Five New Screenshots

In what could be considered Rockstar's holiday gift to their hoards of GTA fans, they releasedfive new screenshots in the early hours of Monday morning showcasing more of GTA V. Share your thoughts on these new screenshots over at GTAForums.

GTAV Fan Trailer with Niko, Luis & Johnny

While we know through Game Informer's preview that GTAIV's main character Niko Bellic won't be making an appearance in GTAV, Rockstar Games aficionado and CGI expert JANTSUU went to work to give us a realistic (and humorous) take on what it may look like if Niko, along with the two other main characters from GTAIV's episodes, appeared in the game.

Watch on YouTube

Amazing work! Make sure to check out his other GTAV video and channel, as well as the related topic on GTA Forums.

Fan Video: GTAV Trailer 2 remade in GTAIV

A lot of you have probably already seen the recreation of the second GTAV trailer within GTAIV by GTAForums user Golonka. We never get tired of these, so we wanted to shareanother recreation uploaded today by YouTube user GTA5Poland.

Great work indeed! We particularly loved the boat and dog scene recreations.

GRAND THEFT AUTO V Official Announcement

We are very proud to officially announce that Grand Theft Auto V is in full development.

Developed by series creator Rockstar North, Grand Theft Auto V heads to the city of Los Santos and surrounding hills, countryside and beaches in the largest and most ambitious game Rockstar has yet created.

A bold new direction in open-world freedom, storytelling, mission-based gameplay and online multiplayer, Grand Theft Auto V focuses on the pursuit of the almighty dollar in a re-imagined, present day Southern California.

Download Grand Theft Auto V logo desktops, backgrounds, avatars and icons at the Rockstar Games Downloads section.

Previously:
Grand Theft Auto V Trailer

Interviews with Rockstar North's Aaron & Les

As part of the 10 year anniversary celebration for GTA: Vice City, Rockstar North producer Leslie Benzies and Art Director Aaron Garbut took to the web for a series of interviews looking back at the development of the game.

While most of the interviews relate to Vice City, there were a few questions and answers relating to more recent things that we thought were interesting and worthy of sharing, including thoughts on future GTA locations and the possibility of setting a game in Vice City again!

Below are the links to the full interviews, followed by quotes we pulled out that we found interesting:

• Leslie's interview with Digital Trends
• Aaron's interview with Crave Online
• Aaron's interview with T2

First is from Aaron, talking about modern day research trips at the company:

These days it's a very structured affair. Our research team schedules and organizes the artists with guides and off-duty cops and we come back with hundreds of thousands of extremely hi-res GPS stamped images.

Second is where Aaron talks about how there were thoughts on doing more than just a city in GTA Vice City:

We had talked about doing the Everglades. I think we even roughed some of it in. That would have been great. Basically expanding out of the city into the surroundings would be good, you get such good contrasts, but that was something that we devoted a lot of energy to in the later games.

Next is where Les talks about future GTA locations, answering the question "Any chance that Vice City might return in a future GTA?":

It is always a possibility. There are a few references to the city in our current-gen GTAs so it is part of that HD universe, and it is certainly somewhere we would love to revisit. However Vice City, perhaps more than any other GTA game, was as much about the era as the setting. Miami in the 1980's is so iconic it would feel strange to revisit the city in a different time period.

Of course at some point we would like to have one big world containing all our cities and let the player fly between them and revisit their favorite areas, and in that context reimagining Vice City would be very interesting.

Lastly, is just a little fun and interesting quote from Aaron:

I unfortunately do torture myself reading every comment I can find on Twitter or forum which is never good for your headspace.

Rockstar Fansites Roundup: GTAV Art in Motion, Post-Trailer Fun, Vice City Pin-Up Girls and More

Since last month's release of the second Grand Theft Auto V trailer, we've seen all sorts of fun original creations, analysis and other GTA-inspired madness popping up on the web and reliably featured by the faithful ring of dedicated fansites out there. Here's a roundup of just a few goodies worth checking out...
 

• The same day as the Official Trailer that Wednesday the 14th, quite talented fan artist Ferino Design from deviantART posted the above impressive motion graphics piece, "Grand Theft Auto V: Art in Motion" - which takes an assortment of GTAV illustrations and brings them to life over a nice vibey dusted out mélange of Gil Scott Heron and Ghostface Killah. Can't argue with that. Kudos to Ferino and special shout to the folks at GTAGaming for being amongst the first to bring it to our attention.
   
• A loyal attendee of our Social Club multiplayer events and longtime fansite community member,GermanScientist of RockstarBase.com created this sweet gallery of animated GIFs culling fan-favorite moments from Trailer 2. You can dial through them all athttp://www.rockstarbase.com/grand-theft-auto-v-gifs to grab clips perfectly suited for Tumblr or forum use including such shots as the Three Wise Monkeys sequence, a slo-mo rendering ofTrevor's brush on the railways, and the airborne bailout over Los Santos.

