Introduction

September 17th, 2013, has gone down in history as the most monumental media release to date. This wasn't a sequel to Titanic, or a beloved 80s sitcom coming back on air for one more Christmas special. It was in fact a videogame about drug running, gang warfare, murder, torture and robbery. After a 5 years hiatus on the series, Grand Theft Auto was reborn on September 17th, and shook the entertainment industry to the core, breaking several world records, and set a new bar for the competition. GTA IV broke records in 2008, and was the fastest selling entertainment product of all time, making over 300,000,000 dollars on its debut, and a further 200,000,000 dollars by the end of the week. Videogames were starting to catch up with Hollywood in terms of revenue and reach, and the GTA series proved that the videogame industry was nothing to scoff at. 5 years later however, GTA V made GTA 4s revenue look like chump-change, and to this day remains the best selling entertainment product of all time. For reference, GTA V made 800,000,000 dollars on the first day, and a billion by the end of the week, which is half of GTA IV's total sales. It cannot be understated how much hype and excitement was looming around GTA V in the weeks prior and after its release. It was the thing everyone was talking about; it was on national news, billboards and all over the internet. By that time, GTA was already a household name, beloved by children and teenagers, and worried parents and teachers alike.

11 years have passed since its release, and the gaming industry has changed, but so has Grand Theft Auto and Rockstar Games. Whether they have changed for the better or worse is heavily debatable, but what hasn't changed is GTA Vs story and world, which afterall, is what GTA is all about.

Welcome (back) to Los Santos

After five years on the East Coast, it was time to come home.

GTA V throws us into a very different world to its predacesor. The cold, monochrome streets of Liberty City and Alderney are replaced by the bustling, sunsoaked counties of the San Andreas state. The city of Los Santos makes a comeback from GTA SA (San Andreas), and a new rural county; Blaine County, makes its first appearance. The map is incredibly detailed and diverse, each area feels different and the world is truely a living and breathing one. From plastic Vinewood to the boarded up liqour stores of Davis, the quaint woodland of Paleto Bay and the tweakers of Sandy Shores, all aspects of Americana are on display here. In 2013, GTA had never looked so polished and believable.

The Three Stooges

Rockstar entered unchartered territory when it was revealed that there would be three playable protaganists. They had toyed with the idea earlier in GTA IV when they released The Ballad of Gay Tony (TBoGT) and The Lost and Damned (TLaD), however these were not switchable characters. In GTA V, you can seemlessly switch characters during missions and freeroam, with no loading screens when nearby. This of course came at the cost of less character development, since they'd have to write huge stories for three people, however, they are still incredibly fleshed out and there is alot to learn about if you dont skip cutscenes and explore the world. Alot of fans complain that the characters in V aren't as fleshed out as they were in IV, but that is simply not true, its just not as apparent. Sidemissions, cutscenes, objects in houses, hangouts and many other activities reveal a goldmine of information about our protaganists.

Character Abilities

GTA V added special abilities for the three characters, each reflecting their respective "talents". Michael has a bullet-time ability, which slows down time when aiming. Franklin has a driving ability which is similar, but it makes the car handle better and is useful for turning tight corners. Trevor gets an enraged ability, which is essentially Godmode. These are totally optional however, and dont massively effect gameplay - you can play with or without them comfortably.

Character exclusive missions

In the earlier parts of the game, alot of the missions only use one character, and they serve to build up that character and give some insight into their current life, mindset and personality. Franklins missions in paticular are a good example of this, as we get to see who and what Franklin has grown up with, most notably his best friend Lamar, who has a good heart but is ultimately too stupid to go pro like Franklin does. Throughout the Franklin and Lamar missions, we learn that Franklin used to be like Lamar - and in his own words, he was slinging dope on the corner. But as time marched on, Franklin began to grow hungry for more and wanted independence from the Chamberlain Gangster Families (CGF). Instead of paying up the ladder to the CGF OGs like Stretch, he and Lamar formed their own gang called Forum Gangsters, with Franklin being alot more enthusiastic about cutting ties with CGF than Lamar was. However even this was not enough for Franklin, as it was still ultimately petty gang crime, which Franklin wanted to avoid in the first place.

This is just one example, as there is so much subject matter on all three characters.

