Grand Theft Auto V Message Board older than one year ago

In the wake of last week's huge European game expo, Rockstar Games released several new images for Grand Theft Auto 5 this morning, effectively hijacking our interest. The images feature three vehicles from the upcoming open-world adventure: a road bicycle, a return of GTA classic sports car "Cheeta," and a damn fighter jet (seen above). Also of note, the Cheeta's license plate has a "San Andreas" wrapper - not a huge surprise given what we know about GTA5 5's setting, but neat nonetheless.

Not enough to sate your thirst for more GTA 5 news? Rockstar says there'll be more revealed "this week," so there!

#grandtheftauto Here are new screenshots from Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V, the hotly anticipated open-world game that still has no release date or even platform info. More »

#mashup So what's going on with Grand Theft Auto V? Very little, aside from a couple of screenshots and some analysts reading tea leaves and thinking it'll be out by April. A bored Internet public already has recreated the Grand Theft Auto V teaser trailer within the original San Andreas and then in Liberty City (since taken down). Now they're moving on to other games. Like, Battlefield 3. More »

A Twitter account for something called the "Epsilon Program" has materialized in the past few days, linking off to a freaky (and annoying) website for a pseudo-religion called "KIFFLOM", registered by Take Two Software.

The site features a thinly-veiled parody of the real-life Scientology organization and includes such hilarious "facts" as: "If you have a birth mark, you may be descended from Kraff, the famous Emperor of the 4th Paradigm." Considering that the next iteration of GTA is set in a faux Los Angeles and that the Epsilon Program was featured in a gags found within GTA: San Andreas, odds are good that we're looking at an early viral campaign for Grand Theft Auto 5. Good timing, since only yesterday investors were asking why the hype train for GTA 5 had not yet left the station.

What does it tell us about the game? Nothing at all. But investors were wondering where the marketing was, and Take Two appears to have answered right away.

#grandtheftauto There is no release date for Grand Theft Auto V. There are no confirmed platforms for the game. All we have is one trailer and two screenshots, but some of the people who follow the business of the publisher of Grand Theft Auto, Take Two Interactive, are convinced the game will be out before the end of March. More »

The first half of Take-Two's question and answer session, during today's first quarter investor call, revolved around the theme of Grand Theft Auto 5 and its current status. Whether directly or indirectly, three questions in a row tried to eke out any details about the game, which appears to be part of the publisher's high revenue projections but still has an official "TBA" release date.

"Strauss, we've heard nothing, next to nothing, on GTA 5 development over the last couple months," said Mike Hickey of National Alliance Securities. "We've seen a couple screenshots. The game is believed by the street to be implied by your guidance for this fiscal year, but what believability do we have that this game is actually going to come out this year?"

CEO Strauss Zelnick responded, "We haven't talked about a release date. So obviously we can't talk about the credibility of a release date that we haven't announced."

Pushed further on whether the publisher is receiving consistent updates, the CEO deflected.

"We wouldn't talk publicly about the way we communicate with our teams internally," replied Zelnick. "We are blessed to be in business with the Rockstar folks and everyone knows that I feel that way. We have the best creative teams in the business across our company."

Though the company did announce today that "consumer anticipation is phenomenal" for Borderlands 2, it would still need to hit home runs with NBA 2K13, XCOM: Enemy Unknown and BioShock: Infinite to hit its forecast.

"Why don't you give us more news?" a Grand Theft Auto fan asked Rockstar about GTA5. In response, Rockstar's "Asked & Answered" column provided the two new screenshots of the upcoming game. You mean to tell us that approach works? This is going to change how we do our jobs.

Rockstar explained the relative quiet since the trailer: "We don't do this because we 'don't care about our fans' 'don't respect our fans' 'hate GTA fans etc' - precisely the opposite," a company rep stated in the column. "We do it because we want to make sure we only release 100% correct information, and because we want to keep plenty back for the actual game release so there are still lots of surprises when you play it."

Judging by previous Rockstar releases, when it is ready to show more, there will be a trailer every single day until release.

#grandtheftauto Rockstar games slyly released two new screenshots for Grand Theft Auto V today, tucking them within an engaging Q&A posted on the development studio's official site. More »

With this morning's announcement that BioShock Infinite will now launch in February 2013, publisher Take-Two Interactive altered more than a game's launch date. Take-Two is a publicly traded company, and one fewer gigantic product launch during the holiday season - arguably Take-Two's only holiday product launch, unless you count fall launches of Borderlands 2 and XCOM: Enemy Unknown as "holiday" - means that shareholders will want to know what's up. That worry is reflected in Take-Two's stock price, which took a five percent hit since the market opened this morning.

