It has been over a decade since Grand Theft Auto 5 first launched, and a superb few years since I final cruised across the streets of Los Santos. The truth is, I solely realised after loading my five-year-old save (after a little bit of faffing the place I needed to set up each the brand new Enhanced and the outdated Legacy editions of the sport then add my Legacy save to Rockstar earlier than redownloading it for the Enhanced version) that that is the one GTA recreation that I by no means accomplished.
Returning to this spit-and-polished iteration of GTA 5, I used to be reminded concerning the good and unhealthy of Rockstar’s money-spinning machine. I am impressed by simply how content-rich GTA On-line has grow to be but saddened by how the single-player has been left behind; I am impressed by how nice the open world of San Andreas nonetheless seems and feels to zoom round in, but additionally terminally bored by the prescriptive mission design and archaic controls which are one thing of a Rockstar hallmark.
Briefly: it has been bittersweet.
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GTA 5 Enhanced efficiency evaluation: Neglect max settings, my recommendation is to allow Very Excessive RT and benefit from the present
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What is the distinction between Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced and Legacy?
We have already detailed the variations between GTA 5 Enhanced and GTA 5 Legacy, which the unique model is now known as, however the gist of it’s that the sport now advantages from full ray tracing, DLSS, and FSR assist, and provides in a bunch of stuff to make the net side extra inviting and engaging.
Some video games undoubtedly profit from ray tracing greater than others. Within the comparatively shine-free world of The Witcher 3, as an illustration, I needed to actually look for the variations far and vast earlier than finally falling in love with a wood-panelled wall in Novigrad that appeared notably scrumptious when the solar would shine via its window.
In GTA 5, the ray tracing actually jumps out at you. The patchwork paving of the streets soaks up these polluted pink sunsets, the neon signage for each spoofily named store you may think about beckons you in off the road, and the mushy glow of each orange streetlight bounces cleanly off the chrome of your automobile. For me, GTA 5 was all the time proper up there with films like Nightcrawler and Drive at capturing the alluring alienation of nighttime LA via the driving and road lighting, and ray tracing amplifies that impact fantastically.
Ray tracing additionally lends itself effectively to emphasising the seediness of late-stage capitalism, from the way in which nocturnal promoting shimmers with uncanny realism in each remotely reflective floor to assault you from all sides, to the elevated distinction between gentle and darkish, which implies that the illuminated issues that companies need you to see pushes the precise structure of the town into the background.
GTA 5 Enhanced is correct up there with Cyberpunk 2077’s Evening Metropolis on the subject of extending ray tracing from a graphical luxurious right into a thematic device.
GTA 5 Enhanced is correct up there with Cyberpunk 2077’s Evening Metropolis on the subject of extending ray tracing from a graphical luxurious right into a thematic device (which is apt provided that Los Santos is just about a modern-day precursor to Evening Metropolis, with the whole lot that GTA 5 pokes enjoyable at turning into starkly manifest in CDPR’s imaginative and prescient).
However I digress. What else is new right here? Nicely, there at the moment are animals in GTA On-line, which I solely discovered about when mounting the kerb to keep away from hitting a kitten (and wiping out a yoga teacher as an alternative). The newly on-line fauna comes with a each day problem that sends you to take wildlife images out within the wilderness: a pleasant, stress-free approach to spend some downtime between the cross-city cocaine runs and random shootings.
I hadn’t engaged a lot with GTA On-line earlier than, however dipping into it now it is superb simply how a lot of it there may be: cutscenes, challenges, enterprise administration, mini story arcs involving outdated favourites like Tony Prince, and even continuations of the Story Mode’s marketing campaign, comparable to one collection of missions which helps you to be part of Franklin and Lamar of their enterprise ventures years after you left them.
I’ve all the time bemoaned how GTA 5 did not give us singleplayer story expansions like we noticed with GTA 4, however seeing the sprawl of content material in GTA On-line in 2025, I can a minimum of see the place all these assets went. GTA On-line is an absolute behemoth, and after simply a number of hours of organising my Rollo’s Rejects Motorbike Membership and stumbling via my first cocaine operation, I can a minimum of say that I get it, even when I want a few of this was slightly extra accessible with out different gamers round to hassle me.
In different methods, regardless of how a lot botox and facelifting it will get through ray tracing and enhancements to its on-line mode, GTA 5 is inevitably displaying its age. First up: there’s the matter of motion. It sort of feels such as you’re grabbing your avatar’s head in a claw grip, then tilting their higher physique within the course you wish to go earlier than the legs comply with.
