A crime story told from three angles at once#
Grand Theft Auto V is Rockstar North's biggest single-player crime story and, quietly, one of the most successful pieces of ongoing software ever shipped, because the same purchase also unlocks GTA Online, a multiplayer mode that Rockstar has kept updating for more than a decade after the game's original release. First released on 17 September 2013 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, it came to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November 2014, PC in April 2015, and a current-generation "Expanded and Enhanced" version for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S in March 2022. Almost nothing else in the medium has stayed commercially and culturally relevant across four console generations, and it earns that longevity through two separate strengths: a campaign built around three sharply different protagonists, and an online city that never really stopped growing.
The premise is simple on paper. Los Santos is Rockstar's satirical stand-in for Los Angeles, and San Andreas around it stretches through desert towns, forests and a mountain that doubles as the map's tallest landmark. Into that city step three career criminals with almost nothing in common except a shared need for one big score. What the game does with them, and what it has done with the online mode built on the same map, is why it still matters.
What makes Grand Theft Auto V different#
The one idea that carries the whole campaign is that a crime story does not need one main character when it can have three, and let you play all of them at once. Michael De Santa is a retired bank robber living a hollow, wealthy life in witness protection, resentful of his family and bored out of his mind. Franklin Clinton is a young repo man from South Los Santos trying to climb out of gang life through hustle rather than violence. Trevor Philips is Michael's old partner, a volatile, meth-fuelled outlaw running a redneck criminal operation out of the desert town of Sandy Shores. Any one of them could carry a Grand Theft Auto game alone. Rockstar's decision was to run all three simultaneously and let the player switch between them at almost any moment, even mid-mission.
That switching mechanic is the game's real innovation, and it pays off constantly. A heist mission splits the crew's jobs across the three leads: Michael might be inside a bank vault while Franklin covers the getaway route from a rooftop and Trevor handles a helicopter overhead, and the player hops between all three viewpoints during the same sequence, occasionally under a time limit that punishes hesitation. Outside of missions, switching characters mid-drive or mid-heist prep resets your view of the world entirely, because each of them reacts to Los Santos differently: Michael sees his old life and his family's contempt for him, Franklin sees a way out, and Trevor sees an opportunity to set something on fire.
Los Santos and Blaine County: a satirical city built to be lived in#
Los Santos itself is the game's other headline achievement. It is a parody of Los Angeles rather than a copy of it, with Vinewood standing in for Hollywood, Rockford Hills for Beverly Hills, and a beach boardwalk stuffed with muscle-bound bodybuilders and street performers. The detail runs deep rather than wide: radio stations have their own fictional DJs, in-game websites and TV channels parody real celebrity and political culture, and pedestrians have enough scripted variety that just walking down a street produces more incidental jokes than most games manage in dedicated comedy missions. Beyond the city, Blaine County opens into Sandy Shores' trailer parks, Paleto Bay's fishing town, the Grand Senora Desert and Mount Chiliad, and the shift in tone between the two halves of the map, glossy city versus dusty backcountry, mirrors the difference between Michael's world and Trevor's.
The density matters because Grand Theft Auto V was never really about a single quest marker. Random events, wildlife, strangers with side missions, off-road trails up Mount Chiliad, and a functioning economy of businesses you can rob or invest in all sit on top of the story missions, and most of them require no special unlock to try. It is a city built to be poked at, not just driven through, and that design has aged better than almost anything else in the package.
The vehicle roster reinforces the same idea. Muscle cars, motorcycles, boats, planes and helicopters are all modelled with enough distinct handling that picking the right vehicle for a job matters beyond looks, and Los Santos Customs shops let you modify performance and appearance on almost anything you drive. None of it is required to finish the story, but it turns idle time between missions, just driving across the map to the next objective, into something closer to a pastime than a chore.
