GAME · 2004
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- Platforms
- PlayStation 3, Windows Phone, Microsoft Windows, macOS
129 archived facts 7 topics 2 sources Last reviewed Sep 2026
80 Interesting Facts About Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- #001
Excluding the soundtrack and random NPC interactions, the word "fuck" and its derivatives are used three hundred and sixty-five times.
- #003
The character Lance "Ryder" Wilson was modeled on the former rapper Eazy-E, a founding member of N.W.A. Music from N.W.A. and Eazy-E was included in the soundtrack.
- #005
If you travel north of the Military Base in the desert, you can find a corpse dump.
- #008
OG Loc was modeled to poke fun at the rapper Ja Rule. They even share the same name: "Jeffrey".
- #010
While DJ Pooh was meeting with the game's creators to discuss the music, he received a phone call from the artist he was working with, Young Maylay. Pooh put the call on speaker, and the creators felt Maylay had the right voice for the character. Despite having no prior acting experience, they hired Maylay.
- #017
In July 2005, a sex mini-game called "Hot Coffee" was discovered in the game's assets (the title is a reference to CJ's first girlfriend inviting him in for "some coffee"). Because the developers had only disabled the mini-game, it could be accessed on both the PC and console versions using a patch or hacking tool. As a result, the game's US rating was changed from "Mature" to "Adults Only", and many stores could no longer sell it due to strict regulations on ratings. In Australia, the game's MA15+ rating was revoked and it was consequently pulled from stores.
- #020
Grand Theft Auto (1997) contained three cities: Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas. Since the first two cities had been remade for the PS2 (Grand Theft Auto III (2001), Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)), it made sense for the third city, San Andreas, to be the third game in the PS2 series. This of course played a big part in the ongoing debate over whether the game would be called "San Andreas" or "Sin City".
- #022
Contains a major spoiler — show
Melvin 'Big Smoke' Harris's famous extra-large order at the drive-through may be him stalling so that the Ballas can arrive for the attack, revealing him early as a traitor.
- #024
The Grove Street Families were originally going to be called the Grove Street Alliance (GSA) or Orange Grove Families (OGF), and the gang's color was originally going to be orange instead of green. Evidence of both of these assumptions can easily be found in the game, because Rockstar never removed the references to GSA or OGF in any way. For example, you can get tattoos that read Orange Grove. Also, some graffiti in the game reads Orange Grove Families instead of Grove Street Families, and an illustration of CJ dressed in orange appears on the game's loading screen.
- #027
Some of the pilot ratings in the game are Maverick, Iceman, Jester and Viper, all call signs of pilots in Top Gun (1986).
- #029
Various billboards around Los Santos advertise "True Grime: Street Cleanup". This mocks the makers of True Crime: Streets of LA (2003), which mocked Rockstar games with billboards advertising a company known as "jockstrap".
- #031
During development this game featured multiple protagonists, but the idea was abandoned due to technical limitations. The idea was not used until Grand Theft Auto V.
- #035
Thousands of players search for a "Bigfoot" and try to photograph it with the in-game camera. No one has yet confirmed its existence, but many photos taken by players resemble a fairly large creature in the woods. In the map area called "Back O' Beyond", trees are uprooted and strange sounds can be heard. Many aliens and ghosts have also been reported. Many players have since examined the entire code and found no reference to Bigfoot or aliens. There is, however, some speculation online that the ghost of Carl Johnson's mother can be seen in Carl's house at night, but this has not been officially proven and may be a glitch that somehow resembles Beverly, or possibly just the power of suggestion.
- #037
The "N" word is used more than in any other game ever made.
- #038
Several characters from the previous two Grand Theft Auto games, Grand Theft Auto III (2001) and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), appear in this game. From Grand Theft Auto III: Claude (the silent protagonist of GTA III), Salvatore Leone, Maria and Catalina. From Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: Ken Rosenberg, Kent Paul, Jethro and Dwaine.
