Exclusive interview with creator of ‘GTA 5 in Minecraft’

Last week it was brought to my attention that the entire map from GTA 5 was being re-created in Minecraft by a small but dedicated team of gamers. 

I of course had to chronicle this and published an article that provides all the basic background information for the project. In addition to this, I also got a chance to speak with the man who came up with the whole idea, Nick van Wersch, or N11ck as he is known on YouTube.

Nick’s latest update video

I asked Nick what his inspiration was and why he decided to re-create GTA 5‘s map in particular.

I got the idea when I was playing the game. I have been recreating things in Minecraft for ages and though the project was too big, but then I presented the idea to my subscribers and got massive support so I decided to start putting a team together to get it done. 

I chose GTA 5 simply because it was the latest one in the series. It could have been any other game as well though, it was just a coincidence.

I wanted to know a bit more about the team itself, how many people were participating in the build, how long they spend building each day and also when Nick envisages the project being completed.

Actively its around 8 people, probably averaging an hour or 2 a day. I hope we will be done this year, 2016.

There are of course going to be plenty of ups and downs along the way, so I asked Nick about the best and worst parts of the build and what had been the most difficult aspect so far.

The best part about the map is the amazing feedback we’ve been getting, everybody seems to love it! Also just having fun with everybody and building on the map is just a great time. 

The worst part is probably the times when you lose a bit of hope because its such a huge project. Luckily this feeling goes away quickly.

The most difficult part is cramping the whole world into 256 blocks in height. We have to adjust a lot of tall buildings because they don’t fit in the world, we have to lower them a little bit and still make it look good.

Although there is a long way to go and the project is far from complete, I wondered whether Nick had any plans for future builds of the same scale as this one.

We currently don’t have anything planned for the future but this will for sure not be the last thing you’ll see of us. 

You can keep up to date with the latest news from the build by subscribing to Nick’s channel on YouTube and I will also be keeping a key eye on the process, providing updates here on GameSkinny as the project progresses.