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.
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Fly a helicopter over Raton Canyon between roughly 7 and 8pm and, if the timing lines up, you'll catch a car sailing off the cliff edge below, a direct recreation of the famous final scene from the 1991 film Thelma & Louise. It's easy to miss entirely if you're not looking down at exactly the right moment.
Dive down off the coast near Sandy Shores and among the other underwater oddities you'll find a wrecked plane carrying a poster of a UFO with the words 'accept the truth' printed underneath, a clear riff on the famous 'I Want To Believe' poster that hung in Fox Mulder's office throughout The X-Files.
Los Santos' answer to the Hollywood sign isn't just there to look at from a distance. Players can actually climb up and sit inside the letters themselves, taking in one of the best skyline views the game offers, especially if you time it for the evening when the city lights start coming on below.
Once Franklin meets the conspiracy theorist Omega, a full collectible hunt opens up for fifty scattered spaceship parts hidden across San Andreas, some tucked into buildings and rooftops, others sitting underwater or buried in tunnels only reachable by helicopter. Omega himself suggests they're wreckage from a UFO that crashed nearby, though the game is careful never to confirm it outright.
The Epsilon Program, the in-game religion Michael can get roped into, was written as a pointed parody of Scientology and the wider self-help industry, right down to the invented founder Cris Formage and a made-up deity called Kifflom. Everything about the group, from the donation requests to the robes, is playing the con for laughs while still poking fun at very real belief systems.
Former Rockstar writer Lazlow Jones has told the story of getting a genuinely unsettling voicemail while GTA V was in development, from a woman claiming to speak for a real group of players who'd formed their own version of the Epsilon Program after tracing its lore through earlier games. What started as satire of cults had, without Rockstar ever intending it, grown a small real-world following of its own.
Not every protagonist sleeps the same amount. Put Trevor to bed and the clock jumps forward a full twelve hours, Franklin only needs eight, while Michael gets away with just six hours before he's back on his feet. It's a small detail, but it quietly reinforces each character's personality without a single line of dialogue.
The physical map that shipped inside the Special Edition of the game hides an extra layer that only shows up under UV light, revealing a fake business listing for 'Trevor Philips Enterprises' along with a set of driving directions to a spot near Raton Canyon, treasure-map style, for anyone dedicated enough to shine a blacklight over their strategy guide.
Open up the wheel customisation menu at any Los Santos garage and a surprising number of the designs are lifted straight from real cars. 'Duper 7' matches the Nissan GT-R, 'Lozspeed Mk.V' is the Ferrari 458 Italia's rims, and 'Diamond Cut' comes straight off a pre-facelift Porsche 997 Turbo, small details most players drive right past without ever noticing.
When Rockstar's map for GTA V leaked ahead of launch, fans worked out it clocked in at around 49 square miles, comfortably larger than San Andreas, GTA IV, and Red Dead Redemption's maps added together. For a studio that had been squeezing stories out of the same engine for years, it was a genuinely staggering jump in scale.