- #040
In the video poker games playable at the Las Venturas casinos, some of the face cards are characters from the previous two games, Grand Theft Auto III (2001) and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002).
- #042
After CJ takes Barbara as a girlfriend, he will not lose his weapons when arrested, since she is a police officer; after CJ takes Katie as a girlfriend, he will not lose his weapons after getting drunk, since she is a paramedic. Also, if Carl dies in San Fierro while dating Katie, he will respawn in front of her house instead of at the hospital, and if CJ is arrested in or near El Quebrados while dating Barbara, he will respawn behind the police station instead of in front of it.
- #044
On the shelves of Zero's RC Shop are action figures from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) and Manhunt (2003), as well as from other Rockstar Games titles.
- #048
In the long-running rivalry between Reflection's Driver series and Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto series, GTA once again mocks Tanner. In the mission where you have to steal Madd Dogg's rhyme book, one of the guards is playing a video game and says "Tanner, you suck," cursing the game company "Refractions."
- #050
On the wall of bars in San Andreas there is a picture of a Cerberus guard from Manhunt (2003).
- #052
The protagonist of Grand Theft Auto III (2001), formerly known as "Fido" (among other nicknames), is actually named Claude. This is revealed in one of the phone calls with Catalina, who was Claude's girlfriend when they left San Andreas. Claude is presumed to be Claude Speed, the main character of Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999).
- #054
Wil Wheaton got the role of Richard Burns after interviewing Lazlow, the writer of the radio station dialogue for the Grand Theft Auto video game series. Wheaton admitted to being a huge fan of Jones's work on the games, and Jones eventually developed the character of Richard Burns specifically for Wheaton. He recorded his voice work at the Rockstar Games studio in about two hours.
- #057
The game starts with a five-star wanted level. The highly wanted sixth star will not be available until later stages of the game. The player can reach the five-star level in the game by entering no-fly zones.
- #059
During the game, an advertisement for a clothing brand called "Zip" can be seen. It was meant to be a parody of the real-life clothing company "The Gap, Inc."
- #061
The in-game state takes its name from the fault line that runs through much of California. The fault line appears in the game and can be seen while traveling underwater near San Fierro's bay area.
- #062
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas features eleven in-game radio stations with twenty disc jockeys, among them Axl Rose, Chuck D and George Clinton, and carries more than three times as many licensed songs and original in-universe advertisements as Grand Theft Auto III.
- #063
The real names of the Grove Street gang members are as follows: CJ is Carl Johnson; Sweet is Sean Johnson; Big Smoke is Melvin Harris; Ryder is Lance Wilson; OG Loc is Jeffrey Cross; B Dup is Mark Wayne; Big Bear is Barry Thorne.
- #065
The film Boyz n the Hood (1991) was one of the biggest influences on the creation of the game's story. Grove Street bears a striking resemblance to the street where the film's three main characters grow up, and there is a random pedestrian NPC who resembles Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character Tre Styles. The in-game hip-hop radio station "Radio Los Santos" also features songs by Ice Cube (who played Darrin "Doughboy" Baker in the film). The protagonist Carl Johnson's brother, Sweet Johnson, resembles Ice Cube. The game is set in 1992, one year after the film's release.
- #067
One of the things CJ says when he collides with a vehicle is "How are you allowed to drive if you're blind?" In San Fierro, one of his allies, the gangster Wu Zi Mu ("Woozie"), can drive skillfully despite being blind.
- #068
Ken Rosenberg, the cocaine-addicted lawyer introduced in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) and returning in this game, is based on Sean Penn's character David Kleinfeld in Carlito's Way (1993). Penn's brother Chris Penn plays C.R.A.S.H. Officer Pulaski in this game. Sean Penn played a C.R.A.S.H. officer in Colors (1988).
