The anticipation surrounding GTA V is reaching its crescendo. The trailer is due in less than a week and GameInformer’s latest issue, complete with its usual exclusive cover reveal, has a slew of new information in it. We won’t spoil it all here on the site, for the full run down you should definitely buy the magazine if you can.
Obviously, the cover reveal earlier today let slip that there will be three main protagonists. There’s been some speculation – and I think this would have been brilliant – that the three were Claude (GTA III), Tommy Vercetti (GTA: Vice City) and CJ (GTA: San Andreas). We now know that this isn’t the case. The three are: Michael, former bank robber who made a deal with the FBI; Trevor, a drug user and career criminal and Franklin, who runs a scam selling cars to people who can’t pay for them and then repossessing them.
The three characters can be switched between outside of missions at any time, although once in a mission it’s only at key points. Each will have their own family and circle of friends, along with distinct minigames and side missions.
We also know that the area of Los Santos is the biggest that Rockstar has yet created. However, according to art director Aaron Garbut, the play area, including all interior and exterior spaces, is bigger than Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto IV and San Andreas combined, with a bit left over. They’ve even mapped out some of the ocean floor along the beach so you can explore under the sea too, although it’s not clear how useful this will be.
That’s huge but thankfully, the diverse regions and environments around this recreation of Los Angeles can be navigated with a variety of modes of transport. There are BMX and mountain bikes as well as road and dirt motorbikes, the usual large selection of cars, vans and trucks, jetskis, helicopters and planes.
As usual, they’re planning a load of side activities including scuba diving, bowling and comedy clubs. Also familiar will be a few of the faces from GTA IV that will make an appearance. Dan Houser says that the car handling is much improved, with vehicles holding the road better. He wants it to fill the role of a high level racing game much more than previous outings, on top of everything else.
Another piece of good news is that they’re refining the phone in the game and you won’t be inundated with insufferable calls from in-game friends. The full feature is huge and really worth your attention if you can get your hands on a copy of the magazine.
In the meantime, these new screens have leaked from it.
Alex C
“the play area, including all interior and exterior spaces, is bigger than Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto IV and San Andreas combined”
I just hope it’s densely populated enough with things to do. RDR was huge, but a bit sparse.
Bilbo_bobbins
I agree, it all sounds great being massive, but its pointless if there is nothing to do.
rht992
GTA normally has plenty to do and I Imagine it’ll be a lot more varied than Red Dead. What with it being all modern and jazz
Gastos84
I’m a little scared and intimidated by the size of the gameplay area. I lost hours after hours just exploring in SA and Red Dead. The thought of a game with all that plus more is awesome and frightening.
I’m really hoping the trailer shows us some classic GTA with the fun injected back into it as I wasn’t a fan of IV.
Gastos84
Oh and can you imagine having to find all the hidden packages in an area that big?!
Alex C
My my my.
YOURMUMANDME
Here’s a link to get a rough idea, size-wise, of the map. It’s actually not as big as you might think, that said I’m sure it’s more than big enough!
http://www.geekosystem.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Large-Video-Game-Worlds.jpg
Alex C
Idea of which map? GTA V’s not on there.
YOURMUMANDME
GTA IV is 6.8mi2 (between GTA III and San Andreas on the map)
Red Dead is 28mi2 (between Oblivion and Far Cry 2 on the map)
So maybe about 45-50mi2, for GTA V?
YOURMUMANDME
Mr Pedantic!
http://i47.tinypic.com/24zmbsk.png
theberzerka
Don’t forget he said with a bit left over. So make your red box slightly bigger ;)
Origami Killer
Burnout Paradise is quite small though, well felt it for me, yet appears big on there. dont get the scale to all of this. Far cry 2 felt really small too.
Sympozium
Wow, Paradise City doesn’t so big, but damn… Just Cause 2’s map was so massive.
freezebug2
I was going to add Fuel to the tally, but noticed it was in the list at the side for consideration. That game was an around the friggin world trip to get the platinum trophy :P
Screenshots looking good ;)
cc_star
Imagine how big the maps must be of the title’s listed at the side, but not pictured.
YOURMUMANDME
The entire UK is 94,000mi2, TESII:Daggerfall is just over 2/3 of that…..
benny boy
Is that an Audi car there in the 2nd picture? Licensed cars??
Alex C
Looks like an R8, huh?
benny boy
Yeah, that and the fact it’s got the Audi logo on the front.
Blayney
Not quite. It’s the bottom half of the Audi badge.
The car is similar enough to suggest that is what they were going for, but in the detail it’s different enough to avoid any licensing issues I hope.
The “Mustang” in the 3rd screenshot appears very close to the real thing in that shot though.
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn9/EXman21/Nissan-Skyline-Powered-67-Mustan-3.jpg
Please ignore that the ‘stang linked is blasphemous. It just had a similar angle to it.
benny boy
Yeah you’re right. I was getting a bit carried away :P I thought the top of the logo was just not clear but yeah it doesn’t actually look like it’s there and the front looks different to an R8. Oh well…
cc_star
I still don’t see how they can make an R8 lookalike-ish and rip-off half of Audi’s logo and not receive a letter from Audi’s lawyers, it’s blatantly ripped.
Nate
Oh god, three different circles of family and friends to babysit this time.
tactical20
Outstanding. I love New York and have been there 14 times. I know it almost as well as I know London and I think my knowledge of NY made GTA IV even more enjoyable for me, as I really noticed the attention to detail in terms of the map and locations, names, etc… I’ve only been to LA a couple of times, and it is a vastly huger city than NY, so don’t know it so well, but I’d be interested to hear if Los Santos is a more accurate representation of LA in GTA V than it was in San Andreas?
Alex C
It’s certainly got some key areas, like Santa Monica, and the Hollywood bit.
Rockstar have been here before, of course, in Midnight Club: LA – that was pretty close too.
tactical20
And LA Noire!
While only a small fraction of LA, that was actually a very faithful representation I believe. Perhaps too realistic?
Don’t wanna be stuck in LA traffic for hours on end, just to travel the 20 odd miles from Long Beach to Downtown!
Alex C
LOL true.
TheDemocrodile
Pretty good looking.
I was thinking that an unexpected benefit to this loooooong generation of consoles is that developers have learnt to accomplish incredible things with such a tiny amount of RAM to work with.
skibadee
can not wait to play this game.
cc_star
Was worried the map would be too big to be playable but Burnout Paradise has a comparably far, far more massive map & that didn’t feel that big.
adwan
The thing to remember is that about half of Paradise City was inaccessable. The mountain range on the left of the map only had a few windey roads and most of the inbetween are couldn’t be driven on. This will make it feel smaller than it is. In GTAV you should be able to access all areas of the map so will make it feel larger.
I’m glad it’s not on Just Cause 2’s map scale as that was way too large. It took ages to get from place to place in that game, especially driving or by boat. Grabbing a Jumbo Jet mind made it a lot quicker!