Via Rockstar24.eu, Grand Theft Auto V at the top, and 2004's GTA: San Andreas at the bottom.

• Polish fansite Rockstar24.eu recently showcased a fairly comprehensive comparison gallery of Los Santos pitting the city as it appeared in 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas against screenshots from Grand Theft Auto V that originally appeared on GTAForums. Strong work rounding up such spot on compositions in San Andreas. Have a look at the entire gallery athttp://rockstar24.eu/portal/?p=255.
   
• Your reactions, commentary, analysis and speculation in the wake of Trailer 2 kicked off within moments of its release and are still ongoing whether on YouTube, here at the Newswire, or at fan forums around the web. Massive, massive thanks to GTA fans everywhere for the love you've shown for the trailer and for the awesome excitement and anticipation you've shown for the game this spring - believe that we're just as excited to get GTAV in your hands. Stay tuned for lots more to see and hear about the game in the new year, but of course also expect that as always we'll be keeping a good bit of info back as things for you to discover for yourself by experiencing them firsthand when GTAV comes out. In the meantime, here's some speculative fan recaps and analysis posts you can dive into at Rockstar Network, GTA Warehouse, the ongoing 'Mapping Los Santos' project at GTAForums and in polish at Rockstar24.eu. Feel free to share other cool ones in comments below.

Toronto's Brandon Arseneault recreated two of Vice City's most iconic ladies with a provocative pin-up girl twist.

• Brandon Arseneault on deviantART recently painted these striking homages to the ladies of Vice City below - namely the iconic Martini Girl complete with brilliant diamond shaped earrings and pink bikini, and adult film superstar Candy Suxxx in her signature patriotic swimwear - giving the original character concepts a provocative pin up girl twist.


• Ubiquitious Social Club member and avid YouTube broadcaster GTALAD4EVA aka Lewis recently put together a sweetly sentimental tribute to GTAIV that he calls Grand Theft Auto IV -  Goodbye Liberty City (Get Ready for GTA V). Nice one, Lewis - although of course there's still much action still to be had in the streets of Liberty.
   

• This one caught our eye a couple weeks back on YouTube. An impressively made live-action GTA fan film from director Gevorg Karensky.
  "Grand Theft Auto: RISE is about the birth of an underground hero. He is not the hero that we are used to seeing. He is submerged in his own internal darkness. He is a protagonist. People will fall, things will break, he will be left standing alone in a tunnel with no light at the end.
  This is a different take on the live action version of the world famous Grand Theft Auto IV."
  There's also a short 'making of' video showing some behind the scenes footage of how it all came together, and another clip posted showing a glimpse of the visual effects trickery used in post-production. Cheers once again to GTAGaming for being amongst the first to send it our way.

• Last but not least, and also in the vein of the throwback GTA comparison shot gallery mentioned above, this clever fan-created video above is an attempt at recreating GTAV Trailer 2 shot-for-shot using mimicked footage taken from Grand Theft Auto IV in Liberty City. Amazingly, the clip was completed in just three days, having been uploaded on November 17th. A shout to Social Club members d10nislaw, phaedra90731, KillerAssassin16, RamzHBK and zigeclolek - just a few of the fans who shared it here in the Trailer 2 Newswire comments.

Thanks once again to the entire GTA fan community for your amazing support and excitement. Stay tuned for more and of course if you've seen something great at the fansites or around the community worth sharing, or if you've created something you'd like to let us know about, we'd love to check it out - just drop us a line at mouthoff@rockstargames.com.

Vice City 10th Anniversary Edition Now Available for Android Devices

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City 10th Anniversary Edition is now available for select Android devices from Google Play. This 10th Anniversary Edition is an enhanced version of the award-winning original game, optimized for mobile and tablet devices with several new mobile-specific features including an intuitive, fully scalable and customizable user interface, new camera controls, upgraded textures, greater resolutions and increased draw distance. See below for a list of compatible devices. Vice City 10th Anniversary Edition is also available from the App Store for iOS.

