Game Informer preview in Hungarian

The translations are under way. We bit off quite a big chunk, because the article is pretty long and on the iPad it didn't look anywhere near this big. Special thanks to our colleague Büdös Bohóc, who is helping with the translation and spares no time or energy.

It's not easy to stay on top. When a game grows into a multi-million franchise, the publisher naturally tries to protect the cash cow by delivering the same experience that made it popular in the first place. As time goes by, the big changes that made a game such a hit shrink into smaller, creative tweaks, backed by gigabytes of public opinion and focus group research proving that people will still pay for the new instalments. The novelties are usually predictable by now. Let's have dual wielding in the second game. Let's have co-op in the third. Okay, this is mostly a single-player game, but why not try multiplayer in the fourth?

Rockstar Games became a really big name when it introduced Grand Theft Auto III in 2001, an open-world, free-roaming, addictive game. And instead of meddling deeply in the development decisions, parent company Take-Two Interactive left the team free rein and plenty of time to realise their ideas in full (damn the financial analysts). This attitude paid off nicely for Take-Two. The latest installment of Rockstar Games' flagship series, Grand Theft Auto IV, has sold more than 25 million copies to date, and it still shares the top of Metacritic with a few other outstanding games with a fine 98/100, based on 80 independent reviews.

By the way, Rockstar doesn't play it safe with all kinds of marketing and target group research. To exceed the players' expectations, the creativity of the people inside the company has to be given room to unfold, and that may add something to the game's design. Grand Theft Auto V has improved in nearly every respect, be it the biggest world yet or a few new technological innovations that change the gameplay experience. Why control only one protagonist when you can constantly switch between 3?

A NEW PERSPECTIVE

The evolution of the open-world protagonists in Rockstar games has gone hand in hand with the storytelling methods of each era. In the old top-down games it was dialogue that carried this. Once Rockstar stepped into the world of 3D with Grand Theft Auto III, the main character Claude was a strong, silent type even though the other characters had plenty to say. With Vice City and San Andreas they created protagonists (Tommy Vercetti and CJ, respectively) with a slightly cartoonish look and character, voiced by actors, whose attitude fit the in-game era perfectly. With the arrival of near-realistic graphics, they dropped this caricature-like characterisation and look to present a morally down-and-out, believable character, like Niko Bellic in Grand Theft Auto IV or John Marston in Red Dead Redemption.

But as the worlds grew in size, so did the possibilities within them with every new instalment, and so Rockstar found itself in the awkward position that it was getting harder and harder to tell its story through a single character. How does the character relate to the different situations? Basically, Niko was in constant moral conflict because he'd landed in the world of crime again, and the expected behaviour and the character's backstory don't necessarily fit what the player wants to do during the game. With Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar decided to change this. (translator's note: I wasn't over the moon either about the cut-scenes showing a Niko who has nothing to do with the way I decided things during the story and the way I behave on the streets, because it's a bit disturbing for the immersion).

"We loved Niko, he was a protagonist with a really strong character, and after that we started on John Marston," recalls Dan Houser, head of the creative team. "They kept telling us that a western game would be a sure flop, but we thought that with a strong character we could pull off a good game and a character people could love. Well, after those two games we felt that with a protagonist like that we couldn't offer anything new and couldn't top our previous games for a while. Around that time we came up with the idea of doing it the way the Episodes were done, with three characters."

As Episodes from Liberty City showed, there are plenty of advantages to letting the player see the story from more than one point of view. Tearing across Alderney on a chopper as Johnny Klebitz, who carried the emotional bond of his motorcycle club wherever he went, felt completely different from partying with the high society as Luis Lopez, or trying to fit in to America with a capital A as Niko. You could argue about it, but really in all the Grand Theft Auto games the city itself was the true protagonist; in the Grand Theft Auto IV add-ons it lived and breathed so much that you felt these three stories were just a few among the tens of thousands the city could hold for us.

Once Rockstar started working out the concept of three playable main characters, which affects the game design too, the idea quickly moved beyond the simple solution we saw in the Episodes. Instead of the story switching between the characters every few missions, what if we switched between them constantly? It wouldn't be easy to pull off, but Rockstar figured it would give huge potential to the storytelling and the flexibility of the game, which would be worth the effort. On the story side, it immediately lets them offer truly different protagonists and build different characters for them. On the gameplay side, if the characters lived in completely different places, then during free play the player could explore the world faster, and during the story there's immediate access to every point of view with the press of a button.