Gameplay

GTA V changed open-world games forever, and every AAA company has shamelessly tried to rip it off, with varying degrees of success. But they are always missing something - something just feels off. Its because they are a jack of all trades but master of none. Average gameplay, average maps, average characters, average story, average writing, etc. etc. 10 years from now, no one is going to be singing praises for Watchdogs 3, or even remember it. GTA V excels in all of the above aspects, and Rockstar is (or was) arguably the only developer who could make such memorable game worlds and characters. CJ from GTA San Andreas, a 20 year old game, is a recognised face by almost every gamer, and is now forever immortalised by internet memes. GTAs chaotic gameplay, combined with masterful story-telling, acting and pure heart and soul clearly poured into its development is what makes GTA alive and well.

So the actual gameplay, at its core, is the same as any other GTA game. Shoot, kill, steal, destroy. But the missions are structured very differently from the prior games and are, in my opinion, alot better. Very few missions feel the same, and they range wildly in scope. Some missions are simply casing out places to rob later, others are flying cropdusters into cargo planes and killing hordes of mercenaries. Compared to previous GTA games, the missions are undoubtebly better, but unfortunately, there is little challenge to them, but that is not to say the game doesn't have challenge at all. For 100% completition, you need gold medals in every main story mission and strangers and freaks missions, as well as completing stunt jumps and stunt flying, between buildings and bridges, which can be tricky.

GTA V also offers a bounty of side content, mini games and easter eggs, and even purchasable business properties, that provide a regular passive income, as well as some extra missions.

The best missions in the game by far are the heists, and there is no shortage of those. From jewel stores to freight trains, and of course banks, there is plenty to go around. Missions that utilise all three characters are equally good and memorable too, like in Lamar Down, where Franklin, Trevor and Michael team up together to save Lamar from a sawmill being used by the Ballas to hold drugs. In that mission, you actually have some choice on how it plays out too. You can choose entry points and positions for each character.

My personal favourite mission is Hood Safari, in which Franklin and Lamar are about to buy a kilo of coke from a Balla, which Stretch set up. Trevor shows up before Franklin and Lamar go to the deal, so they relucatantly let him tag along. The dynamic between Franklin, Lamar and Trevor is great and I wished the game used that trio more often.

As well as the main story missions, there is also side missions, or "strangers and freaks", and each character has their own unique strangers and freak (SaF) missions. Franklin for example, can meet a guy in the desert who needs him to find UFO parts for his project, Trevor can meet Cletus, an old redneck friend who teaches Trevor how to hunt, whereas Michael can join the Epsilon cult online and complete the missions associated with that.

You can also hangout with eachother and do group activities like golf, darts or armed robbery. In short, there is plenty of things to do after the main story missions, and of course you can just go on rampages and kill everything that moves, in true GTA fashion.

Vehicles

GTA V brings back aeroplanes, which were missing from IV due to the map being too small for them to be useful. There a few types, like passenger airliners and cropdusters, or military jets, helicopters and attack helicopters. There is also a tank, and with a trainer, you can add in all the online-only vehicles to story-mode. There are hundreds if not thousands of vehicles to choose from, most of which are fully customisable. Cars handle differently from IV, and the fanbase is quite divided on the subject, as some say Vs driving mechanics are too arcadey, but I disagree. It is alot more dumbed down for sure, but to me, GTA IV's vehicle handling was just bearable until you are forced to pilot a chopper or ride a bike. It is easier with a controller but a pain on keyboard and mouse, but GTA Vs driving is alot more intuitive, if a little less impressive than IVs. It's not completely dumbed down however; vehicles handle very differently on certain terrain, and wheel types do actually make a difference. Aircraft handles alot better in V too.

Gunplay

Frankly, this is one of the weaker aspects of the game. Whilst it does work intuitively, it never feels as frantic as it did in GTA IV. Enemies move slowly in GTA V, and they aren't paticualrly smart either. There will rarely be a situation where you need to weed somone out from cover - they will always peak over or charge you. The guns have little to no recoil, and they sound pretty weak too. The addition of attachments is really cool, however I barely notice much difference with or without them, other than the extended mags and supressor. You can replace the vanilla gun sounds with various sound mods, and they all sound better than the originals.They are more louder - more oomf to them.

