Next-gen GRAND THEFT AUTO V port arriving in November

Rockstar have confirmed they are launching a new version of Grand Theft Auto V - including mega-popular multiplayer component Grand Theft Auto Online - this November.

The new version of the game is launching for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. It's assumed the game's improvements will also make their way over to the PC version of the game, though that's not yet confirmed. The games will have hugely upgraded graphics, lighting and textures, and some other refinements. Rockstar is also launching a stand-alone version of Grand Theft Auto Online as a PS5 exclusive for three months, which will then be available on other platforms in the spring of 2022.

Fans have been anxiously awaiting news of a new Rockstar game. Their last title, Red Dead Redemption 2, will be four years old by the time GTA5's next gen port hits shelves, and Grand Theft Auto V itself will be eight years old. We know Rockstar are working on Grand Theft Auto VI and that parent company Take Two are planning a major, GTA-level release in financial year 2023-24, but it's not yet confirmed what form that will take (and obviously delays are possible).

Grand Theft Auto V is the second biggest-selling video game of all time, with over 140 million copies sold (and closing in rapidly on Minecraft, the current title-holder with 200 million games sold). No doubt the new version will dramatically boost those sales. The next-gen version of the game hits shelves on 11 November 2021.

Rockstar only "early in development" on GRAND THEFT AUTO VI

During a report on changes in corporate culture at Rockstar Games, Kotaku let slip that the company is early in development on their next game in the Grand Theft Auto series. Obviously, the Internet (or at least Twitter) has responded with dismay at the news, as it has been almost seven years since the previous game in the series was released.

DMA Design released the first game in the series, Grand Theft Auto, in 1997 as a 2D, top-down shooter and racing game. They were taken over by Take Two Interactive and rebranded as Rockstar Games under the leadership of the Houser brohers, Dan and Sam. They hit the big time in 2001 with the release of Grand Theft Auto III, which marked the move of the series into full 3D, with an enormous open-world city to explore and various storylines to get involved in. It was followed by Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), San Andreas (2004), Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) and Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online (both 2013), along with a large number of spin-offs and expansions.

Rockstar have made numerous other games, including Red Dead Redemption (2010), LA Noire (2011), Max Payne 3 (2012) and Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). However, as an enormous company with multiple studios in multiple countries, it was assumed that work had already been underway for some time on what is presumed to be Grand Theft Auto VI and the game might be ready for release in the next couple of years. This appears not to be the case, due to the workload for Red Dead Redemption 2 being immense and requiring all studios to be all hands on deck for several years, with more than two thousand people having worked on the game.

Grand Theft Auto V is by some metrics the most popular single video game and also the single most popular entertainment media product ever released (barring books), with sales of over 120 million. The game's enormous popularity has been bolstered by the release of remastered editions and a constant stream of new content for Grand Theft Auto Online (which is included with all copies of GTAV). Rockstar's apparently reluctance to work on a sequel in that light is surprising, although fans have noted that their steady monetisation of expansions and new material for GTA Online makes getting a sequel less of a priority.

GTA fans have been joined in solidarity by fans of the Elder Scrolls fantasy roleplaying series from Bethesda Studios. The last single-player game in the series was Skyrim, released in 2011 and selling over 40 million copies since then. An online spin-off was published in 2014 but Bethesda have otherwise focused on other games, shipping Fallout 4 in 2015 and multiplayer shooter Fallout 76 in 2018. They are currently working on a new IP, Starfield, which is expected for release in 2021 or 2022. Some early development work and prototyping has been done on Elder Scrolls VI, but full-time production will not begin until Starfield ships. For that reason, it is unlikely that it will be published this side of 2025.

Work on Grand Theft Auto VI (or whatever it ends up being called) is at least underway, with the game likely targeting a 2024-25 release window at this point.

Grand Theft Auto V (PC Version)

Ten years ago, a bank robbery in Yankton went badly wrong. One of the criminals, Trevor Phillips, barely escaped and another, Michael Townley, got away with his freedom only by giving information to a government law-enforcement organisation. In the present day, Michael is living a peaceful live in witness protection in the city of Los Santos, San Andreas. He hooks up with a young criminal, Franklin, and is drawn back into a life of crime. Unfortunately, one of his high-profile escapades attracts Trevor's attention and Michael soon has some awkward questions to answer.

