious'', which video games like ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedUnderground'' and Rockstar's own ''VideoGame/MidnightClub'' were cashing in on at the time.

* TroubledProduction: A series of emails with Dan Houser revealed his insistence on getting the Hot Coffee minigame incorporated into ''San Andreas'', as detailed in a [[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-30-who-spilled-hot-coffee Eurogamer article]]. Fellow Rockstar staff members warned Houser of the potential implications of adding explicit sexual content into the game, such as lost sales, limited marketing and being refused from having a console release,[[note]]Video game console manufacturers have made it a point not to license AO-rated video games on their devices, hence why otherwise AO-rated games were edited to secure a console release.[[/note]] to which Houser begrudgingly acquiesced and had the problematic scenes DummiedOut as removing them altogether could break the game, claiming that the minigame was deeply interwoven into the game's code. Feeling incensed and betrayed by the apparent injustice of the situation, Houser would then state in an email, "Can we confirm that these are the content changes that need to be made? As I mentioned to Terry [Donovan, then CEO of Rockstar Games], I was pretty shocked by the list. The cuts are everywhere. It doesn't feel like we are pushing any boundaries now. Why bother? I really, really do not want to change this stuff. It feels SO wrong at the behest of psychotic, mormon [sic], capitalist retailers."

** Chris Bellard, aka Young Maylay, once infamously [[https://www.instagram.com/p/B6tp7NcHSYM/?hl=en lashed out]] at Rockstar Games on Instagram after being badgered by fans who relentlessly asked the rapper if he was going to reprise his role in a future ''GTA'' game, stating "No disrespect to Dan Houser AT ALL, but... they're Culture Vultures MF's from London making BILLIONS off LA n***s and we don't see 10% of that...", implying his contempt over his earnings from the game - he would later bluntly state he would never voice CJ again. After a series of tirades and arguments with fans, Maylay's cousin Shawn Fonteno, who went on to voice Franklin in ''Grand Theft Auto V'', both clarified his cousin's outburst and offered and apologised to those offended by Maylay.

* ScrewedByTheLawyers: Like in ''Vice City'', some songs had to be removed from the game after their contract ended. Unfortunately, while those who owned the Steam version of Vice City beforehand got to keep the songs, San Andreas' songs went bye-bye from earlier owners as well, likely because of how the radio works (Before SA, all radio channels were a single file, while SA plays individual songs in random order). Because of this, some rereleases lack some of the songs the original had.

* CowboyBebopAtHisComputer: The German report "Frontal 21" is quite famous for this. They described the [[HotCoffeeMinigame Hot Coffee mod]] with the words "Like this game: whoever rapes the most women wins", later arguing on a message board that the player's ability to choose positions was where the rape part came in.

* PigeonholedVoiceActor:

** Chris Bellard, aka Young Maylay, once infamously [[https://www.instagram.com/p/B6tp7NcHSYM/?hl=en lashed out]] at Rockstar Games on Instagram after being badgered by fans who relentlessly asked the rapper if he was going to reprise his role in a future ''GTA'' game, stating "No disrespect to Dan Houser AT ALL, but... they're Culture Vultures MF's from London making BILLIONS off LA n***s and we don't see 10% of that...", implying his contempt over his earnings from the game. After a series of tirades and arguments with fans, Maylay's cousin Shawn Fonteno, who went on to voice Franklin in ''Grand Theft Auto V'', both clarified his cousin's outburst and offered and apologised to those offended by Maylay.

* PigeonholedVoiceActor: Chris Bellard was so heavily associated with his Carl Johnson character that he expressed his contempt for it in a series of Instagram posts, bluntly stating that he will never voice CJ again.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The mission "Saint Mark's Bistro" was originally going to have the player chase the target through the streets of Portland Island. Due to the large amount of work that implementing an entire district of a city for one mission, the mission was instead placed inside the Bistro.

** The Japanese version is even worse, since when you shoot a civilian, you instantly get a wanted level. Not to mention that some of the mandated changes was the localised mission objectives being changed to make it appear as if the civilian targets CJ has to take out on behalf of Tenpenny or some other boss was, bizarrely enough, somehow affiliated or working with the Ballas!