Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is, undoubtedly, one of the biggest and most successful video game franchises that has ever existed. After GTA III came out on the Playstation 2 in 2001 and became an overnight blockbuster that printed money, everybody started following the franchise and the developers, Rockstar, to see what would come next. I, like many teenagers at the time, thought GTA III was amazing, that GTA: Vice City was a fantastic sequel with overt references to Scarface, and that GTA: San Andreas was the best the series would ever get. Each subsequent release in the franchise made mountains of money on top of the previous mountains. GTA V, namely its online mode, is one of the most profitable games of all time that is still making tons of cash every day. In the years since San Andreas, my opinions on the GTA franchise have definitely diminished for one reason or another, but after watching a team of online geniuses attempt the various heists of the multiplayer mode of GTA V, and watching countless videos of just random crap that seems to happen in that game, I decided to finally give it all a try for myself.

Before V

After San Andreas came out, it would be several years before GTA IV would be released. In that time, my fandom for the franchise began to wane a bit and I wasn’t nearly as interested in that style of game anymore. I played a bit of IV, and I found the narrative interesting. However, the gameplay and the serious, realistic tone were something of a drag. I had always enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek nature of GTA before and how absurd it got from the three games that were on the PS2. With IV, Rockstar took a more ‘realistic’ tone in that the missions became much more straightforward and tied to the narrative. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but the world and the expectations of what you could do in video games have changed.

GTA had previously gotten away with missions involving you driving to a place and then shooting a bunch of guys as your main mission point. There were jokes littered along the way, or some goofy things thrown in to make the missions more meaningful and entertaining, but most of the time, the essential points of the mission were pretty standard. It was either a fetch quest, an escort mission, a tailing mission, a shoot-em-up, or a combination of them all. Back when the PS2 was the game console of choice, it was okay to have challenges built around mundane tasks like driving a taxi through town and getting people to their destinations safely. Nobody had played open-world games on a scale like GTA before then, so there was a novelty to such irrelevant tasks.

With GTA IV, I found the novelty to be wearing off and never bothered seeing the plot to its conclusion. It was similar to how I felt with Red Dead Redemption’s missions in how a majority of that game involved you riding on a horse for 15 minutes at a time until you arrived at a destination and killed a bunch of dudes. You would rinse and repeat the experience ad nauseam, up to the end. Rockstar has been great at creating weird, quirky characters for their stories, but I didn’t think their stories were enough to make me find the mundane activities of the ‘realistic’ series interesting. This was why I was drawn more to the ridiculous world of Saint’s Row: The Third.

Saint’s Row was a franchise that clearly was riding the coattails of GTA by offering another open-world, crime-filled experience. While the first two games didn’t do much to make me think they were more than just a raunchy alternative, it was the third game in the Saint’s Row franchise that seemed to get everything right at the right time. While GTA started going down a more ‘realistic’ path, Saint’s Row decided to become more absurd and ridiculous. Saint’s Row: The Third had some of the same mundane activities of GTA IV, but it was all under the umbrella of a world that was ripped out of a comic book and full of stupid insanity.

Sure, the plot was not as character-driven or deep as the story of an Eastern European immigrant trying to make it big in America, but I found Saint’s Row: The Third to be an infinitely more engaging and entertaining game to play. I’ve since replayed it from start to finish and played the sequel, which wasn’t as good, but still a fun experience. If given a choice between playing only a Saint’s Row or GTA game for the rest of my life, I’d sooner choose Saint’s Row: The Third over the rest, even after finally playing GTA V and its online mode.

With V

GTA V was released with the same crazy amount of anticipation from the public as their previous games and made boatloads of money in the process. Shortly thereafter, the online mode launched in a broken, shoddy state that is pretty typical with online mode launches of that scale. Since then, the game has been re-released on newer consoles and PC, and the online mode has been updated to a more controlled, functional state that continues to make tons of money every day. It wasn’t until 2020, seven years after the game was first released, that I finally decided to give the franchise another try.

At first, I just played the single-player story, which had been lauded as a revelation for game stories and better than any of Rockstar’s previous work—until Red Dead Redemption 2 came out, anyway. The characters had that same sort of tongue-cheek nature and the world felt very familiar thanks to the cynical, satirical take on Los Angeles. The satirical nature of Rockstar’s games has made GTA similar to Paul Verhoeven’s films like Robocop and Starship Troopers in how the intended absurdity of the satire has ended up being more realistic in how the world has progressed since then. Despite the unintentional-documentary nature of GTA V’s plot, I was at least intrigued by the characters, namely Michael and Franklin. Franklin is the typical protagonist of GTA as a rags-to-riches archetype; he was practically a re-imagined version of CJ from San Andreas. Michael is who I found to be the most interesting: the retired thief turned FBI informant who hated his new luxurious life with his terrible family during his mid-life crisis. The third character, Trevor, was the embodiment of the id of a player of GTA who was willing to do all the terrible things the game allowed you to do. He was presented as this unstoppable psychopath and the most dangerous man alive. However, I didn’t really find him that interesting. He typically had access to the more interesting missions because he was the one where all the crazy events happened or the even crazier side characters appeared but didn’t do much to make me think he was worth my time in comparison to the others.