- #069
Contains a major spoiler — show
At the start of the game, Officer Tenpenny, together with Officer Pulaski, throws Carl out of the police car, saying "I'll see you around like a doughnut Carl," and at the end of the game Carl says that he wrote a doughnut on Tenpenny's now-dead body: "I'll see you around Officer."
- #070
The "Drive Thru" mission involves CJ taking his men to "Cluckin Bell" to get food. However, in the mobile version, when they open their food, the boxes read "Burger Shot."
- #071
The game has built-in functionality for accepting DLC levels that ultimately went unused. Many custom levels and mods take advantage of this system.
- #072
Text data for a skateboard is also hidden in the game's main files (which is why Los Santos has a skate park). The skateboard was scrapped, probably because bicycles were much easier to program and animate. Programmer Obbe Vermeij later said that the skateboard was planned to be included as both a means of transport and a weapon, but that these two challenges arose from animation-to-physics combinations and from the weapon challenge's controls and user interface.
- #073
After being pestered by fans asking whether he would reprise his role in a future Grand Theft Auto game, Chris Bellard, better known as Young Maylay, once notoriously lashed out at Rockstar Games on Instagram, saying: "I don't want to disrespect Dan Houser, but… these are Culture Vultures MF's making billions off LA niggas from London and we can't see 10% of it…" — belittling what he earned from the game; he would later state plainly that he would never voice CJ again. Following a series of tirades and arguments with fans, Maylay's cousin Shawn Fonteno, who voiced Franklin in Grand Theft Auto V (2013), both clarified his cousin's outburst and offered to apologize to those offended by Maylay. Fonteno later reasoned with his cousin, explaining to him the impact both Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto V had on the two actors and how Maylay could show his gratitude to both Rockstar and the fanbase.
- #075
Some missions were cut during development, including one that involved rescuing The Truth after stealing the green goo.
- #076
Most of the vehicles in this game also appeared in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), and a few appeared in Grand Theft Auto III (2001). Because this game is set in 1992 (between the events of Vice City, set in 1986, and GTA III, set in 2001), many of these vehicles were designed to look like combined models. For example, the Landstalker (an SUV) was modeled with the body of the 1986 Landstalkers but has the headlights and front grille of the 2001 Landstalker. The Banshee (a sports car) was modeled to look like its 2001 counterpart. The Comet (another sports car) looks just as it did in the beta versions of Vice City. That version of the Comet was redesigned, but the original version was brought back for this game.
- #077
The railway bridge in San Fierro is modeled on the Forth Railway Bridge, which runs north from Edinburgh, Scotland, where Rockstar Games is based. The road bridge beside it was likely modeled on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and bears more than a passing resemblance to the Forth Road Bridge, which sits right next to the Forth Railway Bridge.
- #078
Many of the songs on the station "Master Sounds 98.3" are sampled in songs on the game's many hip hop and rap stations. The most notable of these is Bobby Byrd's funk track "I Know You Got Soul" and Eric B. & Rakim's rap song of the same name.
- #079
Every former member of the pop vocal group New Edition has a track on the CSR 103.9 station: "Sensitivity" by Ralph Tresvant, "Don't Be Cruel" by Bobby Brown, "Poison" by Bell Biv Devoe (Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, Ronnie Devoe), and "Rub You the Right Way" by Johnny Gill.
- #081
Frank Vincent returns as Salvatore Leone from Grand Theft Auto III (2001) and Cynthia Farrell returns as Catalina; William Fichtner returns as Ken Rosenberg and Danny Dyer as Kent Paul, both from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002).
- #082
Random plane crashes were a glitch Rockstar discovered during beta testing, the result of a less-than-airtight approach to generating random flight paths that allowed the planes' trajectories to intersect with the ground. They found the crashes so funny and so fitting for the game's Crapsack World setting that they left the glitch in. (Though it does tend to annoy the occasional player who suddenly finds their character wasted because the plane in question was on their path!)
