After more than five years Rockstar Games delivers today what the gaming industry has long been waiting for: Grand Theft Auto V. Introducing multiple playable characters for the first time in the series and being developed under the largest video game budget ever, the open-world sandbox crime and car theft title represents the one juggernaut that may be able to overthrow the Call of Duty series at the top of the sales charts.
It doesn’t hurt that the embargo on reviews lifted one day early (yesterday), revealing what’s currently the highest rated current-generation (i.e. PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360) game of all-time, sitting just ahead of its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto IV.
Rockstar managed to released the game just in time before the next-gen consoles release in November. With the the time and money spent on developing the latest Grand Theft Auto however, it’s a near-guarantee that it’ll eventually release for PC, PS4 and Xbox One and some of the latest rumors suggest as much.
What may be one of the game’s biggest selling points comes October 1st in the form of Grand Theft Auto Online, the game’s multiplayer mode which lets up to 16 (yes, only 16) players play against or with each other in the same persistent open-world. Considering that the fictional city of Los Santos is larger than all of the previous GTA games combined, the player limit is confusing and someone disappointing, but the potential for co-operative and competitive fun in a mode that features over 700 missions is a must-play.