"It was an incredibly big challenge to pull this off, because instead of trying to hold one story together, you suddenly have to hold three," said Houser. "Obviously there's complexity to this, but, to put it loosely, it also has the advantage that you can tell a complex story much more naturally. It's the same with the game design that goes with the story: you no longer need to squeeze every possibility and every piece of information out of one character. In fact, it gives you the chance to play the lead and the supporting role at the same time. We hope we'll be able to field strong and interesting supporting characters, though not as widely spread as before, since the protagonists themselves will often bicker with each other, if not outright fight."

GAMEPLAY RELOADED

For Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar has completely rebuilt most of the gameplay elements. Dan Houser, head of the creative team, didn't go into detail about the changes, so as to leave the teams implementing them some room for further refinements and changes.

DRIVING

"The cars stick to the ground a little more. We felt that we overshot the mark with realism in GTA IV, because we had the chance to play around with the new physics model. It now has a bit of a racing game feel. There aren't many well-made racing games out there right now, and hopefully this new instalment gives you that to a certain degree, the way no other GTA has so far."

SHOOTING

"We feel we've managed to improve on where we started in the previous games. And not only in how it works, but in the basic mechanics themselves, in how you'll be able to use it."

HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT

"It's better than our previous solutions. We'll see how far we can take it, given the resources allocated to the subject. It won't be as big a deal as the shooting, of course, but we'd like this gameplay element to be a strong, rich experience."

OCEAN'S THREE

We first got to know the three playable characters of Grand Theft Auto V when the demo came, handing us control of them in an everyday situation. Rockstar introduced Michael first, the character through whose eyes the first trailer was told. Michael is a retired bank robber who lives in rather comfortable circumstances compared to the other people in the FIB's witness protection program, thanks to an unusual deal with the aforementioned government agency. As the demo begins, he's relaxing in flip-flops by a pool in the wealthy neighbourhood of Rockford Hills (an analogue of Beverly Hills). Nearby you can see his private tennis court, and if you look across the smoggy horizon, you can make out the outline of downtown Los Santos.

Despite his apparently good life, Michael isn't in a good place. His wife is blowing his savings as if she were auditioning for a role on The Real Housewives of Orange County, and he simply can't communicate with his kids. As he walks into their luxurious house, we meet Tracy, his teenage daughter, who is going wild at full volume over a Just Dance-style video game.

"It's called exercise - you should try it," she tells her father cheekily.

She takes completely after Michael's wife, Amanda. We run into her just as she's rushing off to her next big shopping spree. From the door she shouts back, "If you want to know where I'll be, just watch your credit card notifications!"

She gets into her Sentinel XS sports car, and Michael shouts after her, "Hey, I'm feeling lucky today! I'll keep an eye on the hospitals too!" Compared to these two, Győzike and Bea will look like a perfectly normal family.

Once the car is gone, Michael pulls his bicycle out of the garage. As he rolls down the street, we get our first impressions of the neighbourhood. The precisely trimmed lawns, sprinkler systems and dozens of high-end luxury cars make Liberty City's Grotti dealership look like a used car lot. Once again Rockstar has captured the atmosphere of a neighbourhood perfectly.

CHARACTERS

Name: Michael

Occupation: retired

Age: early 40s

Residence: Rockford Hills

Background: A cool ex-bank robber. Michael is retired now and lives a life of luxury after striking a fairly heart-warming deal with the FIB. He's currently in a witness protection program, and although from the outside it looks like he has a golden life, he hates his wife Amanda (who returns the feeling and spends all of Michael's money) and can't understand his teenage kids (Tracy and Jimmy). As his money runs out and the idleness starts to get to him, Michael will need more and more to make a comeback.

Appearance: A bit older, but good-looking and well-dressed, with a big house, Michael doesn't long for the high society.

Houser's remarks: When we started working Michael out, we were thinking of a cool older guy who gets back into his old groove. With all the robbers, thieves and hitmen we've developed over the years, the story was practically ready, but we added quite a few new things too.

