Grand Theft Auto V Trailer Crashes Into View

Steve Anderson : End Game
Steve Anderson
The Video Store Guy
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Grand Theft Auto V Trailer Crashes Into View

It was odd to see E3 come and go without a new trailer of "Grand Theft Auto V", but clearly, something major was in the works. The kind of something major that took a while to come to fruition, and now, we've got that particular something live and in front of our very eyes. The "Grand Theft Auto V" official gameplay video has now been released, and for many, the culmination of a long wait is over. But what does this mean for our future as far as gaming goes?

Within the first half minute, an incredible amount of potential is put up before us, with several vehicles on hand--helicopters and what looks like a Lear jet come into play--as well as play modes, including a downright exciting bit involving scuba gear and a sunken freighter. It's not hard to see a very extensive game shaping up here with a massive open world setting.

We've talked about open world settings before, and how more and more games seem to be going in that direction with some very interesting results, both horrible and delightful. Indeed, even the indies are getting in on the open world action with the still delightful "State of Decay." But "Grand Theft Auto V" is really ratcheting up the level of open world here by cramming the game literally full of things to do, see and experience. In the space of this one five minute trailer, I went scuba diving, golfing, on a high-speed police chase, and rappelling down the side of an office building to kidnap some guy, then getting airlifted out of said situation by helicopter. I invested in the stock market. I watched a guy try to flush a human shin, with foot attached, down a toilet. That's an almost disturbing variety of things to do, and if this is the direction in which gaming is headed then I am indeed happy to see it, though I lament for the future of my free time.

But perhaps the high point of the trailer was the extraordinarily brief--yet dizzying in concept--vision of "Grand Theft Auto Online", which would be shown "properly, soon." Oddly enough, this didn't strike me as such a surprise, if for no other reason than the world was already looking kind of like an MMO anyway, with the key difference being that you were the only player in there. So why not open this massive world up to other players? The sheer potential for mayhem is impressive, and the play mechanics potential even more so.

The possibilities are abundant, from legions of player characters descending on heavily armed office buildings to potentially the construction of entire floating oceanic cityscapes. It could be "Mad Max". It could be "Bioshock". It could be a whole lot of different things and that has me rather interested. The question, of course, is just what will happen in the lacunae between "what could be" and "what is"; there's a great potential here for this to be great and an equally great potential for this to be a crime against gamers. Just which it actually is, well, we'll find out sooner than you might think, as this is set to come out September 17.
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