1UP: How long has Chinatown Wars been in development, and how does it compare to the development cycles of the PSP Grand Theft Autos?

GH: The game’s been in development for two years now, with a big team. This is by far the biggest game Rockstar Leeds has ever done. I remember the conversation I had with [Rockstar president] Sam [Houser] that kicked this all off. We both felt the DS community was being starved of mature content, but no third-party publishers were making headway on the platform. There was no previous business model that showed anything other than abject failure in the adult DS space. We came away from that chat with a target to get something onscreen that would really change the perception of the DS and the games it’s capable of making. If we thought, after the initial test phase, that it had potential, we’d back it and hope we could do what Rockstar always tries to do and create new markets. If, though, it looked like we couldn’t really impress people and excite them about something new, then we’d pull the plug straight away.

1UP: How long do you estimate this game will take to complete?

GH: It really depends on what type of player you are. I can spend literally days just building up my criminal empire without touching a mission at all. But that aside, in classical terms, I think, for an average player, we’ve got around 20 to 30 hours of gameplay just to complete the story missions — that gets you through about 28 percent to 30 percent of the total game. The narcotics dealing takes up much more of your time, and we have more side missions, odd jobs, and one-off characters with their own mission strands to meet around this world than you’d ever expect. I’d say to get to 100 percent stats complete, you’d be looking at around 70 to 80 hours of play. This still doesn’t mean you’ve seen everything. You still have multiplayer and the entire online and Social Club content to dabble with.

Full interview here