But when Infinite got pushed out of the holiday season, it opened the slot up for another high-profile Take-Two-published title: Grand Theft Auto 5. "In our view, the delay opens the window for Grand Theft Auto V to be released in October 2012," Michael Pachter of Webush Securities wrote in an email this morning, echoing a release window leak from earlier this year.

In his eyes, Infinite wasn't just delayed to make it "something even more extraordinary," as Ken Levine put it, but because the folks at Rockstar, "notified Take-Two that GTA V would be ready for October." He believes this resulted in Take-Two offering Irrational Games an extra few months to prepare BioShock Infinite. His logic? "The studio [Rockstar Games] has scheduled every prior GTA release during that month (with GTA IV delayed to April 2008, due to bugs in the PS3 version)."

Furthermore, Pachter and co. speculate we could hear more about GTA 5's launch date "as early as May 22" during a scheduled quarterly investor call, or perhaps in a few more weeks at E3 2012. We've yet to hear back from Irrational, Rockstar, or Take-Two on the subject.

Like the last several major Grand Theft Auto franchise entries, Grand Theft Auto V is being developed by Rockstar's Edinburgh, Scotland-based Rockstar North studio. Character animator Alex O'Dwyer is an employee at Rockstar North, according to both his LinkedIn page and his CV, and he seems to think that Grand Theft Auto V will launch this October.

As seen in the image above, O'Dwyer's CV puts GTA V's launch window firmly in the holiday season - not exactly a bizarre concept considering Rockstar's history of launching GTA titles during the holidays (with the exception of Grand Theft Auto IV, that is). It would also put sufficient time between Rockstar's May launch of Max Payne 3, but would totally buck the trend of Rockstar releasing more than one title in any given year.

We've reached out to Rockstar and O'Dwyer for comment, but, well ... it's Easter. Hopefully we'll hear something soon. For now, we're putting this squarely in the "rumor" column.

Rockstar Games co-founder and the co-writer of Grand Theft Auto V, Dan Houser has revealed that Grand Theft Auto V will let players use the same 'crews' they establish and build in Max Payne 3's multiplayer, thanks to Social Club integration. Speaking exclusively to IGN about Max Payne 3's mult...

A leading business analyst group has released a statement suggesting that Grand Theft Auto V will be released in March 2013, and not late 2012 as previously thought...

Mafia II developers 2K Czech have been working with Rockstar on GTA V for almost a year. The studio has been working on cut-scenes, animations and gameplay, according to a VG24/7 report...

Rockstar has never been shy about looking to the cinema for a little inspiration. Plenty of the finest moments in Rockstar titles are remarkable thanks to a little silver screen shove in the right direction. It doesn't take much analysis to spot a nod to Scarface in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City or gl...

Los Santos may be a place that exists only within the boundaries of the Grand Theft Auto universe, and within the imaginations of the artists crafting it at Rockstar North right now, but it remains very much a proxy for the very real city of Los Angeles. With its headquarters tucked away in Manh...

Remember when the GTA V trailer was remade in San Andreas? Now it's been done with Grand Theft Auto 4 as well. Courtesy of the GTA V TV blog, check out what the Grand Theft Auto V announcement trailer looks like when reproduced using the GTA IV game engine...

#grandtheftauto Using the wonders of the personal computer, the team at GTAVTV went out and recreated the Grand Theft Auto V trailer, shot-for-shot, only instead of being set in Los Santos it's in GTAIV's Liberty City. More »

It's been well over a year since I stepped foot in Liberty City. For a while there I never wanted to leave; it was a playground unlike any other I'd ever been in. GTA IV's rich, dense world was really something else...

That man above is actor Ned Luke, whose Internet Movie Database page now lists him as playing a character named Alberto De Silva, whom fans believe is the gravelly-voiced lead in the trailer for Grand Theft Auto 5. The connection was also mentioned in a tweet by an actor named Jimmy Taenaka, who says his friend Luke is "the lead voice and profile" in the new Rockstar game. You can also watch Luke's demo reel on IMDb, and while we're not experts in bioacoustics, he certainly looks and sounds like our guy.

Rockstar hasn't yet confirmed the voice or portrayal, and while a Twitter account attributed to Luke appeared for a short time (probably a hoax), it's since been deleted completely. It's not clear why all the secrecy, however; if Luke is our guy, he seems like a fine choice for a Dad looking to make good on a life of crime.