Android Phones: Motorola Atrix, Motorola Atrix HD, Motorola Atrix 4G, Motorola Photon, HTC Rezound, HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Samsung Galaxy Note, Samsung Galaxy Note 2, Samsung Galaxy R, Samsung Epic 4G, Samsung Galaxy S2, Samsung Galaxy S3, Google Nexus 4, Sony Xperia Play, Sony Xperia Sola, Sony Xperia S / P / T & TL, Sony Walkman Z Series Media Player

 

Android Tablets: Acer Iconia, Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, Asus Transformer Pad TF300T, Asus Transformer Pad Infinity 700, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 / 7.7 / 8.9 & 10.1, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, Sony Tablet S, Sony Tablet P, Sony Xperia Tablet S, Toshiba Thrive, Toshiba Regza, Google Nexus 7, Google Nexus 10, Fujitsu Stylistic 10.1

 

Apple iOS Devices: iPad, iPad mini, iPhone 4, 4S & 5, iPod touch 4th & 5th Generation

 

Apologies to all of our Android-using fans for the slight delay. If you already purchased Vice City 10th Anniversary Edition while it was briefly available on Google Play last week, you won't need to re-purchase it - just download the latest update from Google Play (if your phone is set to automatically download updates then you're already all set to go). For any additional support issues, contact our support team here, via email or on Twitter.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Now Available for Download on PSN - Watch "The Introduction"

As promised yesterday, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is now available to download from the PlayStation Store. The game is currently available at the PlayStation Store in North America, Europe and Australia.

To help prepare you to go back-back to SA, what better to watch than "The Introduction" - the original 20-minute prologue video that highlights the action in the days before the story in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas begins. The Introduction is told from various characters' viewpoints, which are intertwined together to reveal the network of organized crime forces operating throughout the state of San Andreas. Tension builds as threats are carried out, stakes are raised and communication breaks down. In Los Santos, a drive-by shooting in Grove Street Family's territory ignites a series of events to be further explored in the game.

And quite timely in the midst of our Vice City Anniversary celebrations, "The Introduction" also helps provide some insight into characters like Ken Rosenberg and Kent Paul who made the trip from Vice's sunny beaches in pursuit of fortune and fame in Los Santos in 1992. Watch "The Introduction" above or as a new entry added to our Videos section at www.rockstargames.com/videos.

Xbox 360 players can also get San Andreas from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Coming to PSN Tomorrow

We know GTA fans on PlayStation 3 have been eager to be able to download and play the original Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from the PSN Store for quite awhile now and we're happy to announce that it will finally be coming for download there tomorrow, Tuesday December 11th (the game is also currently available for Xbox 360 players via the Xbox LIVE Marketplace).

Stay tuned as we will officially confirm the availability of San Andreas at the PSN Store here tomorrow at the Newswire.

Dan Houser's interview with IGN

Closing off the week on online previews for GTAV, IGN has posted an interview they conducted last month with Rockstar's VP of Creative and GTA writer Dan Houser.

Doing other cities just didn't seem appealing. Doing small towns is very appealing. There's a bunch of small towns and villages and whatnot in there to discover and play around in. Doing other cities, though, felt like it was going to create problems we didn't need. It wasn't going to add to the experience. Of course you could do a game with a bunch of cities now that could be pretty interesting, but we didn't think that was going to be this game. This map is going to be spectacular to people when they start exploring and playing around with it.

Read the rest of the interview at IGN

Community Roundup!

GTAV Trailer #2 remade in GTAIV, by forum member Golonka

Only a few weeks into November and we've already had a GTA V packed month so far. A variety of press previews, a ton of screenshots and artwork, all topped off with a brand new trailer, has left the Community with plenty of information to discuss and dissect. The overwhelming amount of information is a lot to take in, but it has no doubt left fans with an unquenchable thirst to get their hands on the game this coming Spring.

Read on for the latest community roundup, compiled from our own GTA Forums

The introduction of Michael, Trevor and Franklin as the series' first instance of multiple playable characters has split the Community in more ways than one. While their backgrounds are still not completely known, we can see they each have a distinct personality, and this has indeed shown us that Rockstar are taking Grand Theft Auto to even greater heights in terms of storyline. All fans have a different playing style, so one of the best things about this "bold new direction" is that every taste is catered for. Here's a few opinions from some forum members on who their favourite guy is:

Franklin
The reason why I like Franklin and I will play as him the most is because I feel I can relate to him, he is young and ambitious, and I think his story will be the most interesting out of the 3 protagonists. If you ask me, the main reason most people think he is bland is because they think he will be exactly like CJ, I liked Carl but I think Frank's story will be much different to CJ's story, like Dan Houser said, he is "the gang-banger in the post-gangbanging world" that's what got me excited.
- Gtaghost22

Michael
I really like Michael because he reminds me of the retired Vercetti, who always has been my favourite character. He seems to be the brain in the group and seems more like a real, classy gangster like the old days. He is a criminal with style.
- Jimmarn