- #083
Contains a major spoiler — show
There is a "blink and you'll miss it" reference to another Rockstar game: during Catalina's four robbery missions, when you go to the gas station in Dillimore and she starts aiming her gun at the men inside, you will see a sticker on the window reading "Max Pane Bulletproof Glass," which proves absolutely effective when you fire an empty shotgun at the window and it barely breaks.
- #084
The three cities of Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas, and the state of San Andreas, were inspired by three major real West Coast cities in California and Nevada: Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas.
- #085
During the "Home Invasion" mission, as you enter Colonel Fuhrberger's bedroom, there is a poster of Candy Suxx from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) on the wall beside the door. It is the same poster that hangs in Tommy Vercetti's mansion.
- #086
David Cross admitted that he found his character annoying and that he hated R. C. He continued to mock his role as Zero in this game in the missions involving his character and when he voiced Zachary on the Grand Theft Auto Online (2013) radio station Kult FM.
- #087
Contains a major spoiler — show
Los Santos is the only area that can be explored at the start of the game. If the player enters Las Venturas or San Fierro, they automatically reach a 4-star wanted level, because these areas remain locked until later in the game unless the player disables the wanted level via a cheat code. Another reason for this may be that Officer Hernandez calls CJ at the start of the game to tell him, on behalf of Officer Tenpenny and Pulaski, not to leave the city, since it would be a big mistake because they are watching him.
- #089
The game contains a military base called "KACC Military Fuels." This is a reference to the computer club that DMA Design members would soon attend. It was called "KACC," meaning "Kingsway Amateur Computer Club." At the time, Rockstar North was named "DMA Design."
- #091
The actors Clifton Powell (Melvin 'Big Smoke' Harris), Clifton Collins Jr. (Cesar Vialpando), MC Eiht (Lance 'Ryder' Wilson) and Samuel L. Jackson (Officer Tenpenny) had all previously appeared in Menace II Society (1993). Jackson and Collins also appeared together four years later in One Eight Seven (1997), in which Collins also played a character named Cesar.
- #094
This Grand Theft Auto game does not use a number after its title because it is considered a "spin-off" of Grand Theft Auto III (2001) — a derivative game that is not part of the main saga but is still official.
- #095
Tarnell, also known as Fam1, a member of The Grove Street Families, is voiced by Shawn Fonteno, who would later voice Franklin Clinton in Grand Theft Auto V (2013) — coincidentally, Franklin is also a member of The Families. Shawn Fonteno is credited in the game as "Solo".
- #096
MC Eiht and Clifton Powell both appeared in films directed by the Hughes brothers. MC Eiht appeared in Menace II Society (1993), and Clifton Powell appeared in both Menace II Society and Dead Presidents (1995).
- #097
The "Cluckin' Bell" fast-food chicken restaurant in the game was a parody of Taco Bell and KFC, which often share the same restaurant chains.
- #098
One of Los Santos's neighborhoods is Verona Beach, named after the fictional city in the film Romeo + Juliet (1996).
- #099
After reaching 100% with the girlfriend Barbara, CJ receives a police uniform, but it does not grant him freedom from police attention, since committing a crime still raises his wanted level. However, if the player uses the disabled wanted level cheat, CJ can commit crimes without drawing police attention.
- #100
Liberty City's exterior is used only in a cutscene and cannot be accessed normally. However, when reached through a glitch or mod, the player can see that it is much larger (but incomplete) than it appears, since it was meant to play a bigger role in the "Saint Mark's Bistro" mission.
- #101
As with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), some songs had to be removed from the game after their contracts expired. Unfortunately, while those who already owned the Steam version of Vice City kept the songs, San Andreas's songs also disappeared for existing owners, possibly because of how the radio works (before San Andreas all radio stations were a single file, whereas San Andreas played songs in random order). As a result, some re-releases are missing some of the songs from the original.
- #102
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was re-released for a limited time in mid-September 2019 as a free promotional game for Rockstar's own digital store.
- #104
CJ can also talk to and interact with pedestrians.
