Grand Theft Auto V Wiki

Grand Theft Auto 5 is the fifteenth game in the Grand Theft Auto series and also a mainline game following  Grand Theft Auto 4’s launch in 2008. Developed by Rockstar Games, the game is set to be the most ambitious game yet in the series. The game was announced on 25 Oct 2011, via a logo on Rockstar’s official website, and a formal trailer was revealed next month, which gave a general idea of what the game was about.

The game is set in Los Santos, same as 2004’s GTA San Andreas, which is widely regarded as one of the best games ever made. A second trailer for the game was shown on 14 Nov 2012, exactly one year after the first trailer, and it gave background information about the characters, the in-game graphics, and various other things were shown.

Rockstar also announced the release window for the game which was scheduled for September 2013. Initially, the platforms were slated to be PS3 and Xbox 360. No PC, PS4 and Xbox One versions were announced back then. However the 8th gen versions came out in November 2014 and a PC version is confirmed for a January 2015 launch. GTA 5 is the first game in the series to feature three protagonists, although, they didn’t confirm any co-op mode.

The game is set to be the biggest in terms of scale and scope than the other GTA games in the series. The total sales of the franchise are 125 million units so far. [reference]

• 1. Development
• 2. Gameplay
• 3. Story
• 4. Characters
• 5. Multiplayer
• 6. Marketing

Development

Being an extremely ambitious game, Rockstar has revealed that the game world will be three times bigger than Red Dead Redemption and will be set in a fully recreated Los Santos, with every type of vehicle available from boats to jet planes.

The game was first revealed in 2011, where they showed the logo for the game and then the eventual trailer.

The game focuses on capturing the contemporary culture of Los Angeles. In a information blowout via GameInformer a lot of details were revealed which gave us a vague information about everything about in the game.

The game features three protagonists and you can switch between each of them in real-time and do a lot of different things. During one particular mission, Michael rappels down the side of a building and into it to grab a target, Franklin uses a sniper rifle to take down other targets from afar while Trevor flies the getaway chopper up above.

As you get into the getaway chopper, Trevor flies it, Franklin snipes enemies and Michael uses the machine gun to take down other choppers in pursuit. During the entire mission, you can switch between them whenever you want. [reference]

The game runs on the Euphoria engine which is the same one that powered its predecessor this generation. The engine has been tweaked a lot and features a lot of upgraded visuals, and other effects and is quite a big improvement over GTA 4.

The shooting and vehicle handling have also been improved massively, and Dan Houser gave us some details on shooting and melee.

“We feel like we’ve evolved it on from where we had it in any previous game a long way. And not just in terms of how it works, but also in terms of the core mechanics of how you play the game.”

“It’s better than we’ve had in the past. How far we can push it — we will see depending on resources we allocate to it,” he added for melee. “We do want it to feel really fun and strong.”

There is no romance in the game because Dan Houser believes it doesn’t fit with the game’s theme. “We weren’t sure it would work, and we’re doing lots of other new stuff. We definitely would bring it back in the future but not this game. It just felt like it was going to be overly complex (with three protagonists).”

He also revealed to Game Informer that there will be dynamic missions like Red Dead Redemption. In other words the game wont be that sterile and you will actually be immersed in it.

We recently compared GTA 5 screenshots to GTA 4 PC which showed how much of a difference the engine upgrades have made. [reference]

There will be a lot of side missions and optional activities like  triathlons and Jet Skiing to base-jumping, tennis, and golf. Incidentally, Los Santos will also have a golf course. You can also go scuba diving, meaning that you can actually explore what lies beneath the waters of Los Santos.

The game will also have Hollywood inspired missions. “We’re using the environment to let us have toys we couldn’t have had otherwise. And equally, we’re using the story and environment to introduce missions that can be more extreme. In some ways we wanted the game to have a larger-than-life Hollywood feel; the stories we heard in LA, we wanted to capture them in the game. If the place isn’t informing what we’re doing, we’re not using it correctly.” [reference]

Whilst the game has no lead platform, it was developed for multiple platforms showing no particular bias. The second trailer released for the game is posted below.

Gameplay

The world is massive and bigger than San Andreas, GTA 4, and Red Dead Redemption combined and is designed to accommodate flying. The game is improved in every way and contains melee mechanics and all sorts of things that you would normally expect in a GTA game.

The three protagonists adds a bit of dynamism to the gameplay where you can switch between each of them and do various things really making the gameplay diverse and exciting.