Grand Theft Auto V is a massive, sprawling monster of a game. If the gaming scene has recently seen a surge in cheaper, independent and crowdfunded games relying more on wit and imagination than money, than GTA5 is here to show everyone what can happen when you have a game as expensive as the most costly movies ever made ($250 million and change).

GTA5 is big on everything: insanely good graphics, a huge story taking at least 30 hours to run through - with side-missions and optional activities at least doubling that - and a seemingly never-ending array of vehicles and weapons to unlock. The game also has a big multiplayer component and, on PC, a formidable array of user-created mods and a built-in replay and cinematic editor to create your own movies. This is the ultimate expression of the sandbox game, a game which lets you have fun on its terms but then gives you the freedom to make your own fun with its tools.

Rockstar have clearly listened to criticisms of GTA4. Despite it's impressive graphics and sense of place, the previous game in the series was criticised for its dourness, its grumpy main character and the constrained sense of space and setting compared to its predecessor. The latest title in the series is much bigger, throws three different, contrasting main characters into the mix and embraces a bit more of the zaniness that made previous titles like Vice City and San Andreas so brilliant. It's certainly not a perfect game and manages several major missteps, but it shows Rockstar taking on board the views of fans to craft a stronger game.

In terms of gameplay, almost everything has been given a work-over. Car handling is improved, combat is more satisfying (even if early reports that it was going to be as good as Max Payne 3's were over-stated) and even the often-dodgy handling of aircraft and bikes is better than it has been in previous games. The map is big, but contained and well-designed enough that it never takes too long to get anywhere, even by car. In fact, those used to playing games like Fuel and Just Cause 2 may find the map far too small by comparison, but its detail (everything is hand-crafted, whilst other games rely on procedural generation or vast areas of wasteland to pad everything out) more than makes up for that. The game also has a surprisingly strong array of side-games. If bowling was a little dull in GTA4, the new game makes up for that with some fairly robust tennis and golf games which are a lot more fun and, crucially, no-one rings you up demanding that you go to play with them mid-mission.

The game also has the best soundtrack since San Andreas, if not even the mighty Vice City, with a good mixture of old and new songs and, with the adverts and talk stations, a return for some of the biting satire the series used to be known for but had gotten a little lost in the mix in GTA4. Long-term fans will also enjoy getting to finally meet long-term creepy radio DJ Lazlow in the flesh.

So the soundtrack is great, the visuals are jaw-dropping, the vehicles all handle great and the combat is pretty solid. Unfortunately, the game stumbles somewhat when handling the main story. Rotating between Trevor, Michael and Franklin makes for some memorable moments and the ability to contrast the points of view of the respective characters about what's going on, but it also makes for a fragmented narrative. The storyline also focuses a lot on Trevor and Michael's shared history and problems and Franklin's character growth and development (strong at the beginning) tails off mid-game. It definitely feels like there was more stuff planned for Franklin and then cut: subplots with his ex-girlfriend and an old neighbourhood criminal called Stretch never really get off the ground but later seem to be fairly important. He feels the most under-served of the three characters, which conversely makes him the one it's easiest to actually play as you feel, as his character doesn't get in the way of the gameplay so much. It feels odd to have undercover, taking-it-quietly, family man Michael flip out and start blowing away helicopters, whilst playing Trevor for more than five minutes without going berserk also feels untrue to the character.

The storyline itself is okay, though jammed with so many GTA series staple cliches (government agents, drug gangs, vacuous celebrities, corrupt politicians, ordinary people driven crazy by their superficial lives) that you'll see almost every plot twist coming. That's not to say it isn't fun, but veterans of the series won't find much here that hasn't been seen before. There's also the tone, which occasionally feels too restrained. GTA5 is a much looser, freer game than 4 and one that feels more confident in heading in the direction of unleashing the total craziness that made Vice City and San Andreas fun, but the game then seems to fear it's trying to copy Saint's Row and pulls back on it. This may also explain why there are some serious opportunities for insane carnage but which then never materialise: there's a whole prison and military base which are never used, despite both being mentioned a lot in the story.

