5 interesting GTA San Andreas removed content

GTA San Andreas, released in 2004, is one of the most beloved games in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, and it will soon celebrate its 20th anniversary. It has tons of impressive features that make the game a lot more immersive than any other title in the series. Rockstar Games had initially planned for a lot more, and many of these ambitious features have become removed content.

Thanks to data-miners in the GTA community like Vadim M and BadgerGoodger, we have a good idea of what these removed content and features would have looked like. As such, here's a list of some of the most interesting and ambitious content removed from GTA San Andreas. Rockstar has since reincorporated some of these features in their later games.

Note: This list is subjective and reflects the writer's opinions.

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5 most interesting features removed from GTA San Andreas

1) Property management

Rockstar originally intended for players to be able to buy multiple plots and build properties on them in GTA San Andreas. This includes a purchasable casino in Las Venturas that Dan Houser himself referred to in an interview with Game Informer. They wanted an empire management system where you could choose the type of buildings you wanted in your owned plots.

While this concept never made it to the final release, Rockstar eventually implemented the feature in GTA Vice City Stories, which came out in 2006. In VCS, you can take over properties owned by rival gangs and start your criminal business there. The buildings can even be upgraded for more profit.

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2) Molotov cocktail at gas stations

GTA San Andreas was supposed to have a feature where you could make Molotov Cocktails at gas stations. CJ could buy Molotovs simply by walking up to a gas pump, just like buying weapons at Ammu-Nation stores. This rudimentary mechanic seemed quite immersive, which is probably why Rockstar canceled it.

However, just like with the previous feature, Rockstar reused this idea in a later game. In GTA Chinatown Wars, the handheld/mobile-exclusive released in 2009, you can manually create Molotov Cocktails at gas stations with a fun little minigame.

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3) More advanced basketball

GTA San Andreas has a basketball mechanic where you can dribble and shoot hoops across several basketball courts around the map. However, Rockstar had, at one point, tried to make it much more complex. There was supposed to be an opponent you could play with, and you could go into a defensive stance and block their shots.

It was also supposed to involve betting, much like Pool and the gambling minigames. Sadly, all that's left is a boring minigame that not many players even know exists.

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4) Hitchhiking

One of the weirdest side missions that Rockstar had planned for GTA San Andreas involved hitchhiking. After entering a specific vehicle, CJ had to pick up 10 hitchhikers without destroying the vehicle.

The mission bears similarities to the Pimping side mission, which could imply that these two were supposed to be related. There's even an unused hitchhiker animation that remains in the game files.

Like some of the other removed content mentioned here, this idea was incorporated into the random stranger encounters in GTA 5, where some NPCs will ask for a ride in a series of side missions called Hitch Lifts.

One of these hitchhikers can end up as a booty call, but when playing as Trevor, you have the option of delivering all of them to the Altruist Cult for money.

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5) Boat races

GTA San Andreas has plenty of land-based races and some cool cars to compete in those races, but the same doesn't apply to boats. However, the game was originally intended to have boat races, as suggested by leftover codes in the game files.

There's only one known boat race that was left incomplete in the codes, and the course ran from Fisher's Lagoon to Santa Maria Beach.