Heists: the mission structure that holds the story together#
The campaign's structural backbone is the heist, and it is still one of the smartest mission designs Rockstar has built. Each major heist, from the early Jewel Store Job to the late-game Bureau Raid and the campaign's climactic Big Score, asks you to choose an approach, usually loud or smart, plan the specifics on a whiteboard back at a safehouse, hire a crew of gunmen, drivers and hackers with different skill levels and cut percentages, and then execute a mission that plays out differently depending on every choice made beforehand. Hire a cheap, inexperienced hacker to save money on the cut, and the alarm system he is supposed to disable might trip anyway, turning a quiet heist loud halfway through. The choices are not cosmetic; they change what actually happens on screen.
This is also where the three-protagonist structure earns its keep again. Because Michael, Franklin and Trevor have different skills, and because the crew members you hire have their own specialities, no two players necessarily experience a given heist the same way even on a first run, and a second playthrough with different crew choices genuinely plays differently rather than just looking different.
GTA Online: the second game that never stopped growing#
Two weeks after the single-player game launched, GTA Online arrived as a separate multiplayer mode set on the same map, and it has since become something close to a distinct product bundled inside the same purchase. Rockstar has kept releasing free content updates for it for more than a decade, adding new heists, criminal businesses, vehicles, properties and events long after most games of its generation stopped receiving support entirely. The Cayo Perico Heist, added in December 2020, is a good example of how far the mode has evolved: it is a large, self-contained heist that can be planned and executed by a single player without a full crew, a structural change from the strictly cooperative heists the mode launched with.
That longevity is also where the mode's biggest compromise lives. Progression in GTA Online, buying properties, vehicles and businesses, runs on in-game cash that can be earned by playing or bought directly with real money through Shark Cards. Rockstar has never hidden that the economy is tuned to make the second option tempting, and while nothing in the mode is technically required to enjoy it, players who want the newest vehicles or businesses without spending real money on top of the original purchase will grind for it. It is the one part of the package that has not aged into a strength.
Story and satire: still sharp, not always still funny#
The writing is Rockstar at its most cynical, aiming its satire at celebrity culture, reality television, cable news, the military-industrial complex and, in one recurring subplot, a thinly veiled parody of Silicon Valley tech culture through the character of a paranoid tech founder. Michael's arc, a man who got everything he thought he wanted and hates his life anyway, gives the story its closest thing to genuine drama, while Trevor's sections exist mostly to be as unhinged and darkly funny as the game can manage. Franklin's story is the most conventional of the three, a young man trying to get out of a life he never fully chose, and it is also the one that ages the best, because it does not depend on shock value to land.
Not everything holds up. Some of the humor leans on crude stereotypes and shock-for-its-own-sake gags that read less like biting satire today and more like a product of exactly when it was written. The game is not shy about this, and it is not really trying to be tasteful. Whether that reads as fearless or just mean depends heavily on the player, but it is worth going in aware of the tone rather than being surprised by it.
New to Grand Theft Auto? Start here#
Grand Theft Auto V is a reasonable entry point into the series because its story stands entirely on its own, with no required knowledge of earlier games. A few choices make the opening hours smoother: stick with story missions until you unlock all three protagonists and their safehouses, since side content opens up naturally once you can switch between them; use the auto-aim assist for shooting sections if precision aiming feels unfamiliar, since it can be adjusted or turned off later once you are comfortable; and treat the early, cheaper heists as practice for crew management before the late-game scores, where a bad hire actually costs you money and mission time. GTA Online is worth trying only after finishing or mostly finishing the campaign, since it assumes you already know the map and the basic controls.
Compared to Red Dead Redemption 2 and Saints Row#
Red Dead Redemption 2, made by the same studio five years later, is the more disciplined, more emotionally serious game, with a slower pace, a single lead character, and a world that rewards patience over chaos. If Grand Theft Auto V's tone, three unstable protagonists tearing through a satirical city, feels exhausting rather than fun, Red Dead Redemption 2's grounded Western drama is the better fit, though it asks for far more patience in return. Saints Row, in most of its incarnations, is the closer tonal cousin: a similarly irreverent open-world crime sandbox, generally cheaper and sillier, without the same production polish, mission variety or online longevity. If Grand Theft Auto V's satire feels mean rather than funny, Saints Row's more consistently goofy tone is worth trying instead, though its world and heist design are considerably less ambitious.