Where GTA5 really trips over itself is its humour. The GTA series is known for its satire, and this is a bit sharper than it has been for a while. Selfies, Facebook, Twitter, the global financial crisis, hipsters and internet dating all come in for a bit of a skewering, which is amusing if obvious and a little dated (blame the game's long lead-time in production). However, the game also goes astray in using multiple jokes based around transphobia. The series has aimed to satirised aspects of minority cultures before without tripping into outright 'isms (if running a bit close on occasion), and when it did offend it generally tried to make amends later on (some lame gay-bashing jokes in GTA4 recovered a little by having a nuanced gay main character in The Ballad of Gay Tony expansion). In this case it feels like just a cheap and aimless couple of gags that go nowhere. Despite its reputation, the GTA is actually usually a bit smarter than that.

For a game this sprawling, huge and long, however, such ill-judged moments are very few and far between. For all its embracing of tiresome cliche, GTA5 (****) is well-paced and relentlessly fun to play. It's certainly the first game in the series since San Andreas where it's fun just to load up the game, whack on some tunes and go for a long drive along the ocean freeway whilst gawping at the view. The disconnect between narrative and gameplay that the series has always suffered from is still present and correct, and the humour occasionally becomes offensive for the sake of it rather than having something to say. But the game is enormous, compelling and, on PC at least, gives the player the chance to use its tools to craft their own experiences. The game is available now on PC via Steam.

PILLARS OF ETERNITY and GTA5 release dates

Obsidian have confirmed that their computer RPG Pillars of Eternity will be released on 26 March. The fantasy game, a spiritual successor to classic Infinity Engine RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, was partly funded through Kickstarter just over two years ago.

In addition, the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V has been delayed to 24 March. Rockstar, still smarting from the poor conversion of GTA4 back in 2008, has assigned the same team responsible for the excellent PC port of Max Payne 3 and has given them some extra time to polish the release. The PC version will be mostly the same as the recent PS4 and XB1 versions, complete with first-person mode, but will come with an added video playback editor and vastly superior graphics, with resolutions available up to 4K. The modding community is also getting ready to let rip on the game after it arrives.

How the Next Generation Could Kill Gaming (as we know it)

Back in the 1980s, when I started gaming, it took a few people perhaps a few weeks to make a good game. Even the mighty Elite - the first proper 3D game and arguably the first proper open-world game - took two guys a few months to put together. A few years later, during the 16-bit era of the Commodore Amiga, SNES and Megadrive (Genesis for you American types), this had increased to teams of a dozen or so taking a few months to a year, tops, to put together a game. The gaming industry was in the good health, with the biggest mega-hits making tens of millions of dollars but even a game selling just a few thousand copies could still turn a profit.

How times have changed. Today, it takes teams of several dozen people anything from two to six years to make a game, with budgets in the tens of millions of dollars. Dozens of game development studios have closed over the course of the last generation of gaming (which began in 2005 with the release of the X-Box 360), in many cases despite selling millions of copies of games. It's no longer enough to be successful. Now you have to produce a fast-selling megahit from day one, otherwise your company might go bust.

It's been a disturbing period. Several of my favourite games of all time are Hostile Waters, Anachronox, Planescape: Torment, Freespace 2 and the Homeworld trilogy, all moderately-budgeted games that sold reasonably well on release but nothing to write home about. Those games simply would not exist in today's publisher-driven marketplace. The entire midlist of gaming - those games that are well above the indie level in terms of both cost and sales but below the mega-hits - has simply evaporated.

A good example of this is Rockstar's May 2012 release Max Payne 3. This game cost an estimated $105 million, not including marketing. The game was required to sell 3 million copies at full price in its first few weeks on sale to break even, which it rather spectacularly failed to do: the game 'only' shifted 440,000 copies in its first month. It is questionable if the game has broken even yet, and if it has it's only a moderate success, especially by Rockstar's standards. Their previous game Red Dead Redemption (released in 2010 had sold 8 million copies since release and, before that, Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) has sold more than 25 million.

Rockstar obviously aren't going bust over this disappointment. Their latest game, Grand Theft Auto V, launches in September and will likely be the biggest-selling game of the year (this year's Call of Duty title notwithstanding). However, with a much vaster gaming environment that GTA4 and with three major protagonists to voice and write rather than one, GTA5's budget is likely considerably larger than even the $100 million of its predecessor.