Name: Trevor

Occupation: career criminal

Age: early 40s

Residence: Blaine County

Background: Trevor is a frequent drug user, ruled by his emotions, self-destructive and prone to violence. He used to be a pilot and had a few dirty bank jobs with our friend Michael earlier. He's in on everything; you don't have to drag him by the arm to get him to be your partner in a heist.

Appearance: Balding and run-down, the years haven't been kind to Trevor, sadly. He usually wears a white T-shirt and a tattoo reading "Cut Here" with a dotted line all the way across his neck.

Houser's remarks: For us, Trevor embodies another side of the criminal lifestyle - freedom, doing whatever you want. He's the guy who just tells you to go to hell, who doesn't want to quit drugs, who's constantly partying and who won't take "no" for an answer. Headstrong, uncontrollable, ruthless.

Name: Franklin

Occupation: debt collection

Age: between 20 and 30

Residence: South Los Santos

Background: A young and ambitious repo man, currently working for an Armenian luxury car dealer who sells cars to people who otherwise couldn't afford them. During his work Franklin gets to know the other main hero, Michael.

Appearance: Fit and fashionable.

Houser's remarks: Franklin's character evokes the image of a modern street gang member. An interesting character in his mid-20s who wants to get ahead in life but is held back by his dangerous and idiotic friends.

The contrast between Michael's and Trevor's characters is very striking. When the Rockstar tester brought up the character selection quick menu, the camera pulled away from the luxurious surroundings like Google Earth, then the map carried us to a rickety trailer in a desert area. Here we met Trevor, who was struggling on the toilet and, in his own words, begging for a fucking midwife. We spent only a short time with Trevor, but even from these few words we got to know his disgusting style. He hops into the Bodhi, a big truck that looks more like a Jeep Wrangler JK, and drives off. Blaine County is a run-down desert area full of bikers, junkies and other social outcasts (the area around the Salton Sea, sound familiar?). Trevor rolls down the street and yanks the wheel at a group of people standing in front of a building. Rockstar advised us to try different situations so that we could observe the various ways people react to our actions. Surely in a rougher neighbourhood people will act far more aggressively toward us than shoppers standing in front of a clothing store.

The time had come to live out our innermost destructive desires. The demo tester, as Trevor, grabbed a jerry can of petrol from the side of the house, doused the truck parked there with it, then trailed a line away from the vehicle. He admired for a moment the reflection of the strong-smelling petrol evaporating on the asphalt, then casually tossed his Zippo lighter onto it. The fire reached the truck in moments, first the tyres and the chassis, then after a while, once the fire had heated the tank enough, it exploded. For our psychopath junkie friend this was an average day, just like any other.

When we step into the shoes of the third character, Franklin, he's driving up a car on Vespucci Beach that his boss needs to get back. The beach is full of possibilities we've never seen before; if we feel like it, we can work out a bit on the seafront. After a long look around, he finds what he was looking for, a 9F, which is the GTA equivalent of the Audi R8. After he hops into the car, he drops the roof and heads downtown. On our way we spot several familiar shops, such as Ammu-Nation, which is a joy to see after Liberty City's strict gun laws.

These lines sum up the characters' main traits in just a few sentences, but there is far more hidden in them, which will come out over the course of a game. Just like the tester, we can switch between the characters at any time during the game, and while we control one of them, the other characters keep going about their business. It's a very special feeling when you suddenly switch to a character and find yourself in a situation you never expected. "The contrast between the different geographical locations and lifestyles is very strong and gives the game a unique 'feel' as you step into these characters' shoes," said Houser. "In the story you sometimes learn things about a character before you control him, because you'll already know what the other person knows about him."

Sunny Los Santos

After Rockstar Games' management started planning the story of the sequel after the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, a lot of ideas came up. Instead of starting with a new story and a new setting, the team felt there was still more to get out of San Andreas. "Everyone felt it was a good idea to build a perfect Los Angeles," creative director Dan Houser said. "We felt San Andreas wasn't finished and the cities were only depicted in sketch form. L.A. and the surrounding countryside can hold a lot of new things worth taking advantage of, and it would be a good basis for realising ideas that would reference parts of GTA IV and San Andreas, while keeping that new, fresh, different feel." Although Rockstar has used this region several times - see L.A. Noire, Midnight Club: Los Angeles and GTA: San Andreas - they still felt there was plenty to get out of the area. If there's a culture ripe for a GTA-style parody, then the vain capital of the modern world is it. With Hollywood, the porn industry, the decriminalisation of marijuana, its struggle with immigrants, its gated communities, homeless people living in tents surrounded by enormous wealth, and a bankrupt government, the city gives more than enough reason to be parodied Rockstar style.

