I’ve been broadly immune from the GTA VI hype, not for any principled causes however as a result of I’ve simply by no means performed a Grand Theft Auto recreation. This has been largely circumstantial, as somebody who didn’t personal a console once they all launched and who tends to dislike driving video games. However the current flurry of GTA VI seems bought curiosity gnawing at my mind, desirous to share within the pleasure of my friends and feeling drawn to a giant open world to discover. And since VI gained’t be coming to PC till god-knows-when, I’ve determined to do the one factor I can: lastly set up the copy of GTA V that’s been sitting on my pc for years.
I picked up GTA V when it was free on the Epic retailer all the way back in 2020, my curiosity largely piqued by having spent years modifying Zack Zwiezen’s tales about GTA On-line for Kotaku. Zack made the sport sound like a bizarre alternate universe stuffed with the form of day-to-day life administration that I like about survival games, and I hoped the single-player can be that however with out different gamers griefing me into quitting. “I could possibly be a GTA man,” I confidently instructed myself in 2020, earlier than continuing to by no means take into consideration the sport sitting in my Epic library once more.
A couple of weekends in the past I lastly determined to put in it. This took some time: Between the Epic retailer being, properly, itself, and my Rockstar account deciding I didn’t exist time and again till it randomly determined oh no wait I did, between account syncs that warned me they failed however didn’t appear to have an effect on something to having to put in BattleEye, my first hour with the sport was only a maze of pop-ups and error messages. As soon as I bought into the sport, although, issues have run fairly easily. (Nicely, easily barring that it looks like the mixture of utilizing Epic and putting in the sport on a brand new SSD implies that I can’t inform if my screenshots aren’t saving in any respect, or in the event that they’re simply being saved to some place the place I’ve no hope of discovering them. So sorry for the shortage of photographs on this publish; I didn’t notice till it was too late! Relaxation assured each screenshot I took was horrible anyway.)
It’s bizarre to play a very old GTA once I’ve by no means performed one earlier than, and when my solely reference for this fashion of Rockstar recreation is having not completed Crimson Useless Redemption 2. I’ve struggled a bit with the tutorials, which seem as tiny textual content prompts within the higher left of my display screen and steadily disappear earlier than I can internalize them. In Franklin’s first “actual” mission, the place he has to shoot a person fleeing on a motorcycle whereas driving, I saved lacking or misunderstanding which buttons I needed to press so many occasions that I needed to pause the sport and go Google it. I then proceeded to fail the execution of this mechanic so many occasions that the sport lastly let me skip the mission, a alternative I’ve continued to make each time the mechanic has arisen, and which I’m positive may have no penalties on my time with the remainder of the sport in any respect.
Principally what I’ve completed within the recreation to this point is wander round. I’ve solely completed a few Franklin’s missions and two of Michael’s, spending the remainder of my time switching between the characters to discover their varied neighborhoods. The world is certainly large–the opposite evening I assumed I used to be driving Michael towards one in every of his query mark sidequests, however once I couldn’t discover it I as a substitute walked the entire seaside to the fairgrounds, rode the rides, then stole a jet ski and tried to see if I may circumnavigate the whole thing of the map. Issues hit a snag once I stopped to discover a little bit island and returned to search out my jet ski had not simply floated away however seemingly despawned. I stole a ship and saved going, earlier than irrevocably beaching the boat and ending up having to stroll for ages by way of rural dust roads till I may discover a automotive. A variety of my in-game time has been spent this fashion: stranding myself on the farthest edges of the map and having to time-consumingly work my method inland once more.
I additionally spent a number of in-game days trying to find a bicycle. After I found that I couldn’t simply purchase a motorbike from the in-game web and retailer it in Michael’s storage, I wandered the streets of Los Santos hoping to come back throughout one. Ultimately I turned to the real-life web for assist, which instructed me bikes could possibly be discovered on the seaside, the one place in GTA V I can reliably navigate myself to. However I spent full nights and days skulking round car parking zone bike racks hoping somebody with a motorbike would come by whereas they steadfastly didn’t. Ultimately, I walked my strategy to a motorbike rental place and nicked one there, which has led to me biking throughout city in Michel’s ridiculous denims and coat, with the present goal of getting again to a nationwide park I handed so I can do some off-road driving. (The sport is far more enjoyable on a motorbike than in a automotive, in case you ask me.)
