Almost everything shown in today’s gameplay trailer for Grand Theft Auto V was covered exhaustively in Stephen Totilo’s massive preview from two months back. (Don’t worry; there’s a smaller version.) But today marks the first time that we’re able to see some of these elements in action. So, let’s take a deeper look, shall we?
In today’s trailer, you see a bunch of criminal and non-criminal activity being performed and it sure seems like the two categories are going to feed each other.
See that bike racing still? I’m guessing that doing stuff like that, shooting at the gun range and maybe even early morning yoga will increase the character’s strength, lung capacity and stamina.
So, yes, character customization will go beyond looks in GTA V. That ‘Special’ bar up top indicates the special abilities that each of GTA V's troika will be able to wield: melee rage for Trevor, slo-mo shooting for Michael and a slo-mo driving ability for Franklin .
GTA V is the first game in the series to feature the weapon wheel style UI that appeared in Max Payne 3 and Red Dead Redemption. The wheel also shows elements of the weapons customization that will tweak the performance of each firearm.
Speaking of RDR, the hunting that made seem that cowboy game’s wilderness seem so alive is implemented in GTA V, only with fancier weapons:
The character-switching that’s arguably GTA V’s main feature gets shown off from 1:28 to 2:01 of the trailer—clipped below—with the interface at the bottom right of the screen. That bottom section of the character wheel is saved for your Grand Theft Auto Online avatar.
Here's Trevor flying the helicopter:
Michael grabs the guy they're kidnapping:
And Franklin snipes at enemies from a nearby rooftop:
As discussed, Michael, Trevor and Franklin will be assembling crews to pull off the in-game heists. The chunk of trailer that runs from 03:54 to 04:16—clipped for your viewing pleasure below—focuses on the heist planning and show the recruiting of crew members with different skill sets.
These lawbreakers look like members of a crew you can hire for the game's big heists, basically NPCs you spend in-game money on, as described in Totilo's preview.
Take note of the woman’s mugshot above. It’s not quite a lead character but does seem to tease that female character models will be playable in Grand Theft Auto Online.
Two options gets presented for pulling off the robbery: loud or smart. Smart happens first and you can see the running count of the take ticking up in the lower right hand corner.
What’s most interesting about the Loud option is the fact that Franklin and the boys don’t grab the same objective. They bypass the jewelry in the case and grab cash from a vault. Hmmm.... Maybe the different strategies will have different objectives. Or objectives might differ according to heists. We’ll see.
There’s bound to be even more than the stuff we spotted in the full version of Grand Theft Auto V. But right now this looks like an upgrade to the kinds of complexity that we usually see in a GTA game.