Grand Theft Auto V is an open world, action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It was released on 17 September 2013 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. An enhanced version of the game was released on 18 November 2014 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and is scheduled to be released on 14 April 2015 for Microsoft Windows. The game is the first main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series since 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV. Set within the fictional state of San Andreas (based on Southern California), the single-player story follows three criminals and their efforts to commit heists while under pressure from a government agency. The open world design lets players freely roam San Andreas, which includes open countryside and the fictional city of Los Santos (based on Los Angeles).

The game is played from either a third-person or first-person view[c] and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. Players control the three lead protagonists throughout the single-player mode, switching between them both during and outside of missions. The story is centred on the heist sequences, and many of the missions involve shooting and driving gameplay. Players who commit crimes may incite a response from law enforcement agencies, measured by a "wanted" system that governs the aggression of their response. Grand Theft Auto Online, the online multiplayer mode, lets up to 30 players explore the open world and engage in cooperative or competitive game matches.

Development began in 2009, soon after the release of Grand Theft Auto IV. The development team envisioned Grand Theft Auto V as a spiritual successor to many of their previous projects, such as Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3. The game's use of three lead protagonists is a break from series tradition—a design choice from the developers to innovate on the core structure of its predecessors. As part of their research for the open world, the developers conducted field research around California throughout development and captured footage for the design team. Development duties were shared between many of Rockstar's studios worldwide.

Following its announcement in October 2011, Grand Theft Auto V was widely anticipated. It was acclaimed by many reviewers, with praise particularly directed at its multiple protagonist design, open-ended gameplay and technical advancements. Critics were polarised by a scene depicting torture and the game's treatment of women. Some labelled the game inherently violent and misogynistic. Grand Theft Auto V broke industry sales records and became the fastest-selling entertainment product in history, earning US$800 million in its first day and US$1 billion in its first three days. Considered one of the most significant titles of the seventh generation of console gaming, the game won year-end accolades, including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications.

Gameplay

Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game[9] played from either a first-person or third-person view.Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story.Outside of missions, players can freely roam the open world. Composed of the San Andreas open countryside area and the fictional city of Los Santos, the world of Grand Theft Auto V is much larger in area than earlier entries in the series.The world may be fully explored from the beginning of the game without restrictions, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content.

Players use melee attacks, firearms and explosives to fight enemies,and may run, jump, swim or use vehicles to navigate the world. To accommodate the map's size, the game introduces vehicle types absent in its predecessor Grand Theft Auto IV, such as fixed-wing aircraft. In combat, auto-aim and a cover system can be used as assistance against enemies. Should players take damage, their health meter will gradually regenerate to its halfway point. Players respawn at hospitals when their health depletes.If players commit crimes while playing, law enforcement agencies may respond as indicated by a "wanted" meter in the head-up display (HUD). On the meter, the displayed stars indicate the current wanted level (for example, at the maximum five-star level, efforts by law enforcement to incapacitate players become very aggressive). Law enforcement officers will search for players who leave the wanted vicinity. Players arrested or killed by officers during missions may restart from the last checkpoint.The meter enters a cooldown mode and eventually recedes when players are hidden from the officers' line of sight.

The single-player mode lets players control three characters: Michael De Santa, Trevor Philips and Franklin Clinton—criminals whose stories interconnect as they complete missions. Some missions are completed with only one character and others feature two or three. Throughout single-player, players may switch between the protagonists at will by means of a directional compass on the HUD. The game may switch between characters automatically in single-player missions to complete certain objectives. A character's compass avatar will flash red if he is in danger and needs help, and flash white if he has a strategic advantage. Though players complete missions as any of the three protagonists, the more difficult heist missions require aid from AI-controlled accomplices with unique skill sets, such as computer hacking or driving. If an accomplice survives a successful heist, they take a cut from the cash reward and may be available for later missions with improvements to their unique skills.The game encourages differentiation in heist mission strategies—for example, in a holdup mission, players may either stealthily subdue civilians with an agent or conspicuously storm the venue with guns drawn.

