Development of Grand Theft Auto V
Key team members conducted field trips around Southern California to gather research and footage, and Google Maps projections of Los Angeles were used to help design the city's road networks.
Art director Aaron Garbut said that while the consoles' ageing hardware was tiring to work with, the team could still render detailed lighting and shadows and "maintain a consistent look".
[10] Vice president Dan Houser felt working on Grand Theft Auto IV with relatively new hardware was a challenge, but the team had since learnt to develop for the consoles more efficiently.
[17] Houser felt an effective portrayal of Los Angeles needs to emulate its urban sprawl, and that dividing the workforce between multiple cities would have detracted from capturing "what L.A.
[18] The team disregarded San Andreas as a departure point for Grand Theft Auto V because they had moved on to a new generation of consoles and wanted to build the city from scratch.
[23] Research took the team to California's rural regions; Garbut recalled a visit he took with Houser to Bombay Beach that inspired them to set Trevor's initial story against the Salton Sea.
[18] The large, open space permitted the re-introduction of fixed-wing aircraft, omitted from Grand Theft Auto IV because of its relatively smaller scale.
Garbut felt such a deviation from the gameplay's core structure was a risk, and recalled team concern that a departure from Grand Theft Auto's traditional, single lead character set-up "might backfire".
[11] He considered that the three lead characters helped move the game's story into more original territory than its predecessors, which traditionally followed a single protagonist rising through the ranks of a criminal underworld.
Fonteno first became aware of the acting job through his friend DJ Pooh, who worked on San Andreas and was involved in Grand Theft Auto V's music production.
[37] To prepare for his role as Michael, Luke gained 25 pounds and studied Rockstar's previous games, starting with Grand Theft Auto IV.
[1] After Grand Theft Auto IV's release, the team developed The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, episodic content packages that followed new protagonists.
He cited a combat scenario where Michael sets up at a sniper outpost to cover Trevor, who makes a frontal assault on the enemy position while Franklin manipulates flank points.
Public reception to the team's previous games (such as Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3) was considered during the process.
[41][42] To increase the pace of shootouts, the team removed hard locking—a central mechanic in Grand Theft Auto IV that instantly locks onto the enemy nearest to the crosshair.
[48] The team of producers collaborated over several years to create more than twenty hours of music that scores both the game's missions and dynamic gameplay throughout the single-player and multiplayer modes.
[47] The Rockstar team wanted to synergise the game world's depiction of California with the radio stations by licensing tracks that imparted an appropriate "Cali feel".
[50] Some tracks were written specifically for the game, such as rapper and producer Flying Lotus' original work composed for the FlyLo FM station he hosts.
[46] During a September 2009 earnings call, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick was asked about Grand Theft Auto V, the purported next game in the series.
[64] On 23 August, reports stated that some European PlayStation 3 users who had pre-ordered Grand Theft Auto V were able to download parts of the game, including its soundtrack and some character dialogue.
It is narrated by Michael and depicts the open world accompanied by the song "Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake" by English rock band Small Faces.
[82] To unveil the cover art, Rockstar contracted artists to paint a mural on a wall in Manhattan on 31 March 2013,[83] followed by the artwork's digital release on 2 April.
[92][93] The official Grand Theft Auto V website was redesigned on 13 August 2013 to show a preview of activities and locales within the open world and an examination of the lead protagonists' stories.
It let players customise vehicles, create custom license plates and teach Franklin's dog Chop new tricks, which unlocked additional in-game abilities.
The enhanced version for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One features an increased draw distance, finer texture details, denser traffic, upgraded weather effects, and new wildlife and vegetation.
[110] Players could transfer Grand Theft Auto Online characters and progression between some platforms and gain exclusive activities and in-game discounts on weapons and vehicles.
[111] The PlayStation 4 version uses the DualShock 4's touchpad to navigate camera options and speaker to play smartphone calls,[109] while the Xbox One Controller's "Impulse Triggers"[112] may rumble while players use vehicles.
[114] Later, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions received the Rockstar Editor through a free title update, which added various features such as expanded sound effects and text styles libraries across all three platforms.
An upgraded screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) system renders new particle, shadow and weather effects, such as volumetric fog or neon reflections in cars at night.
A dynamic depth of field system sharpens and softens images to emulate camera autofocus, and improved shaders produce new colours in skin and terrain textures.