"The geography outside Los Angeles is fascinating," says Houser. "The difference between desert and urban Southern California, the plains, and the areas heading north compared to L.A. make a great microcosm of the red state/blue state theme - their styles are as different as their geographical features. I think that was the decisive argument for sticking with this area."

Grand Theft Auto IV introduced a new, densely populated environment full of possibilities, and Red Dead Redemption gave an even more player-friendly, huge open playground with dynamically changing encounters luring the player into missions. GTA V combines the two, putting Rockstar's biggest virtual playground yet in the players' hands, with a perpetually moving, dynamic city at its centre.

When I asked why they made one big city instead of, say, 2-3 smaller ones, Houser answered that from the design and experience point of view this was the best choice. The main goal was to make one city, but make it a killer. To build a proper Los Angeles - the biggest city in the world - the game has to be similar, even if we don't copy it completely. You have to spend a lot of time in the city, and if we split it in two, we wouldn't get that true L.A. experience.

But how big is this new world, then? According to Aaron Garbut, Los Santos and its surroundings are bigger than the whole of Red Dead Redemption, San Andreas and GTA IV combined. This experience-rich area includes beaches, wine country, vast wilderness, the fully explorable Mt. Chiliad mountain region, the Salton Sea region, the military base and the huge Los Santos itself. Bring your diving gear too if you want to explore the fully detailed ocean floor along the Los Santos coast.

Exploring Los Santos

Rockstar helps you explore the area with a huge fleet of vehicles, far bigger than anything we've seen in the GTA games. There will be various BMX bikes, mountain bikes, motorcycles, dirt bikes, trucks and a huge selection of cars, helicopters, planes, quads and jet skis. You don't have to shoot up or wait until the end of the game to fly. As we know, Trevor is a war veteran with flying experience; all we need to do is find a vehicle that can fly.

Living the criminal life

So what brings these protagonists of such different characters together? Surely it's the dirty money they have to work for every day. Each character has a separate story, but instead of waiting for the final missions that you reach through hard missions, GTA V is built around complicated, multi-character heists in the justly famous "Three Leaf Clover" style seen in GTA IV.

We've actually put a lot of emphasis on the heist scenes in the game - and we'll show that later - the kind we haven't seen not only in GTA IV but in earlier games either. People love heist missions, especially when they feel they're in control of the whole thing. So far we felt we'd never made a really killer bank robbery mission, so we paid more attention to it and put more energy into it. Naturally, the other missions that affect our protagonists also got due attention. Missions are much more enjoyable when we have more than one character, say two, or even three. Because of this the missions turned out different, yet still action-packed. Thanks to this, we can enjoy the action from different perspectives; as an illustration, Rockstar held a presentation in which all three characters work together.

How can we kill time in the city?

In Grand Theft Auto IV you could go bowling, visit strip clubs, watch live stand-up comedy, sit in internet cafés and watch TV shows, but players didn't take advantage of these options. In the sequel Rockstar Games wants to expand the play outside the missions with lots of small mini-games and side missions, similar to Red Dead Redemption's poker. "What we really wanted was variety in the missions," says Dan Houser. "We wanted to use the characters along with their private lives - Michael can spend his time with his family, Franklin with his crazy friends, and Trevor with the planes that are available to him in the desert even early in the game. A character tired of shooting can find himself in a yoga class in leggings in the blink of an eye. Hopefully we'll get into lots of interesting and funny situations during the game."

I'm the hero

Most of the side activities will be available to all three characters, but there will also be things that depend on personality, hobbies for example. "The details are still being hammered out, but we'd like at least 1-2 mini-game style hobbies per character, to make the differences in their personalities even more noticeable," says Houser. "We just want their worlds to be separate during the game. For example, if Trevor is our chosen character, the world seems more contradictory than when we play as Michael, who sees the world as much nicer than the drug-crazed Trevor does."

