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.
Tuffcub
Looks awesome but I wont be touching it, every single Rockstar game (bar Max Payne) has looked great but played badly.
LTG Davey
Looks pretty but its got to do a lot to beat the likes of Sleeping Dogs in terms of fun/gameplay.
cc_star
Rockstar really have to up their game now that they’re not the only ‘quality’ gig in town.
They’ll be a lot of Watch Dogs info out around GTAV’s release date too, although GTA is obviously one of gaming’s strongest pillars.
kjkg
I prefer smaller I think. I loved it when I knew every square inch (and shortcut) of Vice City. Although I loved GTA4 I just felt it was harder to learn the area well. And RDR, when it’s just barren wasteland, there is no shorcuts.
kjkg
are* no shortcuts.
cc_star
I’m with you, in GTAIII & VC I knew every inch, every shortcut, every jump – it was awesome, as things open up that becomes much harder…as typified by my often piss poor performance in Burnout Paradise.
leeroye
I hope they include a more comprehensive combat system similar to that seen in sleeping dogs.
deadwelsh
3 Characters is putting me off at this stage tbh, and i have loved most of the R* open worlkd games so far.
Think i would have preferred 1 character per game, giving the option for multiple playthroughs and diff story lines to boot.
The actual play area does look ace though, so I am sure I will end up loving it, but for now i will not be pre-ordering, will wait for the dust to settle and prob get the inevitable GOTY edition with the added expansion packs, will prob take me that long to complete AC3 anyway!
Gadbury
Looks brilliant. If one of the console makers could get an exclusive on this for their next-gen machines, it’d be a system seller.