The player character crouched behind a vehicle while in combat. The head-up display elements are visible on-screen.
Players may take cover behind objects during firefights to avoid taking damage from enemies
Each character has a set of eight skills that represent their ability in certain areas such as shooting and driving. Though players improve characters' skills as they play, each character has a skill with expertise by default (e.g. Trevor's flying skill). The eighth "special" skill determines the effectiveness in performing an ability that is unique to each respective character. Michael enters bullet time in combat, Franklin slows down time while driving, and Trevor deals twice as much damage to enemies while taking half as much in combat.A meter on each character's HUD depletes when an ability is being used and regenerates when players perform skilful actions (for example, drifting in vehicles as Franklin or pulling off headshots as Michael).

While free roaming the game world, players may engage in context-specific activities such as scuba diving underwater or BASE jumping via parachute. Each character has a smartphone for contacting friends, starting activities and accessing an in-game Internet. The Internet lets players trade in stocks via a stock market.Players may purchase properties such as homes and businesses, upgrade the weapons and vehicles in each character's arsenal, and customise their appearance by purchasing outfits, haircuts, tattoos and jewellery.

Developed in tandem with the single-player mode, the online multiplayer mode Grand Theft Auto Online was conceived as a separate experience to be played in a continually evolving world. Up to 30 players freely roam across a re-creation of the single-player world and enter lobbies to complete jobs (story-driven competitive and cooperative modes). The Content Creator toolset lets players create their own parameters for custom jobs, like racetracks and deathmatch weapon spawn points. Players may band together in organised player teams called crews to complete jobs together. Rockstar Games Social Club extends crews formed in Max Payne 3 '​s multiplayer mode to that of Grand Theft Auto Online. Players can create their own crews and join up to five total. Crews win multiplayer matches to earn experience points and climb online leaderboards

a little story

Nine years after a botched robbery in Ludendorff, North Yankton, former bank robber Michael Townley is living under witness protection with his family in Los Santos, San Andreas, under the alias Michael De Santa. When Michael discovers his wife Amanda in bed with her tennis coach, he chases the coach to a mansion and destroys it out of anger. The mansion's owner is Mexican drug lord Martin Madrazo's girlfriend. Madrazo demands compensation, so Michael and his accomplice Franklin Clinton perform a jewellery shop heist to pay their debt. Michael's sole surviving partner in the Ludendorff robbery, Trevor Philips, hears of the jewellery heist and realises that it was Michael's handiwork. The two reunite after Trevor tracks Michael down in Los Santos.

The personal lives of the protagonists begin to spiral out of control. Michael's family leaves him, and his attempts to make something of himself bring him into conflict with Devin Weston, a self-made billionaire venture capitalist and corporate raider who develops a grudge against him and vows revenge. Franklin rescues his friend Lamar Davis from gangster Harold "Stretch" Joseph, who repeatedly attempts to kill Lamar to prove himself to his brethren. Trevor's reckless efforts to consolidate his control over various black markets in Blaine County see him waging war against the San Andreas chapter of The Lost outlaw motorcycle club, a number of Latin American street gangs, rival meth dealers, government-sponsored mercenaries and Triad kingpin Wei Cheng.

Federal Investigation Bureau (FIB) government agents Dave Norton and Steve Haines contact Michael and demand that he perform a series of operations with Franklin and Trevor to undermine a rival agency, the International Affairs Agency (IAA).[j] Under Haines' direction, they attack an armoured convoy carrying funds intended for the IAA and raid a bank containing the payroll for all corrupt police and public officials in Los Santos. As Haines comes under increasing scrutiny for his methods, he forces Franklin and Michael to infiltrate the FIB headquarters and erase any evidence being used against him from their servers. Michael takes the opportunity to wipe any data on his own activities, destroying Haines' leverage over him. The trio start planning their most daring feat ever: raiding the Union Depository's gold bullion reserve.

After returning to Los Santos, Michael makes amends with his family and they start living together again. Trevor, however, discovers that a former Ludendorff heist accomplice, Brad Snider, was not in prison as he was led to believe, but killed during the heist and buried in the grave marked for Michael. Trevor's feelings of betrayal cause friction within the group and threaten to undermine their Union Depository plans. When Michael and Norton, both of whom are betrayed by Haines, are caught in a Mexican standoff between the FIB, IAA and private security firm Merryweather, Trevor aids in their escape, holding that only he has the right to kill Michael. Despite not forgiving Michael, Trevor still wants to perform the Union Depository heist; the duo agree to part ways afterwards.

