GTA 5 took a record-breaking £500 million in its first day of release and it has been predicted that it could go on to become the world's best-selling game. Leeds Met BSc (Hons) Games Design course leader, Bal Singh, gives his thoughts on the new game.

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) is the fifth game in Rockstar’s fun-packed series. It was released on 17 September after five years' hard work and costing between 120 and 150 million pounds, according to some analysts. Its publisher has announced that the global sales for the first day has exceeded 496 million pounds. This approximately equates to 13 to 14 million unit sales in one day! The last major release of Grand Theft Auto reached a target of 13 million in a whole year. GTA V is available on Xbox360 and PS3, believed to be owned by more than 150 million gamers. It is retailing around £40 and comes with a PEGI rating of 18.

Grand Theft Auto V

The game world is huge which is based on a major American city, bigger than the last release which was believed to be pretty big. The most attractive feature of the game is a shift in protagonist – rather than one you have a three character structure. You can switch between the protagonists in real time – a great innovation in gameplay. Within the same mission, you can rappel down into a building as one character, provide cover for him as another and fly a getaway helicopter by the third one. Some players just admire the beauty of the environment. You can carry on driving and enjoying the scenery for a long time. Some may find some of the missions quite troubling when you are ordered to torture a man. Even though your character insists that the torture doesn’t always work, you are ordered by a corrupt and arrogant government official to use ‘enhanced interrogation methods’. However, the players also know that it is ‘computer generated’ content; not ‘real’. There are a variety of activities to do which may or may not attract every player. The player has a multiplicity of things to do such as tennis, yoga, racing, flying planes, golfing, hiking, hunting, cycling and more. GTA V tells the story through a variety of missions, beyond driving and shooting. Players can have self-directed adventures throughout the city of Los Santos. On the whole, a best ever video game.

-Bal Singh in the Course Leader for the BSc (Hons) Games Design and BSc (Hons) Multimedia & Entertainment Technology at Leeds Metropolitan University

Image used under creative commons license and courtesy of GameXpect.