Game Informer has released the new cover for December 2012 as well as some important details about the game.
Grand Theft Auto 5 will feature three main, playable characters but none of them is ‘Albert De Silva’ that has been rumoured as the game’s protagonist. GameInformer said along with their cover reveal: “We introduce the three main protagonists, discuss the groundbreaking way you use them, and explore the reimagined Los Santos – the biggest open world Rockstar has created to date.”
Rockstar’s vice president of creativity Dan Houser spoke about the game and explained that the three protagonists are called Trevor, Michael and Franklin. He also spoke about the game’s heists, character swapping, plot, side missions and more.
“We really wanted to make heists a big theme in the game based on missions not just from GTA 4 but from previous games people really responded to. People are in love with doing bank jobs, particularly when they feel like they have prepped the bank jobs. We never felt we’d done a great job with a bank job so we decided, ‘Let’s properly invest the story and mission design for some of the mission into making some of these built-out series of heists. That was a huge part of the story missions – trying to set the game apart from games we’ve done in the past.”
In some missions all three characters will be active at the same time and Houser discussed how the three will work during gameplay: “We want to move from having one character in a mission to having two of three. This makes the missions feel distinct in that they feel very high action but they will have a very different tone depending on who’s on them, how many people are on them and how much we’re using switches to make it feel different.”
“We have a design issue that all games have – the games are at some level about doing stuff, you being in charge of the mechanic. When you are only one character, it means they always have to be driving is when the driving is fun, shooting when the shooting is fun, flying when the flying is fun and parachuting when the parachuting is fun. It can lead to things being a little ridiculous – having a lot of time spent climbing ladders, or a lot of segues from moment to moment that can end up slightly contrived. With [multiple simultaneous protagonists] we can get past that and also cut out a lot of the transitional moments to just always put you in the action.”
On the three-way plot, Houser added: “We’re starting to feel that’s it’s our strongest plotted game because the characters are so intertwined. When you’re advancing Michael’s story you’re also advancing Trevor’s story in a different way, and the meeting points are very exciting. I think making that work as certainly been challenging given our inexperience and lack of skill, but we’ve done our best to come up with something we think is giving this much more densely plotted experience that we couldn’t have pulled off when you always need the lead character for every moment.”
According to Kotaku, these are some of the details in the December GI issue:
- Los Santos is bigger than Red Dead Redemption, San Andreas, and Grand Theft Auto IV combined. It contains a wilderness, military base, and underwater exploration on the ocean floor.
- Players can switch between the three main protagonists “nearly any time.”
- The protagonists names are: Michael (older guy), Trevor (a red neck, apparently), and Franklin (the African-American). Each has its own personality, skill set, and group of friends.
- Characters you are not currently controlling will “g off and do their own thing.”
- It’s the same world as Grand Theft Auto 4 and Liberty City, so recurring characters could occur, unless hey are form the PS2-era titles.
- Randomized dynamic missions are back, and include “hitchhikers, muggers, and dead bodies.”
- Players can form friendships, but there won’t be an romancing this time out.
- Vehicles in the game include trucks, BMX and mountain bikes, ATVs, helicopters, cars, WaveRunners, dirtbikes.
- Heists will be predominant.
- Players can customize their look, but not through RPG elements such as with San Andreas.
- Missions will be more fleshed out, and side missions will be more complex – think Red Dead Redemption.
- Better driving controls were promised, as were improved shooting mechanics.
- Melee combat has been refined.
- Players can base jump, play tennis, a full round of golf, and participate in yoga, triathlons and jet skiing for recreational purposes.
Details regarding the game’s protagonist have emerged via print magazine ShortList. The recent issue of ShortList states: “The protagonist is an East Coast gangster who moved to the game’s Los Santos setting (Rockstar’s take on LA and southern California) for a fresh start. But, as in The Godfather III – just as he thought he was out, they pulled him back in.”
EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich has speculated that GTA 5 could hit 25 millions sales in its first year. He also expects the game to release in April 2013. “The HD market is softening as we enter into the tail end of this generation, but fortunately this softening has had little impact on our precious AAA titles. I have little concerns about when it is released. GTA IV already proved to the market that even an April release, which has historically been avoided by the industry, can support a 20M+ title. Whether April, June, or even Winter, I’d expect GTA V to sell in upwards of 25M copies in its first 12 months.”
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