The gameplay trailer for Grand Theft Auto V is now live, and rather than just expecting you to watch it, we thought we’d also weigh in with our impressions.
The video is narrated by an annoying marketing b-roll voice, something you might find in a video for a venture capitalist company or something. It’s probably the only thing that doesn’t fit in with Rockstar and GTA, but everything else in the video is delicious.
The video begins with a few glamour shots of southern California, some scuba diving, and plane-flying. Flying airplanes looks to be quite enjoyable from the short glimpse we got of it. Flying planes in other games like Just Cause 2 was fun but extremely cumbersome. Helicopter flying in GTA in the past was also a bit tricky, but it looks like all that has been made much more smooth and easy to control.
The three protagonists in the game all work together to complete missions. Rockstar, in the video, detail how you can go about missions. The example they use seems to be a jewelry store robbery where you can either go stealth and smart or loud and stupid. GTA doesn’t often give you the option to go stealth in its games, usually opting for blazing guns, so this could be a huge addition to the series.
Variety has always been a key to the gameplay of Grand Theft Auto, and it looks like Rockstar is continuing that trend with a huge myriad of things to do. The video highlights the juxtaposition between wilderness and the decaying city, expensive Rodeo Drive-like boutiques and junky strip malls, and the ridiculousness of Hollywood Boulevard and the serenity of the backwood counties.
New gameplay mechanics feature scuba diving and sky-diving, as we’ve seen before, but we’re also shown that we can now rappel down buildings and snipe people from rooftops into office buildings from a mile away. The game might have let you snipe before, but never did it look quite so James Bond.
There are a lot of other extras thrown into the game that could rightfully be games unto themselves. Things like golfing in Los Santos. Or recreational scuba diving. Even some crop dusting. Okay, there’s no crop dusting in the trailer, but we’re sure Rockstar will let us drop anthrax over a field of corn in the actual game. You can invest in the stock market or Los Santos real estate to buy property and (presumably) make it rich in the game. You can also try your hand at some thrilling base jumping.
At the tail end of the trailer, we got a glimpse of the online component to the game, where there were about a dozen or so players running around Los Santos in what looked to be a multiplayer match of sorts. We didn’t get any details beyond knowing that we’ll get a proper introduction at a later date, but it’s interesting to see Rockstar is showing off almost everything they’ve got.
Grand Theft Auto V comes out September 17th, and of course, you can look forward to our review shortly after.
What did you think about the GTA V trailer? Excited for the game, or did the graphics throw you off a bit? Let us know on Twitter and Facebook!