Grand Theft Hamlet Is A Funny, Touching Take On Shakespeare – Aftermath
‘We’re putting on a play inside a game, but the game is a kind of play, because we’re playing’
Whereas exploring is what I most love to do in open-world video games anyway, it’s additionally been a strategy to ease myself into what GTA V really appears to be. The ambiance is crass in a method video games aren’t anymore–one of many first interactable companies I got here throughout was a strip membership the place I may watch a shiny, skimpily-dressed lady writhe in entrance of me. I additionally went to a film, during which a cartoon robotic murdered a feminine robotic for rejecting his advances. There are poop and dick and intercourse and homosexual jokes in all places, in a method I feel most video games, in the event that they haven’t rejected them outright, are at the least extra clever with right this moment. Possibly a few of this was humorous in 2013, however in 2026 it largely feels embarrassing.
In his 2022 re-review of the sport for Polygon, Cameron Kunzelman wrote that “Again when the sport initially launched, I known as it conservative… Now I might name it out of contact — even for the period during which it was launched.” A few of the recreation feels prefer it’s attempting to have its cake and eat it too, leaning on the South Park protection of making enjoyable of everybody whereas nonetheless primarily being the factor it’s making enjoyable of. There’s a crude cynicism to its humor that, trying by way of the lens of 2026, is tough to put in writing off as merely dated. And it feels prefer it’s attempting to attraction to a specific imaginative and prescient of “players” that isn’t simply inaccurate right this moment, however poisonous another way than it was in 2013.
It’s weird to play a recreation whose satirical politics are nearer to the Tea Social gathering than MAGA; regardless that so lots of the similar conspiracies and hatreds carry by way of, strains of thought that felt simple to put in writing off or mock again then really feel way more critical right this moment. And it’s form of surprising to play a recreation that feels prefer it’s each teasing and catering to a imaginative and prescient of an viewers that was crafted earlier than Gamergate. So lots of the recreation’s jokes really feel like Gamergate canine whistles, and I’ve to maintain reminding myself that they can’t be, as a result of there weren’t these canines to whistle at when Rockstar’s builders had been making the sport. The weather of what would develop into Gamergate had been there, after all; there’s a prescience to GTA V, concurrently I feel there’s no method its builders may have identified exactly what they had been predicting.
I really feel bizarre being disgusted by among the recreation, as a result of that response veers so near the moral panics surrounding the GTA collection that get wielded towards video video games as an entire. On the plus aspect, it additionally makes the present conservative backlash to GTA VI much more hilarious. GTA looms so giant within the public creativeness, and is so weight-bearing to the present online game trade, that it’s exhausting to expertise V for the primary time simply as itself, to not learn a lot into each billboard and radio spot and exercise and character.
There’s a lot extra of it that I have to expertise earlier than I can actually perceive what it’s and what it’s doing. However with all the bags round it, and with what I’ve seen to this point once I get too near the sport’s core, I’m not completely positive that I need to. I’ve had extra enjoyable simply exploring the world, at the same time as I hold brushing towards issues I feel are closed to me till I advance extra of the plot. I need to open up all of the secrets and mysteries that Zack’s tales made sound so engaging, at the same time as I’m anxious what I’d discover there. GTA V is a wierd recreation to come back to with none nostalgia; I’m not fairly positive if I’m having fun with it, or what it may appear to be to get pleasure from it for the primary time in 2026. I would like to get far sufficient to purchase a greater bicycle, although.
I Wish Rockstar Cared About People As Much As It Does GTA VI NPCs
You can’t talk a big game about handcrafting everything while mistreating the people responsible