in terms of GTA missions, it’s pretty much business as usual. The first few hours with Franklin involved being a tow-truck driver (so exciting) or driving Michael to his psychologist. It didn’t take long before I was already starting to get bored with everything until the first heist mission took place. Heists were the main mission type that I heard nothing but good things about when GTA V first came out. I did at least four more story heists before I finally stopped playing. The first one was the most interesting and enjoyable of the bunch, but the rest of what I tried had their good points. In comparison to the other heist missions, the first one manages to tap into the mind of every heist-movie fan in giving the same sort of feeling and excitement that comes with scoping out a joint, executing a plan, and then escaping with the money when everything hits the fan. As the plot continued, Trevor became a more central point in the plot, the missions became less enjoyable to the point of having to play a torture mini-game, the pacing of the plot seemed to crawl from one point to another, and I started to lose interest. So, I jumped online.

At first, I had a good amount of fun just surviving the chaotic world of Los Santos with all the other psychopaths (players) running around and blowing up noobs like myself. The absurdity of GTA seemed to find a home in this online environment with bizarre races and challenges, so it was somewhat reminiscent of the Saint’s Row experience. I was annoyed that simple things like robbing liquor stores were only something you could do in the online mode, but I didn’t think much of the decision to make the more fun, unique things an online-only feature, and relegate the lame chores, like doing triathlons with clunky controls, in the main offline game.

Once I became familiar enough with the nature of the online environment, I joined a few online heists with strangers. Despite the numerous times in which the mission failed or something went wrong with the connection, the few times that I managed to join a heist from start to finish were a blast. They were well-written, extremely thoughtful experiences that I wish had been in the main single-player game. I tend to prefer a single-player experience, but playing with strangers online was still a fun time in these scenarios, so I could only have imagined how much fun it would have been with friends—not to make this article sound pathetic.

Why I Quit

There were a couple of weeks when I was compelled to jump back online once I was done with work for the day. The main reason was that there was an actual character progression and a sense of accomplishment with the completion of missions and building up enough funds to create an empire, which was lacking in the main single-player game. However, after the initial moments of success and bumps in funds from heists, random missions, and small business investments, the nature of the online experience began to settle in. The main reason GTA V makes so much money every day has to do with the microtransactions that are in the game. With more than half a decade to figure out the best way to make this online economy work, Rockstar has a well-oiled machine in place to squeeze money out of their players.

I’ve never engaged in microtransactions to improve my experience in a game because I always felt it was a bit gross. I also tend to prefer playing games solo. Both of these attitudes clash directly with the GTA Online money-making philosophy. Almost all of the missions are designed with the expectation that you would be doing them with friends or other players. The matchmaking can sometimes get you into a lobby with other players pretty quickly for these missions and challenges, but, other than the heists, it wasn’t really something that I found engaging.

The heists were the best part of the online experience. However, as I mentioned, getting through one without connectivity issues or the mission failing suddenly was a rare possibility. When it worked, it was exhilarating and fantastic, but as I continued to experience failure after failure, I stopped wanting to try it. Making money was just too tedious of an experience, which was exacerbated since you needed more money in order to get access to more missions and opportunities. If you wanted the solo online experience without paying actual money, all I can say is, “Too bad.” Once the heists weren’t enough to keep me interested, I just got tired of the whole thing.

TL;DR

Long load times, shoddy connectivity at extremely inconvenient moments, and pathetic, unrewarding prizes make GTA Online boring and tedious on an exponential level if you are looking for a single-player experience. Why would I want a single-player game online? Because that’s the only place that GTA seems to be willing to be ridiculous in the way it once was. I became bored with the story that took itself too seriously, even though it was trying to be cheeky, and made me do a bunch of the same Rockstar missions involving deliveries and tow trucks. It was the same crap they’d been doing for years, and I was sick of it. Even the heists in the story were losing their appeal. So I went into the bonkers mode that had flying cars, heists, and the inherent chaos of an environment filled with countless other psychotic players. However, the monetization of the online world makes any sense of progression extremely slow and unsatisfying.

For a brief period of time, GTA Online felt like San Andreas again and that’s what drew me in. It has character progression to make you feel like your avatar is actually becoming stronger and accomplishing goals. It had goofy missions that were absurd and were more geared towards having fun than being realistic. It had well-orchestrated heists available for you to join at any time, assuming everything worked. But you are meant to do all these things with other people and if you get frustrated by the way it performs or the fact that you’re not able to progress much, you’re expected to pay your way to success with your own money. When the gameplay (money) loop finally settled in my mind and wrapped itself around me like a constricting snake, I knew I was done. Unless GTA VI shows a scene of you turning into a toilet, teaming up with a B-list celebrity to fight a zombie outbreak, or flying headfirst through the air into the cockpit of a plane at full speed while simultaneously assassinating every enemy inside with your pistols, I think I’ll pass.