Trevor
Trevor obviously has a messed up past. R* knows a psychotic protagonist like this (since it's new to the series) will deserve an interesting level of depth. Just think, Tommy was a badass, but he didn't revel in chaos. Tommy CONTROLLED chaos. CJ... I have to admit, came across a bit weak at times, but it made sense to his story. With Niko, we met a man confused with life. A man that yearned for peace of mind. His story was just the beginning of R*'s amazing new writing. Next, we had John Marston. A man who has made a lot of mistakes in life, and is trying to fix them. John's ultimate testament was that karma is very much real, and that he could never escape his inner demons.
And now, in GTA V, we have a new man, a man with no morals. A man who has NEVER made a mistake in his life. A man who dances with his inner demons, and who revels in the dark, chaotic truths of the world. That man... is Trevor. What dark secrets will unravel from the fresh, intriguing depths of this new character? SPRING 2013 holds the answer. If I was to guess though, his story would be similar to Claude screaming just one word. Thought I forgot about that silent protagonist didn't you? The way I see it, both Claude and Trevor are almost the same. Only difference is that Trevor can express himself a bit better.
- GTA-King

Game Informer Reader Q&A

As promised, GI Editor Matt Bertz has just posted a reader Q&A with answers to questions posted directly from fans on their website comments.

Whilst most points have been covered previously, there are some new tidbits of information such as character interaction and abilities.

And in case you haven't listened yet, Game Informer also released a special edition podcastyesterday, where they discuss their first impressions of the press demo they received at Rockstar Headquarters. Be sure to check GI's GTA V Hub for other features released so far.

Summary:

You can't play the entire game as one character; sometimes you have to a solo mission as each character to advance the story.

No co-op in the story.

Some missions with all three characters you have to switch between them and then are given the opportunity to choose afterwards.

Can't kill another character when playing as one of the three.

Michael can walk around his house and interact with his family.

Can buy new clothes.

In free roam you choose to play whichever character you want.

Each character is from a different part of Los Santos, but you can go anywhere you want.

Natural Motion Euphoria used just like in IV, RDR and MP3.

Entire map is open from the beginning.

LV and SF definitely not in game.

Downtown area of LS is smaller than Liberty City

During demo, game and switching characters ran perfectly without lag.

Swimming underwater confirmed, plenty of areas to explore.

Plenty of boats and hoes.

Internet on smartphone.

Lots of TV shows.

Trevor able to set things on fire when he wants, not just in missions.

Each character has his own inventory and money. Subject to change before release, though.

No CJ.

No characters from III, VC or SA.

Couple of familiar faces from IV will visit.

Variety of races included; cars, bikes, triathlons.

Still working on Wanted system.

Rockstar didn't answer when asked if Xbox will have multiple discs.

Discuss on GTAForums

Two new GTAV Screenshots

From Xbox's facebook page, here are two new screenshots.

The first shows Trevor climbing the Vinewood sign (previously seen from a different angle).

The second is from a mission featured in the press demo that various publications recently wrote about, where Trevor drops Michael off on the roof of the FIB tower.

Community Spotlight: GTAV's Art in Motion

We've seen several of GTAV's official artwork emerge over the last couple of weeks, which resemble a really a cool and engaging vibe. It's definitely interesting when you line up the art from the GTA games since GTAIII, as seen on the GTAnet home page.

A member of GTA Forums, jBhIpS, decided to take things a step further by putting some of GTAV's official art into motion by layering things out and animating it. All of us here at GTAnet have been super impressed and amazed by his work that we couldn't resist sharing it with the rest of the community!

Have a look on YouTube and discuss on GTA Forums.

New GTAV Screenshots

Hope everyone enjoyed today's trailer! Here's a little something extra. Check out these four new screenshots we just received. Click for full resolution versions.

Grand Theft Auto V Trailer 2

With a year since the release of the first trailer to Grand Theft Auto V, the second trailer is finally here! The song used in the trailer is Stevie Wonder's "Skeletons".

Discuss at GTA Forums.

IGN's interview with GTA Producer Les Benzies

IGN has put up their interview with Rockstar North studio head and GTA Producer Leslie Benzies. In addition, they've also released two new screenshots.

There's several bits of new and interesting information. We've pulled all of them out and placed them below in its original form, from the mouth of Les:

We do have a bunch of missions in GTA V that are far more freeform than anything we have done before. We tell you to go get something and the player decides how to do it - what characters they need on the job and what tools they need for those characters.

Animals aren't just a backdrop - you can expect to see dogs guarding areas and causing the player trouble when they try to sneak past them.

If the player wants to get their hands on one of the more 'high end' vehicles early in the game they'll have to work for it. For instance, airport security won't let you just wander in and steal a jet, they'll give you some serious opposition.

Weapons are slightly different since we have to find a balance between giving the player freedom and giving them a challenge. Letting players have any weapon they want, whenever they want it, would make earlier missions less of a challenge and less satisfying. That being said, as the player makes progress through the game they will build up a satisfying arsenal.

Refining open world multiplayer into something really special has been a huge focus of development and we are very excited to share more information with people soon.