Online

GTA Online is a complete mess. There's no other way of putting it. It has took such a radical turn for the worst, its barely recognisable as a GTA game. I stopped bothering with GTA Online after the Import/Export update in 2016, as it became too ridiculous and felt more like Saints Row than GTA. Flying motorbikes with rockets? Really? My suspension of disbelief can only go so far. It's truely a shame that online took the direction that it did because the story mode is such a good foundation to build on, with memorable characters, great writing and an interesting message. But instead, GTA online became a soulless cash-cow which has ironically became what it was mocking in the storymode. GTA Online has always felt a bit half-baked, with its long loading times, server issues grinding, but before 2016 it was a very different game. There was no businesses, flying motorbikes or flying DeLoreans with missile launchers. It was a simpler time, where the criminal element was still somewhat believable. In the early days of GTA Online, if you wanted money, you grinded Rooftop Rumble, killed players with bounties, robbed cash trucks and stores, anything no matter how minor. It wasn't glamourus but it was simple and fun. It was great when people actually used pistols and other guns, not just spamming rocket vehicles or laser mini guns. It was still grounded in reality - it still felt like GTA. Watch the original GTA Online trailer and see for yourself how different the GTA Online we have now actually is.

To make serious money in the modern GTAO economy, you already need a lot of money to buy the various businesses and properties. And after that, it will be a while before you break even. Its incredibly tedious and made all the more annoying when other players can destroy your cargo and get rewarded for doing so. The result is a constant state of war in every public lobby, where no one trusts anyone and everyone is either broke or infintely wealthy with the best weapons and vehicles. GTAO is a pay to win game and even if it wasn't, it would still be bad because of how disconnected from the main game it is. You can clearly tell which scenes and dialogue was written before and after the original writers stopped working on GTA V.

Modding

GTA V has some of the best selection of mods, given how it's the best selling game of all time, it's hardly surprising. There are so many mods that radically change your game its hard to list the best ones. Its worth mentioning LSPDFR, which allows you to turn the table and play as the cops. Whilst pretty bare on its own, vehicle and uniform mods make it very refreshing and it is infintely customisable, as long as you can bare the tedium of fiddling with game files. There are also mods that allow you to operate illegal businesses in storymode, as well as gang warfare mods and a plethora of FX mods. You can completely change the way GTA V looks, sounds and feels with a few hours of tweaking in OpenIV.

Tonal shift

The contrast between GTA IV and V isn't just apparent in their maps, but their overall tone too. GTA V is alot more vibrant and bright, with an amazing, if a little silly, storyline. There is alot more emphasis on exploration and the more "gamey" things, like Trevors rampages and scavenger hunts. The story does have its powerful moments however, like in the mission Bury The Hatchet, however, that is not the overall tone of the game. GTA IV has a very different tone, favouring a more believable mob storyline, and the story of Niko himself becoming a someone in a city full of no-ones, even if he was only famous amongst the criminal underworld. Ultimately, both games are parodies of their respective cities and their people (Los Angeles, New York and New Jersey), and the games comedy reflects that. It could be argued that GTA IV and V serve as time capsules from their respective releases, like in GTA IV, there is alot of in-game talk about the threat of terrorism, cell phones, recent smoking bans, the rise of the internet and the recession. In GTA V, there is alot of talk about hipsters, the internet and social media, television, celebrities, videogames and politics. These are better explained by actually playing both games and listening to NPC conversations, billboards and radio stations.

As jaw dropping as GTA IV's rendition of Liberty City was, the greener pastures of Los Santos and Blaine County were a much needed change from the drab, borderline depressing world of GTA IV. Comparing maps and calling one better than the other however, is unfair, as both of them serve their purpose to their games story. Los Santos looks pretty and vibrant, but underneath all of the glitz, glamour and plastic breasts, Los Santos is a city on its knees, suffering the same hardships as any other major American city, and the game does not shy away from showing it. The games humour is still quite cynical despite the tonal shift, and humanitys obsession with money, fame and attention is routinely made fun of in the same vain of GTA IV.