On-foot motion on this recreation is sludgy, top-heavy, and looks like driving a tank underneath the affect of ketamine. It is a problem that is pervaded each Rockstar recreation since GTA 4 proper up Purple Lifeless Redemption 2, however a minimum of within the latter you’ve gotten do not should navigate the sharp angles and alleys of city sprawls, and may considerably justify it by the truth that Arthur Morgan is actually trudging via mud more often than not.
Then there’s the mission design that forces you to comply with Rockstar’s imaginative and prescient for the mission to the letter. There’s nearly all the time a particular path to comply with, a particular yellow dot on the mini-map that you need to stand on, a particular angle from which to method an encounter, and on-the-fly character-switching—a cool concept in precept—is not practically as creatively carried out because it might’ve been.
You’re feeling like a baby being directed for a college play: “Stand here–no, not right here, right here, good, now swap to him, then kill him, however do not be noticed in any other case you may should restart, and we do not need that now, will we?” At one level, I occurred to drive previous a mission marker the place I used to be supposed to purchase masks for a heist, and was hit with a Mission Failed merely for driving previous the store. Within the area of seconds I might someway activated then failed the mission!
There’s nothing incorrect with a superb scripted motion film sequence the place you are chasing a crashing jet in your bike throughout half the state, or have to parachute out of a falling cargo aircraft. GTA 5 nails these moments, however they’re highlights in a sea of humdrum missions crammed with fail-states, stringent guidelines, and wave-defence shootouts.
For such an completed open-world recreation, it is superb how little of that freedom will get expressed within the missions themselves.
For such an completed open-world recreation, it is superb how little of that freedom will get expressed within the missions themselves, which really feel like they’re simply giving the participant one thing to do between the sassy cutscenes and story development. Once more, that is very a lot a Rockstar downside, going all the way in which again to the primary 3D GTAs, however man does it have to type it out for GTA 6.
If GTA 5’s getting slightly stale in the way in which of mission design, it nonetheless shines in detailing its world. The infinite promoting, the soundscape of radio presenters, the truth that you may stroll right into a gasoline station and spend 5 minutes studying the ridiculous labels on all of the foodstuffs and magazines (RIP) nonetheless quantity to one of many strongest visions for a videogame world.
Positive, a few of the spoof branding would not fairly land (Life Invader because the Fb equal, Krapea as IKEA), however the sheer silliness of Jizzy Jims as a stand-in for Jimmy Jazz speaks to my internal adolescent, whereas the sheep-themed Bleeter because the in-world reply to Twitter feels much more on the mark in right now’s on-line world of echochambers and groupthink than it did again in 2013. GTA 5’s mad, mad world covers the spectrum from puerile pastiche to sharp satire, and there is nonetheless nothing fairly prefer it.
If we had been to make use of GTA 5 Enhanced as a barometer for what GTA 6 will probably be, then the longer term is, for higher or worse, on-line. This is not to say that this version is not the easiest way to play GTA 5 (it’s, in case your PC has the specs to deal with it), however past the gleaming graphical enhancements, the whole lot else on this model is tailor-made to make GTA On-line that bit extra interesting.
Even I, as a Story Mode loyalist, was shortly pulled in by the brand new Profession Builder in GTA On-line, which helps you to decide one in all 4 profession paths to present your on-line journey a bit extra of a course and narrative bent. The opposite huge highlights of the Enhanced version are the automobile customisation store Hao’s Particular Works and Oscar Guzman Flies Once more storyline, each of that are for GTA On-line.
And naturally that is smart, as a result of in a large replace like this why would Rockstar direct us to the aspect of the sport that is sequestered away from the grind and microtransactions and different service-game money-making trappings? I can not precisely begrudge it, as a result of the net product is an efficient one, however I do hope that GTA 6 is a little more accommodating for solo gamers to partake within the infinite wealth of actions loved by the net bunch, such because the way more detailed companies administration aspect of the sport, or by providing extra solo-friendly methods to tackle a few of the storylines in GTA On-line.
This Enhanced version leaves me each hyped and cautious for GTA 6—hyped as a result of it showcases Rockstar’s industry-leading skills for constructing participating open worlds (and if it might do that 12 years in the past, simply think about what it’s going to do right now), however cautious as a result of it highlights how a lot the studio’s focus with the collection has shifted in direction of the service mannequin, which can demote the singleplayer factor to a type of elaborate lead-in to the ‘most important occasion’ of GTA 6 On-line. However hey, we have a while to attend but—particularly us PC of us who’ll arbitrarily get it later than console gamers—so I could as effectively get my cocaine enterprise off the bottom and catch-up on all of the content material I missed in GTA On-line over these previous a number of years.
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