Customise the character

"Michael, Trevor and Franklin are completely different characters with different abilities, and that's why there won't be RPG-style customisation in GTA V. Size changes from weight gain are technically far harder and more complex than they were back in San Andreas," says Houser. "If we tried to do this with three characters, we'd be biting off a big chunk. We did think about it, but came to the conclusion that it would be a mission impossible. We didn't want to test the animation system, so compromises remained. True, body shape can't be customised, but we can change clothes as we've been used to in recent instalments."

Evening entertainment

When Niko stayed in his run-down apartment in the evenings, we got to enjoy quite a few parody TV shows. Among our favourites were the Republican Space Rangers, a parody of George W. Bush's foreign policy, and Ken Burns' documentary series, the "History of Liberty City". Rockstar Games confirmed that the "entertainment within the entertainment" returns in GTA V too, but didn't give any details about it. Surely they're preparing plenty of funny stuff to make our jaws drop.

Enjoy the great outdoors

The side activities of Grand Theft Auto V have gone through big changes. That's how yoga, triathlon, jet skiing, base jumping, tennis and golf made it into the game. "Now we really got a proper golf course, and we're very happy with it," said Houser. We learned from GTA IV and Red Dead that we're better off focusing on a given mini-game and putting the best team on it than putting several half-designed options in the players' hands. People will try everything, but they spend more time on whatever is more fun."

Love

Niko Bellic had a few girlfriends he could lure out on a date at any time with a quick call, but this feature is left out of GTA V. When we asked whether the feature is coming back, we got this answer: "I don't think so, simply by the nature of the characters it would be unimaginable. We think it wouldn't work, and we're working on a bunch of new features that will make it up to the players. Maybe it'll come back someday, but not in this game."

Friends

The protagonists don't waste their time entertaining women, but as a counterbalance each of the three characters will have his own circle of friends he can get in touch with at any time. Dan Houser introduced the team's favourites:

Lamar: "We really like his character, he's one of Franklin's crazy friends. In a good way, more funny than crazy."

Jimmy: "We really love Jimmy's character too, he's Michael's son. The actor perfectly captures the character of the lazy 20-year-old pot-smoking guy. His relationship with his father is unbalanced. There's never been a relationship like this in GTA so far, in fact there haven't really been family relationships in the series at all."

Ron: "Ron is Trevor's best friend, if Trevor can have a friend at all. He's a paranoid figure, constantly brooding over conspiracy theories. Trevor is his best friend, yet he's afraid of him."

Amanda: "Michael's wife. The actress brilliantly plays her strong personality. In the GTA games so far there has never been such a strong female character. Sadly, her relationship with her husband isn't what it used to be, but for some reason they're still together."

Familiar characters

Houser didn't name anyone, but familiar faces from GTA IV and Episodes from Liberty City may return. Not the protagonists like Carl Johnson or Niko Bellic, though. They're already like mythical characters who never existed.

The Los Santos economy

In earlier GTA games we had the chance to buy properties, expanding our little empire. In GTA V Rockstar has rethought the approach of the previous games. Many people complained that at the end of GTA IV there was no way to spend all that money earned through sweat and hard work. In GTA V it will be different, since a great many little things are being added that we can throw our money at.

Call someone

Since Vice City Rockstar has used the possibilities of the mobile phone to push the game down its own path. It will be no different in GTA V, but you no longer have to put up with your friends' maddening, constant calls. "The problem the fans also mentioned was that players couldn't really do anything besides the main missions. Most things were hidden in the phone, so now we took them and moved them onto the map." Our phone has gained new features too, such as the internet.

Dynamic missions

Since the play area of Red Dead Redemption was enormous, Rockstar Games developed a dynamic mission system that randomly offers the player new opportunities. These "opportunities" can be skipped or accepted. Rockstar's aim with this was that we shouldn't wander for long minutes through empty, barren territory. Luckily this feature worked so well that it's being carried over into Grand Theft Auto V. When we drive outside the city, we can see broken-down vehicles and hitchhikers we can even walk up to. Two parked cars by the roadside with two corpses around them? Go over and investigate what might have happened. Want to make money easily? Rob an armoured car.

