If you miss the era when Grand Theft Auto ran on blocky polygons and a radio station was half the experience, there’s a project on Steam worth watching. It’s called ALATURKA, it’s an open-world game, and visually it leans hard into the PlayStation 2 look instead of chasing photorealism.
A delivery driver, an uncle, and jobs that stop being legal
ALATURKA puts you in an open-world version of Bosforus. You start out as a delivery driver working for your uncle – and as you’d expect from anything built in the spirit of classic GTA, the honest work doesn’t last. Before long you’re taking on assignments that are a lot less legal, which naturally means police chases you have to escape.
The game promises a range of vehicles to drive and NPCs you can interact with. There’s no release date yet, so the only thing you can do right now is add it to your wishlist on Steam and wait to see how the finished product turns out.
The 1970s are territory modern GTA never touched
The most distinctive thing about ALATURKA might be its setting in time. The game takes place in the 1970s – a decade the Grand Theft Auto series has never visited. Grand Theft Auto 3 was set in the early 2000s, Vice City in the 1980s, San Andreas in the 1990s, and GTA 4, 5 and 6 all take place in roughly the era they released in.
That gives ALATURKA a clear point of difference from the games that inspired it. And given that the last three mainline GTA entries all went modern, it doesn’t look like Rockstar is in a hurry to go back in time within this series. The studio explores history elsewhere – Red Dead Redemption lives in the old west, and rumors persist about an L.A. Noire sequel, which would logically land somewhere between the 1940s and 1960s.
Why this matters right now
Grand Theft Auto 6 arrives this November on consoles, and the PC version isn’t part of that launch. If Steam is your platform of choice, you’re looking at 2027 at the earliest. That leaves a long gap – and smaller projects like ALATURKA are exactly what tends to fill it, offering something familiar with their own spin.
Rockstar’s own plans for its big release are worth a look while you wait: we covered the fact that GTA 6 launches without Online, and we also went through the game’s rebuilt weather system in a separate article.
Where to go next
If retro GTA is your thing, we wrote about how GTA 2 with path tracing looks today. And everything we publish on the series lives in our GTA news hub.
FAQ
No release date has been announced yet. The game has a Steam page where you can wishlist it, but the developers haven’t locked in a launch window.
You play a delivery driver working for your uncle in an open-world Bosforus. Over time you take on less legal jobs, which leads to police chases you have to escape. The game features a variety of vehicles and NPCs you can interact with.
That’s deliberate. ALATURKA goes for retro, PS2-era visuals – the opposite direction from GTA 6, which is chasing hyperrealism.
Not this year. GTA 6 launches this November on consoles, and the PC version isn’t part of that release – Steam players are looking at 2027 at the earliest.
The 1970s, a decade the Grand Theft Auto series has never used. GTA 3 was set in the early 2000s, Vice City in the 1980s and San Andreas in the 1990s.