- #105
Contains a major spoiler — show
When Carl "CJ" Johnson reaches a four-star wanted level, SWAT special forces attack him with Micro-SMGs and behave like gangsters.
- #106
The Ice Cube songs featured on the Vice City soundtrack, "Today Was a Good Day" and "Check Yo Self" (a remix of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's message), were both recorded in 1992 but not released until 1993.
- #107
The Andromada plane and the FBI truck are two vehicles the player cannot obtain in normal gameplay, but both are fully functional when accessed via a mod or trainer, suggesting everything was originally meant to be obtainable. The Andromada still appears in a mission and can sometimes be seen flying in the sky, but the FBI truck never appears under normal conditions.
- #108
In the state of San Andreas, the interior of the San Fierro Police Department is incomplete (so your character respawns at an ordinary street corner near the building and, unlike the others, you cannot enter it), possibly because entering it crashed the game or because they did not have time to clean up the programming before release; the same is true of the hospital interior. Several other interiors were also parodied, including ones that look like a brothel and were probably intended to be related to the "Hot Coffee" minigame.
- #109
In a cutscene, Wu Zi Mu beats Carl "CJ" Johnson at video games despite his blindness. A blind person playing (and winning) video games may seem impossible in real life, but in 1997 a gamer named Terry Garrett, who lost his sight at age 10, managed to beat The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) using positional audio cues and an emulator with save states. As for Woozie's driving, it is possible for a blind or blindfolded man to navigate a course, assuming you know the route or are given full instructions along the way.
- #110
In 2024, programmer Obbe Vermeij said there had originally been a plan to include earthquakes in the city landscape, but it was dropped once it was finished, with the idea of replacing the elements that emerged along the way and with no connection to story mode. To this day no earthquake has occurred in GTA V's natural gameplay, and the default features were only mod programs.
- #111
Fat Barry "Big Bear" Thorne has a completely unused model, in contrast to his thin appearance in his only two cutscene appearances, one at the start of the game and one later in the game.
- #112
Both Debi Mazar (Maria) and Chris Penn (Officer Pulaski) played the main villains Regina and Floyd in the film Beethoven's 2nd (1993).
- #114
In 2023, Obbe Vermeij of Rockstar North shared various statements about working on the game; despite this, the game had a smaller workload than Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), and in addition to the large map size and the detailing of rural towns, the company hired a chef to cook for employees working late.
- #115
In 2023 and 2024, developer Obbe Vermeij shared that the game's code was limited for the PS2, which meant the car population decreased after 8 models to preserve game performance, and that garages also deleted cars after the garage doors closed so as not to overload the game. He also stated that San Andreas received an improvement over GTA III whereby cars would disappear after 2 seconds instead of GTA III's behavior, and that the player changing the camera view would eliminate things that were not focused on at that moment in real time.
- #116
Although players have argued for years about which vehicle in the game is the fastest, the PC game files reveal that the NRG-500, a racing motorcycle, leads all land vehicles in acceleration, torque and top speed, and can reach 250 mph or 400 km/h. The Hotring Racer and Infernus rank first among cars in acceleration, while the Hotring Racer and Infernus, Banshee, Comet, Bullet, Cheetah, Turismo, Super GT and all police cars reach 200 mph or 321 km/h. However, all of the above-mentioned cars technically have different statistics in terms of torque, handling, acceleration, inertia, center of mass and drag multiplier, all of which make driving each car a different experience even if they share the same top speed.
- #117
At the north terminal entrances and exits of Francis International Airport in the GTA IV era, 2 FlyUS billboard ads mention the $200 Las Venturas ticket that only appears in San Andreas, followed by $299 Los Santos tickets. Weazel TV also broadcasts the Cerveza Barracho and eCola-sponsored Venturas Poker Challenge as a second hint at a location never mentioned in the IV game, instead showing the exact same Las Venturas strip, Welcome sign and San Andreas game footage.