Here’s what Dan Houser had to say about the missions in the game: “Some missions will only feature one playable character, whereas others will feature two or three. This should give the missions a healthy amount of variety. A lot of the missions will be prepping for and pulling off complex heists. The switch mechanic also lets Rockstar skip over the flat spots in missions to always keep you in the action.”

It is humorous like the other GTA games out there, well except GTA 4. “The demo we saw was focused on a rather serious mission (breaching the offices of the IAA, which is the GTA equivalent to the CIA), but it seems like Trevor’s madness and Michael’s family dynamic provide ample opportunity for comic relief.

From flicking off people as he’s driving down the street to busting the balls of the security agent guarding a helicopter, Trevor’s unhinged antics brought a smile to our faces. Television, radio programs, and the Internet return as well, each of which was a great source of humor in previous games.” [reference]

You cannot switch between characters if you have a wanted level. The game is in third person like the other GTA games, and there’s no confirmation of a first-person view inside vehicles. The game doesn’t feature support for Kinect or Move.

GTA V also features a robust and lucrative online mode where players are able congregate in the sandbox world and form gangs, commit crimes, race and wage war against each other. Although plagued with bugs upon its initial release, it has since been patched and has become a thriving online community.

Story

GTA V follows the personal lives of the games 3 main protagonists as their lives begin to spin into chaos, from abandoning family to killing others as a right of initiation.

The story intersects and you can follow the lives of all the three protagonists until they come together for one specific goal, and what twists are in place for them is anyone’s guess.

The game lasts 25-30 hours according to Rockstar Games and there are multiple endings in place. [reference]

Rockstar says it wants the story to be manageable in size, since several people did not finish GTA 4 due to its story being a bit too long. However, GTA 5 has plenty of secondary and side things to do.

The game has multiple endings.

The game contains three protagonists whose names are Michael, Trevor Philips and Franklin. There is a good racial diversity here which really increases the humor potential of the game.

Characters

Michael: He is in his early 40′s. He was an ex-bank robber, but he retired after he made a deal with the feds. He was the guy that narrated the original GTA 5 trailer. He has a wife, Amanda, who he hates, and two teenage children.

Trevor Philips: He is a former war vet, and has plenty of fighting experience. Oh, he’s also a ”drugged out psychopath”. He also has a paranoid, conspiracy theorist friend called Ron. He is also a skilled pilot, which means you can fly planes since the beginning of the game and don’t have to unlock anything.

Franklin: He works as a repo man who’s in his mid-20s, and has been described by Rockstar as “the young and capable one of the bunch.” He has a “crazy friend” called Lamar. He is of African American origin and you can see all these three characters meet up during the second trailer.

The player is able to control all three characters in-game.

Multiplayer

The game’s multiplayer builds upon the one in GTA 4. The crews from Max Payne 3 are back as well, and Dan Houser has revealed that it will be available from day 1.

“Multiplayer is an ever-more important part of all our games moving forward. And by creating crews through Social Club, the crews that you create in Max Payne 3 will be ready and available for you to play in Grand Theft Auto V from day one. It’s all part of our larger approach to make multiplayer deeper and richer than what’s currently available, much more easily accessible to the newcomer and rewarding for the hardcore.”

“We made a promise not to talk too much about forthcoming games until a little further down the track but, yes, crews will feature in Grand Theft Auto V multiplayer.” [reference]

It has been confirmed that there is no co-op in the game and Rockstar has revealed why that is the case.

“It would be impossible to do that and keep the level of precision we’ve got in this. However Rockstar are working on the multiplayer aspects that will hopefully fill up that co-op vacuum. “You could make a great co-op game, but we felt that we’re doing other bits of our multiplayer that will fulfill those desires in ways we think are very fun.” [reference]

The multiplayer mode is very ambitious and here’s why. They have however said that there’s a lot of information on the multiplayer that they have yet to reveal.

“That’s what we’re working on, but we’re not ready to talk about it just yet. Refining open world multiplayer into something really special has been a huge focus of development and we are very excited to share more information with people soon.” [reference]

There’s not a lot of information revealed so far on the mutliplayer mode but it should be soon.

Marketing

Rockstar’s marketing has been a bit late considering the first trailer came out in November 2011 but we got hardly any information on the game until they started showing off a lot of screenshots from various parts of GTA 5. They showed the main characters, side missions, and the environmental variety.

After the second trailer was out and the official release window was confirmed to be Spring 2013, they started ramping up their promotion efforts by sending posters and other goodies to retailers and also announced the preorder bonuses for the game. [reference]

This wiki was last updated on 29th, December, 2014.