Grand Theft Auto V (PS5) – Review
That GTA 5 was first released on the PlayStation 3 is mind-boggling. The open world of Los Santos continues to feel more lived in than any other, despite the passage of nearly a decade since its initial release on the PlayStation 2. In fact, the Hollywood-inspired backdrop is startlingly believable when compared to its urban contemporaries, like Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City. When you’re stuck in traffic, angry NPCs will stop, honk their horn, and plead with you to move along. Some drivers will curse at you as they try to steer around you, while others will be less polite and simply drive through you in order to beat the morning rush. both are dangerous options.
In GTA 5, a lot of what’s going on is a ruse, but it all serves to create a sandbox in which you can get buried. A short distance from Vespucci Beach, you’ll find beachgoers sunbathing and playing volleyball; further east in Cypress Flats, you’ll find more industrial-looking scenery. This is not the largest open world available on consoles today, but there are few that have the same charm as Los Santos, where the types of cars you see and how people act are all dependent on where you go and what you’re doing.
Despite ten years of Michael, Franklin, and Trevor, you can’t help but admire what the Rockstar team accomplished in this open world. The PS5 port greatly enhances the release’s image quality, increasing the frame rate to 60 fps and bringing the native 4K resolution. Refresh rate versus raw image quality is a decision you’ll have to make, but all of the available graphics configurations deliver smooth performance and stunning visuals.
Los Santos has been given an entirely new look in the PS4 version, which was still running at 1080p and 30 frames per second, even through PS5 backwards compatibility. The addition of raytracing, which improves shadow quality, and native HDR support is the cherry on top. The character models look dated in comparison to newer games like Horizon Forbidden West, but if you’re standing on Vinewood Boulevard, few games can capture the same sense of place as this one.
The storyline of the single-player campaign is a bit outdated these days. Even though there are still belly laughs to be had at how big brands like Facebook are conveyed (known, pointedly, as Life Invader in Rockstar’s canon), some of the jokes will draw sharp intakes of breath as societal values change. This is a problem with parodying modern life. Seeing how the title’s three protagonists interact and how their stories intertwine and overlap – even down to how character switching is handled, giving the impression they’ve been busy while you were away – is still fun.
Although the new, lightning-fast loading times have improved gameplay flow (down to six seconds), Rockstar has done nothing to modernise their reliance on animations and sluggish acceleration, resulting in a clunky experience. There’s no denying that a lot of effort went into the DualSense, with directional haptic feedback that makes it possible to feel the impact of an approaching car or an incoming bullet. Details like rain and wind are beautifully captured here, even though they may seem inconsequential.
GTA Online, despite its many advantages, is still a mess. However, despite the introduction of a new menu screen, which allows you to jump directly to the title’s most popular activities, the game’s lobbies still fill up quickly, and without a good GTA Online guide to assist, newcomers may feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of businesses and content. Added features such as the short trips let you play quick co-op stories with Franklin and Lamar, but the mission design is sloppy and unbalanced in large parts.
There’s still nothing quite like this unique multiplayer experience, and laundering virtual money can be a great time once you’ve overcome the hurdle and have all your businesses integrated and dovetailed. It’s a steep learning curve to get in, and there have been so many additions over the past ten years that the whole thing could use a complete overhaul. As it stands, we won’t be getting our hands on GTA 6 any time soon.
The fact that Los Santos still holds up in GTA 5 is a testament to Rockstar’s original vision. New graphics and framerate give this sunny sandbox new life, and while some single-player gags may not have hit as hard as they did in 2013, there are still plenty of memorable missions in the release’s 30 or so-hour running time. Meanwhile, GTA Online’s free-roaming multiplayer lobbies remain unrivalled, and while newcomers may find the learning curve borderline impenetrable, the crime caper on offer here is nothing quite like it.
