Every time a new title in the Grand Theft Auto video game series is released, you can put safe money on the fact that it’s going to sell like hotcakes. Grand Theft Auto 5 was no different, and now that it’s released on Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC, players on any high-end gaming platform can partake in this newest brand of fun; we’re here a guide containing tips, tricks, and techniques to make your GTA 5 experience more fruitful from login to finish.
Few numbered game series manage to innovate and improve so drastically as Grand Theft Auto does, with each release of a new game. You don’t just get a new city with new characters and new missions; you get fantastic game mechanics that take advantage of the latest advances in gaming tech. You also get top-notch writing and voice acting, and dozens of hours of replayable content. It’s the gold-standard reliability that has put Rockstar games near the top of the AAA game studio tower.
Leave it to Grand Theft Auto 5, then, to shake things up even further.
The social aspects of online gameplay have taken the industry by storm. Both series and standalone titles that might not otherwise have had room for multiplayer aspects are receiving the development time necessary to implement persistent worlds, deathmatches, and other online functionality that connects players to a wider experience. Rockstar took this trend the extra mile and built what practically amounts to another game–Grand Theft Auto Online.
Taking the assets and gameplay of Grand Theft Auto 5, Rockstar has created a multiplayer experience that brings in the best of several different worlds to create something fantastic (and crazily addicting!) However, Grand Theft Auto Online didn’t arrive without an unhealthy number of hiccups that frustrated early adopters straightaway off the launch platform. Perhaps Rockstar learned its lesson by suffering the consequences of not performing an open beta (which is standard-fare for AAA multiplayer game releases), but either way, the host of issues that plagued GTA Online scared off quite a few people. Login issues, progress loss, currency glitches, and more were frequent enough that they began to damage the game’s image and that ever-important Metacritic score.
Thankfully, almost all of that frustration has been ironed out, now, and both GTA Online and GTA 5 are still prolific games on their respective platforms. (It didn’t hurt that Rockstar dolled out $500k of in-game currency to anyone that had to withstand the rigours of GTA Online’s launch.) Not a bad feat of accomplishment, given that GTA 5 originally released on consoles a whole generation ago, first seeing the light on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 back in 2013.
Three years later, the online gaming community still enjoys GTA Online and modders are doing wonderful things with the base GTA 5 game. However, the prolific and lasting nature of most Rockstar games means that many people are approaching these Grand Theft Auto titles for the first time. If that’s you, then read on. If you’re an old vet, then read on anyway; you might pick up a thing or two! As always, we love to see your thoughts in the comments section.
Grand Theft Auto 5 Online
We’ll keep the greater of our focus on Grand Theft Auto Online. While there’s a ton of compelling nuance to Grand Theft Auto 5, it’s largely a solitary experience in spite of the vast online community that supports and plays the game; you’ll never see them while you’re actually playing, though.
In GTA Online, you’ll be facing a different type of game than what you’re used to during solo play.
The basics are simple: earn “reputation” (RP) by successfully participating in and completing the several types of gameplay available to you, and subsequently earn cash money. Accrue enough RP to “level up” and unlock new customization options and upgrades–cars, weapons, etc. If you want to buy any of those new pretties, you’re going to need cash, and that’s only coming from successful missions, races, and player kills in the deathmatch mode.
Platforms
GTA Online is available on the Xbox 360, Xbox One, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, and PC. Basically, if you’ve been awake in either of the two most recent generations of console gaming (or if you’re a smarty-pants PC player), then you have access to GTA 5 and GTA online.
The only frustration that stems from this huge spread of available playability is the fact that GTA Online doesn’t support cross-platform play. There are a few different reasons for this, some of which are more satisfying than others:
- PC, PS4, and Xbox One hardware architecture is just better and allows up to 30 players to exist in the same online instance, as opposed to the 15 allowed in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game.
- The manufacturers of said consoles have legal and interest conflicts that don’t permit cross-platform play. While Sony’s Playstation brand has been a staunch supporter of cross-platform play in the past, Microsoft’s Xbox consoles have rarely been willing to play ball, preferring to have complete control of everything that happens on their own servers. Unfortunately, the player is the one that pays the price for this corporate structure problem.
The fact that GTA 5 is still going strong, however, speaks to the smart decision of launching the title across this myriad of platforms, all of which do support fantastic online play.
You do have one option thanks to Rockstar’s realization that they don’t want to keep their player base permanently spread across many consoles. If you visit their character transfer website, you’ll see that it’s possible to move your GTA Online character and progress from one platform to another. This works as a sort of hierarchy, with older generation consoles at the bottom (Xbox 360 and Playstation 3), new consoles in the middle (Xbox One and Playstation 4), and PC at the pinnacle. When transferring your character across platforms, you can only move up the hierarchy.
You’ll also need a Rockstar Social Club account, which can be set up by following the provided link.
Signing Up and Logging In
Since GTA Online is a social experience, it’s important to have people to play with in the first place, if you hope to see what all of the fuss is about. This is made even more important by the fact that you won’t be able to play with your friends if you’re all playing on different platforms, so it remains an issue that you’ll want to sort out prior to deciding which platform you’re going to play GTA Online on.
Thankfully, the fact that your online experience is tied so closely to your platform of choice makes signup a breeze. Also convenient is the fact that GTA Online is provided as a component part of GTA 5, removing the idea that you need to buy a whole, separate title in order to play. Keep in mind the following things, also, which might be more obvious to online gameplay veterans:
- You need a persistent, high-speed internet connection in order to play GTA Online. No ifs, and’s or buts about it.
- Grand Theft Auto 5 needs to be up-to-date with the latest patch in order to play. Perhaps it bears repeating that you’ll also need high-speed internet in order to download the game’s most recent patches.
As long as you have those two, basic things, then Los Santos online is your oyster. Simply select Grand Theft Auto Online from the main menu of the Grand Theft Auto 5 game, and the simple setup process will take you through character creation.
Tips and Tricks
Once you’re online and tooling about Los Santos, it can be easy to get caught up in the myriad varieties of gameplay and forget about strategy. Keep the following tips in mind as you start out in GTA Online, and while your fictional criminal career grows alongside your friends’.
Get a Car!
Boosting cars is a simple matter in GTA 5, but in GTA Online, the first car that you boost is the one that you’re stuck with until you get enough cash to buy a different one. Because of this, make sure that you’re at least marginally happy with the wheels that you’re using to putter about the city.
When you’ve got enough cash, upgrading your ride will be one of your primary considerations.
Get a Better Gun
You’re going to be given a semiautomatic pistol to start with in the Online version of Los Santos, and if you play with friends (or “frienemies”) that have been in GTA Online longer than you have, it’ll be a pretty quick realization that you are outmatched almost constantly in terms of firepower. The pistol is enough to get you through your first few jobs, but once you have some cash in your pocket, get a better gun.
As you continue to climb and accrue RP and money, keep this upgrade process at the front of your mind, if you want to get ahead.
Play Smart With Your Cash
When GTA Online first released, players often found that they were barely breaking even with their cash after going out on missions, races, and deathmatches. Now that the game has heists and adversary matches, the cash flow has been improved too.
However, there’s a caveat about cash: when you’re killed by another player in your instance, whatever’s in your pocket is forfeit. If you want to keep your money safe, then use the “online banking” feature on your in-game phone to keep that money safely tucked away in a bank.
The list of tips and tricks can go on and on; GTA Login Online is a rich part of the GTA 5 experience. If you liked this article and found it helpful, let us know in the comments! Appamatix can cover GTA 5 again, so login on your platform of choice, and let’s hear your Grand Theft Auto stories!