Grand Theft Auto V

Video Game
STUDIORockstar Games
RELEASED2013

Los Santos, San Andreas: a sprawling sun-soaked metropolis full of self-help gurus, starlets, and fading celebrities, once the envy of the Western world, now struggling to stay afloat in an era of economic uncertainty and cheap reality TV. Amidst the turmoil, three very different criminals plot their own chances of survival and success: Franklin Clinton, a former street gangster, now looking for real opportunities and serious money; Michael De Santa, a professional ex-con whose retirement is a lot less rosy than he hoped it would be; and Trevor Philips, a violent maniac driven by the chance of a cheap high and the next big score. Running out of options, the crew risks everything in a series of daring and dangerous heists that could set them up for life.

Knowledge

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Grand Theft Auto VSource

A Thousand-Strong Development Team

GTA V's development team swelled to more than 1,000 people at its peak, with production spanning over five years and some staff reportedly logging over 100-hour work weeks to hit the game's original release window.

Grand Theft Auto IVSource

Niko's Digital Footprint in Los Santos

Years later and hundreds of miles away, Niko's still floating around the GTA universe. If you look closely at Jimmy's laptop in GTA V, he's got Niko Bellic's LifeInvader profile pulled up, complete with Roman on his friends list. Jimmy also seems to be following Burger Shot on the page, which plays as a cheeky nod to how eating burgers was how you healed up back in Liberty City.

Grand Theft Auto VISource

Over Ten Times More NPC Animation Than GTA V

Rockstar has reportedly built more than 600,000 individual NPC animations for GTA VI, compared to roughly 55,000 in GTA V. That jump is a big part of why pedestrians and crowds in the recent footage look so much less repetitive and robotic than in past games.

Grand Theft Auto: San AndreasSource

CJ's Actor Never Left the Family

Young Maylay, the rapper who voiced CJ, never played the character again, but he stuck around Rockstar's orbit. He went on to host the West Coast Classics radio station in GTA V and even popped up in the Contract DLC.

Grand Theft Auto: San AndreasSource

The Multiple Protagonist Idea That Came Too Soon

Rockstar toyed with letting players switch between multiple playable characters way back during San Andreas, but the hardware of the era just couldn't handle it. The idea got shelved for nearly a decade until GTA V finally pulled it off with Michael, Franklin, and Trevor.

Grand Theft Auto: San AndreasSource

Franklin's Actor Had a Cameo Years Before GTA V

Long before Shawn Fonteno became the voice and face of Franklin Clinton in GTA V, he already had a foot in the door on San Andreas, voicing a recruitable gang member called Fam1 and a handful of other background characters.

Grand Theft Auto VSource

Frozen Alien in the Ice

Right at the start of the game, during the getaway from the Ludendorff bank job, there's a detour off the main road that leads down to a frozen river. Get out and walk to the middle of the ice and you'll find an alien frozen solid beneath the surface, just staring back up at you. You can't hang around admiring it though, since the mission fails if you're out of the car too long.

Grand Theft Auto VSource

A Second Saucer at the Bottom of the Sea

Separate from the sunken submarine and its cash stash, there's an actual crashed UFO resting on the ocean floor near the northern edge of the map. You'll need a submersible or scuba gear to reach it, and the game never explains where it came from, it's just sitting there in the dark, waiting for divers determined enough to find it.

Grand Theft Auto VSource

Something Big in the Deep

Swim far enough out to the eastern edge of the map and you'll come across a colossal skeleton lying on the seabed, way bigger than anything that should logically be down there. Nobody at Rockstar has ever officially confirmed what it's meant to be, so players have spent years guessing whether it's a nod to Moby Dick or just a bit of deep-sea weirdness for its own sake.

Grand Theft Auto VSource

A Novel by J. Marston

Scan enough bookshelves around Los Santos and you'll spot a paperback titled 'Red Dead' credited to an author named J. Marston. It's a cheeky little wink to Red Dead Redemption's John Marston, and fans have long assumed it's meant to be a novel written by his son Jack, tying two of Rockstar's biggest worlds together with nothing more than a book spine.