The player is able to get up and explore the bleached stucco mansion, passing the tennis court (you can play a match if you like), then bumping into Michael's bored wife as she clambers into a sports car on the front drive. In the demo Rockstar shows us, he starts out sunbathing by the pool like Ray Winstone in Sexy Beast, the city shimmering in the distance beyond his landscaped gardens. Here we meet lead character Michael, an ageing bank robber who fulfils that most fecund of crime-fiction archetypes: a crook who's made good, retired to a fancy house, but now misses the excitement of the old days. While GTA IV took place in Rockstar's cold, shadowy version of New York – the ironically titled Liberty City – the latest title heads cross-country to Los Santos, a monstrous, sprawling pastiche of Los Angeles. Many will be talking about little else for the next three months.ĭeveloped at Rockstar's Edinburgh studio, with input from several of the publisher's other developers around the globe, GTA V is another darkly humorous crime adventure, crammed with sleazy gangsters, corrupt politicos and dodgy cops.

When the first details started leaking across the web last Thursday, social media channels went into meltdown as gamers scrambled for titbits of information. This is Grand Theft Auto V, the latest title in a series that has dragged video games kicking and screaming onto the cultural agenda. In the background, a neon pink sunset detonates across the sky. And as shots ring out, one chopper spirals out of the sky, black smoke billowing from its shattered tail. This is an aerial shoot-out, hundreds of feet above the densely crowded streets, a breathtaking action set-piece, befitting the most vainglorious Hollywood blockbuster. Quickly, the craft glides away from its pursuers while a gunman leans out and fires back. They are searching for a third chopper, and they find it, hovering beside an anonymous government building. Two helicopters swoop down over the city, zigzagging between looming skyscrapers. The new GTA V teaser reveals a world of crazy stunts, parachutes and.

Gta v demo