- #118
In 2008, Sam Houser admitted that a draft idea for the game was the need to refuel the car after a 4-hour drive on the highway; he was glad that the other collaborating concept designers were not convinced and that it was not included.
- #120
From the 2000s to the 2010s, it is the only installment in which hijacking any ambulance, fire truck or SWAT emergency vehicle is not difficult at all, especially since those inside will not immediately attack Carl and throw him back out or flee. Every previous installment included at least one person who would not immediately defend themselves against car theft, before the return to the final GTA V Los Santos, where all three would defend themselves.
- #121
In 2008, while talking about the next game, GTA IV, Sam Houser acknowledged that having a Black character in a video game was unusual but said he was willing to take that risk, and therefore preferred that no one with racial prejudice buy the game.
- #122
In 2024, Lazlow explained that although he entered the first creative content development meeting for GTA III with the same yellow legal notepad and the same board he had used before, he immediately realized he needed something to actively collect everything that came up in the ideas, and at that moment he began using a laptop and continued doing so until the final game.
- #123
This was the first 3D game, and later the first GTA game, to include no police reaction when physically colliding with or pushing them, which resulted in the police officer having a solid statue collision frame, because both previous games included a constant police reaction when the character bumped into them, and the HD titles always included fixed reaction varieties.
- #124
Contains a major spoiler — show
There are many things that foreshadow Big Smoke's betrayal of CJ and the Grove Street Families (GSF). When CJ first returns, Smoke was alone at the Johnson House instead of being at his mother's funeral with the rest of the gang; many fans think he was actually there to assassinate Sweet. And in the "Drive-Thru" mission, Smoke refuses to shoot at the Ballas car, claiming he needs to finish ordering his food while the others return fire. In the early cutscenes, Smoke repeatedly tries to convince Sweet to let the GSF get into crack cocaine, arguing it is the only way to compete against the Ballas. He also changes the subject when CJ or Ryder brings up his mother's death, or when "Green Sabre" Smoke often shuts down the conversation or shifts focus to something else. Leaving Grove Street and heading toward Idlewood deep in Ballas territory, he moves toward enemy territory. ACCIDENT. Officer Tenpenny and Pulaski were seen leaving his house many times. Smoke later dismisses it as "curious," but he is actually working for them. He also takes the lead on his own missions focused on gang territory and loyalty (unlike Sweet's missions). Smoke's missions (such as "Wrong Side of the Tracks" or "Just Business") often involve outside groups like the Vagos or the Russian Mafia and primarily benefit his own growing interests. And during missions, the enemy AI is programmed to usually ignore Smoke and focus entirely on CJ, even though Smoke alone is a much easier and bigger target. And finally the betrayal is confirmed in the "Green Sabre" mission, where Cesar Vialpando shows CJ a meeting with Big Smoke, Ryder, Officer Tenpenny and the Ballas standing around the green Sabre used in the drive-by that killed CJ's mother.
- #125
Ryder, whose real name is Lance, becomes the so-called "best friend" or "loyal" accomplice who betrays the hero by joining a rival gang and is later killed by him in GTA: SA as revenge for that betrayal, while another character named Lance, Lance Vance in GTA: Vice City, would have similar circumstances and would then be killed by his "best friend" or "loyal" accomplice. Vance is killed at the end of Vice City, while Ryder would be killed about halfway through the San Andreas mission list.
- #126
In the game files, the file name for Aldis Hodge's pedestrian voices is SPC_GA/BANK_026.
- #127
The jetpack featured in the game was modeled on the 'Bell Rocket Belt,' a transition system designed by Bell Aerosystems for the US Army in the 1950s. Interestingly, the same jetpack model also appeared in a popular early 90s US TV series: Walker, Texas Ranger (1993).
Sources & editorial notes
Sources for the entries on this page
- IMDb IMDb kaydı
- Wikipedia Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas — Wikipedia
Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work