Liberty City serves its story perfectly too. The story is surprisingly dark, and Liberty City is no different. Its a rare day indeed when sun shines in the city. Barely 2 hours into the game, we learn that Niko is an ex solider from Serbia, who seen and committed warcrimes during the Yugoslav wars. We also learn that his unit was ambushed and massacared because of a traitor in Nikos unit, Darko, who sold them out to feed his heroin addiction. That alone is quite daunting for a videogame, let alone a AAA game. The worlds and stories in both games are made for eachother.

Flaws

For the sake of this section, I am not going to mention GTAO, because that would require a seperate article to list everything wrong with it. GTA V storymode is almost perfect, but there area a few glaring issues that can't go unmentioned. My biggest issue is how underwhelming the guns feel. As mentioned earlier, they sound weak and have no recoil, and some of them are completely useless like the SNS pistol. Another flaw, whilst not a gameplay issue, is how obtuse Rockstar is when it comes to mod support. With every title update, Scripthook and other plugins cease to function, regardless if you play online or not, so everytime the game updates, you'll have to wait until the plugins update, which could be a few days. So that makes every mod that requires a certain plugin broken. It's very annoying and petty of Rockstar, but they've never been one to support modding. Essentially its all DRM bullshit which only screws over the paying customers in the end.

Another flaw, to me anyways, is how easy the story is. Even if you die, there are checkpoints and you can skip a section if you die three times. It's very casual even for GTA. In the previous games, if you died, you'd have to restart the mission, which admitedly was a pain in the ass, but it made the stakes higher and gave the games alot more edge. That mission in GTA IV, where you rob a mob recycling plant with Packie and his brothers was always a fun one due to how close quarters the fighting was, and the uncertainity of what was around the next corner. Of course you knew someone was there, but you didn't know if they were going to mag dump a MAC 10 into you, insta-kill you with a shotgun, or just carrying a pistol. GTA V has none of that, at least not in its story missions, but they are at least very different from eachother, unlike IV.

My final big issue with GTA V is the wanted system. Whilst this is a matter of preference, I happen to prefer the system in IV. Vs system is too hit or miss. Sometimes I'm stuck with a one star wanted level for 2 minutes, other times its gone in 20 seconds. Whats most annoying is when you commit a crime in the middle of nowhere, with no witnesses, and still get a wanted level. But again, all of this can be changed with mods, and in my game, it has and its infinetely better than the experience I had way back in 2013 on the Xbox 360, though not with quite the same magic as it did back then. (growing up sucks)

Conclusion and the future of GTA

11 years later, GTA V is still the king of open world crime games and the competition isn't even close. Until GTA VI releases, its unlikely that any other videogame will come close to matching GTA Vs success and recognition. But whether GTA VI will be the hit that all others were is yet to be decided. It may seem like a no-brainer, but with the current direction Rockstar has taken, and is planning to keep taking, its hard to stay excited for GTA VI. Rockstars complete butchery of GTAO, and their unbelievable greed as of late, like charging £60 for a half baked "remaster" of GTA games older than half of the GTA fanbase, is appauling. Furthermore, they completely abandoned RDR2 Online when they figured out that the old west doesn't have the mass appeal that cars and money does, though its not for lack of trying. They tried to squeeze microtransactions in there but RDR2O simply isn't active enough to make the kind of money Take2s shareholders now expect.

GTA VI will most likely go the same way as GTA V did. Good storymode, garbage online, only now they have the foresight to instantly monetize the online mode. I would like to play GTAV VI when it eventually releases, but from what we already know from leaks and trailers, I'm not 100% sold on it. The whole Bonnie and Clyde thing is a bit much for me, and whilst this is definetely personal bias, I don't really want to play as a woman. Whether you want to hear it or not, GTA has always been a male orientated game. Male main characters, male antagonists, male fanbase. That aside, the setting looks gorgeous, although I cant help thinking they could've went to a new city or state. A GTA V prequel even, would've been cool. Michael and Trevor, wheeling and dealing in the Midwest before the North Yankton job would've been a great, refreshing new setting, but hey, I'm not the developer. Maybe GTA VI will be the best GTA to date. Rockstar, despite all the bullshit, is a very talented studio and it isn't unfair to say that they have the best track record for open world games. But with the way the AAA gaming industry is right now, its hard to stay positive, even with Rockstar. Only time will tell, but with any luck, they have learned from their previous games and expand on them in their newest installment.