The Union Depository heist is completed successfully, but Franklin is approached by two parties separately who demand that he kill Trevor or Michael. Haines and Norton contend that Trevor is a liability, and Weston wants retribution for Michael's betrayal. Franklin has three choices: kill Michael, kill Trevor or kill neither and face their enemies together. Should Franklin kill either Michael or Trevor, he ceases contact with the survivor and returns to his old life.Should he kill neither, the trio join forces to withstand an onslaught from the FIB and Merryweather before going on to kill Weston, Stretch, Cheng and Haines. With all their enemies disposed, the three cease working together, but remain friends.

Multiplayer launch

Grand Theft Auto Online launched on 1 October 2013, two weeks after the release of Grand Theft Auto V.Many players reported that they had difficulties connecting to the game's servers and the Social Club web service, and others further reported that the game would freeze while loading early missions.Rockstar released a technical patch on 5 October in an effort to resolve the issues.The microtransaction system, which allows players to purchase game content using real money, was also suspended as a fail-safe. Problems persisted the second week following launch, and some players reported their player-character progress as having disappeared.Another technical patch was released on 10 October combating the issues, and players experiencing issues were told not to recreate their multiplayer avatars.As recompense for the technical issues, Rockstar offered a stimulus of GTA $500,000 (in-game currency) to the accounts of all players connected to Online since launch.Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar's parent company, stated that by February 2014, 70 percent of players with Internet access had played Grand Theft Auto Online, and that the game's microtransactions system was the largest contributor to the company's digital revenue since the launch of Grand Theft Auto Online.

Because of the widespread technical issues present at launch, many reviewers bemoaned their experience with Grand Theft Auto Online.Chris Carter of Destructoid criticised the "messy launch" and felt that Rockstar should have delayed it.IGN's MacDonald considered her initial play sessions in Grand Theft Auto Online "disastrous",and Liam Martin of Digital Spy reported glitches including loss of his character data. While generally praising the scope of the experience, he considered Grand Theft Auto Online underwhelming as beholden to pre-launch anticipation let down by its technical issues.The character creation system was panned by critics, who felt that the system only produced unattractive avatars.MacDonald of IGN noted an "addictive rhythm" to character progression and was enthusiastic about some of the job missions, although most eventually became monotonous.GameSpot's Petit agreed with MacDonald, writing that "early on, your mission options are dominated by bland last team standing deathmatches".However, reviewers generally recognised the open-ended exploration and dynamic content as the strength of Grand Theft Auto Online. Jon Denton of VideoGamer.com was particularly enthusiastic, and wrote that the "endlessness" of the gameplay made up for the technical issues.

award

Re-release

At E3 2014, a re-release of the game was announced for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. This enhanced version of the game features an increased draw distance, finer texture details, denser traffic, upgraded weather effects, and new wildlife and vegetation.It includes a new on-foot first-person view option, which required the development team to overhaul the animation system to accommodate first-person gameplay.The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions were released on 18 November 2014.Reviewers praised the first-person view and graphics upgrades, but some reported problems connecting to Grand Theft Auto Online.The PC version, initially scheduled for simultaneous release with the console versions,[190] was delayed three times: first to 27 January 2015,later to 24 March 2015,and again until 14 April 2015.According to Rockstar, the game required extra development time for "polish".

spec:

Minimum Specs
OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1, Windows Vista 64 Bit Service Pack 2* (*NVIDIA video card recommended if running Vista OS)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs) / AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs) @ 2.5GHz
Memory: 4GB
Video Card: NVIDIA 9800 GT 1GB / AMD HD 4870 1GB (DX 10, 10.1, 11)
Sound Card: 100% DirectX 10 compatible
HDD Space: 65GB

Recommended Specs
OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1
Processor: Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.2GHZ (4 CPUs) / AMD X8 FX-8350 @ 4GHZ (8 CPUs)
Memory: 8GB
Video Card: NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB / AMD HD7870 2GB
Sound Card: 100% DirectX 10 compatible
HDD Space: 65GB