Last week, Sony announced the existence of the PlayStation 4 console, due for release later this year (probably November). In April Microsoft are expected to announce the release - either this Christmas or early next year - of their successor to the X-Box 360. Both of the new consoles are going to be more powerful and more impressive than their forebears. The PS4 has 16 times the memory and a vastly more powerful graphics card and CPU than its forebear. Crucially, it's also based around off-the-shelf PC hardware rather than dedicated technology, keeping costs down and making games development and porting between the platforms much easier. Nevertheless, the arrival of the new consoles is hugely problematic for studios. Games will now require more advanced graphics and even more resources to make them look as good as possible. Some gaming companies are already warning that budgets for the next generation of gaming could balloon out of control and leave very few companies and franchises standing. The massive popularity of Facebook games and mobile games is also begging the question: do gamers really want even moar graphics? Sony desperately need the PS4 to be a huge hit to help arrest their company's decade-long decline, but it's far from certain it will be.

Some companies are already taking avoiding action. Obsidian Entertainment are developing their new epic fantasy RPG, Project Eternity, for PC and Mac alone (but don't be surprised to see mobile/tablet versions later on), forsaking the console race altogether. Project Eternity is a game using hand-drawn 2D artwork for its background and 3D character models. This keeps costs and development time down immensely. The game was greenlit (via the Kickstarter service) only in October, but is expected to ship in early 2014, after less than 18 months of development. The Dragon Age games, on the other hand, are full 3D titles, which each item in the game taking anything from hours to weeks to create and texture. The original Dragon Age title took about five years to make, with its sequel re-using many of its assets. Dragon Age III, due in 2014, will have taken about three years to develop. All three games had budgets comfortably in the tens of millions, whilst Project Eternity's budget is only about $5 million ($4.1 million or so of that from Kickstarter). As the above screenshot shows, Project Eternity is still a good-looking game by any measure. Obsidian have simply been a lot more careful about where to put its money and to minimise its risks.


If a lot more companies take steps like these, the next generation could be a fruitful time for innovation in gaming. However, the blunt forces approach taken so far by Sony, and likely by Microsoft as well, is not encouraging. If sales of the new consoles and their games are down whilst budgets continue to escalate past the point of sustainability, we could see the entire notion of a video game console disappear altogether. Of course, that may not entirely be a bad thing if it results in more rewarding and original games appearing on other platforms. As always, time will tell.

Planes and automobiles in GTA5 (no trains yet)

Rockstar have revealed three more screenshots from Grand Theft Auto V.

It looks like push-bikes will be back in the game.

Along with, unsurprisingly, cars. This is the GTA5 version of perennial series favourite, the Cheeta. The 'San Andreas' plates have gotten the Internet worked up, before it was pointed out that Los Santos is still in San Andreas State and would still have San Andreas plates, regardless of how much of the state actually appears in the game.

Also, jet fighters laden with missiles. Something tells me that GTA5 is easing off on its predecessor's slightly more realistic take and might be headed back to the wackiness of San Andreas.

Rockstar have also said they will be releasing more pictures later this week, along with a new trailer in the near future. However, they have still not mooted a possible release date for the game (though May 2013 is widely speculated).

Minor update about GRAND THEFT AUTO V

Rockstar have released a tiny amount of additional information on the upcoming Grand Theft Auto V.

They have released two screenshots. The one above is the more interesting, depicting the sprawling city of Los Santos (apparently the biggest city in a GTA game to date) from what appears to be a commandeered police helicopter. Does the presence of large suspension bridge hint that GTA5's version of Los Santos will be more of an amalgamation of Los Angeles and San Francisco? Possibly. The other screenshot is rather more chilled out:

A release date for GTA5 has not yet been mooted. However, Rockstar are adamant that they're not going to talk about the game too much in the near future. This to me suggests that a 2012 release date is now impossible (compare the amount of attention that Dishonored, not due until October, is now getting in the gaming press) and we will most likely see the game in May 2013. The spring is a more favoured date for Rockstar and is perfectly situated so as to catch the largest amount of attention before Sony and Microsoft wheel out their new consoles at the end of the year.