Worth the money?#
Grand Theft Auto V is regularly one of the most heavily discounted big-budget games on the market. Its base purchase, which includes the entire single-player campaign and access to GTA Online, is frequently found for a fraction of full price during platform sales throughout the year, and it has not commanded a full new-release price in a long time. For that money, the single-player campaign alone runs to roughly 30 hours for a focused route through the main story, with side content, random events and full completion pushing well past 70 hours. GTA Online, if it interests you at all, effectively has no fixed length, since Rockstar keeps adding to it.
Best platform: PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S run the current "Expanded and Enhanced" version, with faster loading, higher resolution and frame rate options, and it is the version to buy new. PC remains a strong choice for mods and the widest graphics settings range, though the base game's engine shows its age in vehicle handling and combat feel regardless of platform. Older PS4 and Xbox One versions still run the campaign and Online fine, but load into the online mode noticeably slower than the current-gen release.
The value case is stronger for Grand Theft Auto V than for almost any other game of its scale, precisely because the purchase never really stopped paying out. Someone buying it new today gets the same three-protagonist campaign that shipped in 2013 and, alongside it, an online city that has been rebuilt and expanded release after release since then. Very few games ask this little for this much ongoing content, and fewer still remain this actively supported more than a decade past their original release date.
Text and voice: voice acting is English only across all versions. Subtitles and interface text are available in a wide range of languages depending on platform and region; check your storefront listing for the specific languages offered where you are buying.
Play this instead if…#
Shorter: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas offers a smaller, more contained version of the same series' tone and city-hopping structure, at a fraction of the length and a much lower system requirement.
Easier: Saints Row's more straightforward, less punishing mission design and simpler crew mechanics make for a gentler open-world crime sandbox with a similar sense of humour.
Cheaper or co-op: GTA Online itself is the co-op option already included with the purchase, and its Cayo Perico Heist and other solo-friendly content mean you do not strictly need a crew to get value from it.
Frequently asked questions#
How long is Grand Theft Auto V? Around 30 hours for a direct route through the single-player story, and well over 70 hours with side content and full completion. GTA Online has no fixed length and keeps expanding.
Is Grand Theft Auto V open world? Yes. Los Santos and the surrounding Blaine County countryside form one continuous, loading-screen-free map shared by the single-player campaign and GTA Online.
Does it have co-op or multiplayer? GTA Online is a separate multiplayer mode included with every copy of the game, supporting heists, freeroam, races and other modes with other players; the single-player campaign itself has no co-op.
Is there a difficulty option? No dedicated difficulty slider, but auto-aim assistance and checkpoint-based mission retries make the shooting sections forgiving for players unfamiliar with third-person shooters.
Do you need to play earlier Grand Theft Auto games first? No. The story, setting and cast are entirely self-contained, with no required knowledge of previous entries in the series.
The Game Avant verdict#
Grand Theft Auto V is not a flawless game in 2026. Its shooting and driving feel like exactly what they are, a decade-old third-person action framework, and its satire occasionally reaches for shock value it no longer needs. GTA Online's Shark Card economy is the one design decision that has aged into a genuine compromise rather than a quirk. None of that changes the fact that the campaign's three-protagonist structure remains one of the smartest things Rockstar has ever built, that Los Santos is still one of the most detailed cities the genre has produced, and that the same purchase has quietly kept delivering new content for well over a decade through GTA Online. Few games from any era have offered this much for this long, and fewer still are still worth recommending to someone buying in for the first time more than a decade after release.
9 out of 10 – a landmark crime story built on a city detailed enough to still be worth exploring, backed by a second game that has never stopped growing.