Multiplayer in GTA V

Rockstar wants to report on multiplayer later, but Houser did reveal this much: "We're satisfied with the direction the multiplayer is heading in. We're getting closer and closer to a truly fun open-world multiplayer experience. We'll see the Crews system known from Max Payne 3 again in GTA V." Rockstar said that the HUD elements seen in the demo are only temporary, but we noticed that the multiplayer menu sits under the switch icons, which might mean we'll be able to switch from single-player to multiplayer mode. We hope Rockstar didn't focus on the heist missions only in single player, and that we can enjoy these pleasures in multiplayer too.

The switch

When we meet the gang, Trevor and Michael are already together. The FIB is already investigating them, but to shake them off the trio has to complete a "snatch-and-grab" style job. They meet at the helicopter to pick up a civilian helicopter provided by the FIB for their mission. Trevor starts slagging off the security guard at the helicopter, who is just standing there like a dick with his earpiece in while everyone else is "out there making money and banging whores." Michael asks his friend to calm down, but he just goes on like some degenerate Dennis Hopper figure. He agreed to the job on the condition that he'd be led to his friend Brad. When Michael is reminded of this, he reacts with a "We'll talk about Brad later." Franklin is taken aback by Trevor's psychopathic behaviour, and Michael, seeing Franklin's desperation, offers that it's okay if he sits this party out, an offer our friend Franklin doesn't take up. Michael changes clothes and gets into the helicopter with Trevor.

When they arrive at the IAA headquarters (the GTA equivalent of the CIA), Franklin is already armed with a sniper rifle on top of a nearby building, in case things go bad. While Trevor hangs in the air, Michael takes over the role, dangling on the side of the skyscraper looking for the right office. The descent is comparable to Rainbow Six: Vegas; here the player has complete freedom of control, and can even regulate the speed of the descent. During the descent we can see people in the offices going about their daily routine, working. For the first time in GTA history, different sound effects try to build up the tension. Michael finds the target, who is being threatened by the interrogating woman with being raped with an 18 cm flashlight. While the man is being berated, his finger is broken with a bigger flashlight, but he still sticks to his story: "I only install cameras, I don't monitor them!"

Before things get out of hand and slip out of control, Michael smashes the window and, holding the target in front of him as a human shield, aims his gun at the interrogating officers reaching for their weapons. Suddenly an icon appears on the display, offering a choice for the first time. We have two options: staying in Michael's shoes we neutralise the agents while Franklin hunts them down, or we take Franklin's role and take out the targets. Pressing the button, we instantly see the crosshair from the other character's point of view, aimed at the agents. The camera movement during the switch is steady and smooth, helping the player make accurate shots.

Later Trevor picks up Michael and the target, and a chase begins through downtown Los Santos. During the pursuit three choices present themselves: you can fly the helicopter with Trevor, shoot the pilot of the other helicopter with Franklin, or operate the machine gun with Michael. After you've taken down the bad guys, the gang flies back to the FIB helipad and the mission continues.

After the presentation we can see that the demo offers the player three different perspectives during the game. In good time, the character switch makes the gameplay even more exciting, so the player can always be at the centre of the action. Imagine cracking a safe, then with a sudden switch we're already mowing down the arriving cops. There's a design problem that comes up in every game: you, that is, one character, are there for every task, says Houser. When you control one character, it means you drive, sure, that's fun, you shoot, sure, shooting is great too, you fly, that's also awesome, and you parachute, because that's fun as well. All this can make things ridiculous, you can spend a lot of time climbing ladders, which is boring. Thanks to this new technique, you can always be where the action is.

No celebrities wanted

Earlier GTA episodes were memorable for the many colourful celebrities who lent their voices to the characters. Among others we heard Ray Liotta, Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Fonda and later Dennis Hopper. When Rockstar set out in the HD era, it left these celebrities out for various reasons. This habit continues in GTA V, as there are no famous names among the protagonists. We asked Dan Houser about the decision: "We had a total of 2-3 film shoots for the game in three-week stretches. I don't think there would have been any celebrity available for that time, even if we'd spent the money we did in the earlier games. In the PS2 era it was great that these talented actors gave life to the various simple characters, but in the Xbox 360 and PS3 era there's no longer any need for that."