#grandtheftauto There's a theory, spun by Grand Theft Auto super-fans, that an actor named Ned Luke is the man behind the gravelly voice we heard in the debut trailer for Grand Theft Auto V. More »

The internet's best detectives may have tracked down the principal voice actor in Grand Theft Auto V...

#grandtheftauto While Rockstar has released almost no details concering the cast or characters of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto V, that's not stopping people from speculating. Or, in this case, making rather convincing arguments. More »

We now know that GTA V will be returning to Los Santos. One very talented, patient YouTube user - CreativityZone - has returned to his copy of San Andreas to painstakingly recreate the GTA V trailer, frame for frame...

Never mind that the game was just announced, New South Wales Attorney General Greg Smith called for Grand Theft Auto V to be "banned". Le sigh. [Kotaku Australia] More »

#grandtheftauto British rapper Dan Bull, who you may have heard of before, was so moved by the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto V he went and wrote a track about it. More »

So there you have it, the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto V. Can you believe it actually loaded? We noticed a lot of disparate environments, but all centered around Vinewood, a stand-in for Los Angeles. We're definitely getting back into some of the GTA: San Andreas stomping grounds.

Our hero is a dad who says he's trying to be a good guy, but, well, it's a Grand Theft Auto game, so you can guess how well that works out. There are also a lot of images of financial ruin, so we're guessing the current economic crisis is going to play a big role. What'd you notice?

The Grand Theft Auto V trailer dropped this morning (you've seen it already, if you weren't stuck somewhere hiding from the mob), setting the Speculation Train a'rollin' around the Internets.

PC Gamer suggests that the trailer may indicate multiple playable characters in the game: We saw the older gentleman, presumably doing the voiceover, and a younger guy with a shaved head in the middle of a car chase. Finally, an African American character can be seen briefly running from police choppers. All three end up in the middle of a heist seen in the video, so the story may, at the very least, revolve around a heist that connects these three characters and their stories.

And could multiple playable characters imply some co-op gameplay? Roll on, Speculation Train, roll on!

You've likely gleaned as much from yesterday's big Grand Theft Auto V debut trailer, but this morning's official announcement of the game from Rockstar confirms a "Los Santos" (Los Angeles-ish) setting, as well as the return of online multiplayer. "Grand Theft Auto V focuses on the pursuit of the almighty dollar in a re-imagined, present-day Southern California," the release reads, specifically pointing to "Los Santos and surrounding hills, countryside, and beaches" as the locales.

Predictably, the announcement calls GTAV "the largest and most ambitious game Rockstar has yet created," and company co-head Sam Houser characterizes the project as "another radical reinvention of the Grand Theft Auto universe." From that debut teaser, we're ... awaiting further evidence of that "radical reinvention" Houser promises. But hey, at least it looks like planes are back in the mix!

Despite making the game even more official, Rockstar has yet to announce a release window or platforms for the Rockstar North-led project.

#grandtheftauto Could Grand Theft Auto V star CJ from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Tommy Vercetti from GTA: Vice City and Nico from GTA IV? More »

Despite having ostensibly announced Grand Theft Auto V last week when Rockstar Games put up a website teasing a week-later release for a trailer for Grand Theft Auto V, then effectively double-announcing the game yesterday by releasing the aforementioned trailer, apparently someone at Take 2 wanted to make extra-triple-super-duper-sure that everyone really knew Grand Theft Auto V had been announced, as today they released a press release once again announcing Grand Theft Auto V. So, just to be absolutely, positively, 100% clear: Grand Theft Auto V has been announced.

What lies beyond those mountains? Probably some kind of artificial world border, actually.

Normally this would be of no consequence to anyone, except that a couple of extra nuggets of information happened to be embedded in that press release. Arguably the biggest detail has to do with the game's setting, which we know already to be Los Santos, the Los Angeles surrogate established in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. We, along with pretty much everyone else on the Internet, have been wondering if the return to fake California would also mean a return to fake San Francisco, and fake Las Vegas, as featured in San Andreas. Evidently, that won't be the case. The press release specifically only mentions the city of Los Santos, and its "surrounding hills, countryside, and beaches." Presumably this will still be a fairly large environment, as the release also calls this the "largest and most ambitious game Rockstar has yet created."

Elsewhere, a brief mention of multiplayer found itself buried in the release, ensuring that yet another online multiplayer mode will be on hand, though in what capacity, exactly, we do not know yet.

Still no sign of a release date, sadly, and the release only tangentially mentions anything related to the plot, citing a "pursuit of the almighty dollar" within the context of Los Santos' version of Southern California. Odds are it'll be a while before we get any more real, concrete details on this thing, so you'll just have to make this tiny hit last as long as possible.