Grand Theft Auto V
Dive into Los Santos for a wild ride through crime, chaos, and three stories
When a young street hustler, a retired bank robber, and a terrifying psychopath find themselves entangled with some of the most frightening and deranged elements of the criminal underworld, the U.S. government, and the entertainment industry, they must pull off a series of dangerous heists to survive in a ruthless city in which they can trust nobody — least of all each other.
Grand Theft Auto V is Rockstar North’s fifteenth flagship crime saga and the fifth entry in the HD Universe. Released in September 2013 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, it has since been remastered for every successive console generation and remains a top-seller on PC. Lifetime sales stand at 220 million units and roughly $10 billion in revenue, making it the second-best-selling video game ever created.
Setting & Narrative
Nine years after a bungled robbery in the snow-swept town of Ludendorff, North Yankton, retired stick-up artist Michael De Santa is living out a beige existence under witness protection in Los Santos. A routine repo job for a crooked car dealership throws him together with Franklin Clinton, a young repo man and small-time gangbanger who sees the older thief as a mentor. When Michael impulsively wrecks a gang leader’s prized ride, the resulting debt pulls Franklin into the robbery game and, more dangerously, re-ignites Michael’s appetite for the score. Their first casual heist—a jewelry-store smash-and-grab—goes viral on the nightly news, broadcasting Michael’s face to every TV in the state and dragging the third ghost out of hiding: Trevor Philips, the meth-dealing, hockey-masked wild man who thought Michael had died in the Ludendorff snow.
San Andreas: Los Santos & Blaine County
Sun-bleached, smog-choked megacity that stretches from the glass towers of Downtown to the neon boardwalk of Vespucci Beach, all of it stitched together by traffic-clogged freeways and a soundtrack of hip-hop, yacht-rock, and right-wing talk radio. The city’s postcard skyline masks a caste system of Beverly-Hills mansions, Latino barrios, Korean strip malls, and trailer parks that cling to the hills like stubborn brushfires. Just beyond the city limits, Blaine County opens into an arid expanse of meth labs, wind farms, biker bars, and dusty airstrips where every dirt road ends at a liquor store or a police standoff. The contrast between urban excess and rural collapse fuels the game’s satire: yoga studios and celebrity gossip shows play on radios next to O’Neil brothers’ meth kitchens; movie studios green-light superhero blockbusters while coyotes pick at corpses in the Alamo Sea.
Characters
The trio plan increasingly audacious scores, climaxing with the raid on the Union Depository’s multi-million-dollar gold reserve, all while fending off corrupt FIB agents, Chinese triads, private-security moguls and their own dysfunctional pasts. Chronologically, the plot sits five years after Grand Theft Auto IV and eight years before the GTA Online “Contract” update that revisits several key characters.
Michael De Santa
Michael De Santa is a retired bank robber living in a luxury mansion with a highly dysfunctional family. Despite his wealth, he is bored and frustrated, which eventually leads him back into the criminal world. In combat, Michael possesses a unique "special skill" that allows him to enter bullet time, slowing down time to significantly improve his shooting accuracy.
Franklin Clinton
Franklin Clinton is a young street gangster who works as a repo man but harbors ambitions of becoming a high-level professional criminal. He develops a father-son relationship with Michael, who acts as his mentor. Franklin’s expertise lies in driving; his special ability allows him to slow down time while behind the wheel, enabling him to navigate through traffic and take corners at high speeds with ease.
Trevor Philips
Trevor Philips is a mentally unstable former military pilot who lives in a trailer in Sandy Shores. He runs "Trevor Philips Enterprises," a business dealing in drugs and weapons. Trevor is known for his psychotic and reckless behavior, which often causes friction with his partners. His special skill allows him to deal double damage to enemies while taking only half as much damage himself in combat.
GTA Online
GTA Online went live on 1 October 2013, exactly fourteen days after GTA V’s record-breaking debut. Servers buckled instantly: players hit time-outs, frozen loading screens and vanishing characters. Rockstar rushed out two emergency patches, suspended real-money micro-transactions for a week and eventually mailed every early adopter GTA$500 as an apology. Once the fires were out, the mode settled into a 30-player shared Los Santos where crews, races, heists and freemode mayhem ran 24/7.
DLC
Instead of paid expansions, Rockstar adopted a “free-update-as-a-service” model. Annual highlights include:
Heists (2015) – the four-classic-bank-job set fans had demanded for 18 months.
Bikers (2016) – clubhouses, meth labs and illicit supply chains.
Gunrunning & Smuggler’s Run (2017) – bunkers researching rail-gun attachments and hangars for contraband air-lifts.
The Doomsday Heist (2017) – a globe-trotting, three-act finale with orbital cannons and flying HQ Avenger.
Cayo Perico (2020) – the first solo-ready heist and an entirely new island.
The Contract (2021) – Franklin Clinton returns, studio sessions with Dr. Dre, and narrative missions inside GTA Online.
Money Fronts & A Safehouse in the Hills (2025) – luxury mansion ownership, white-collar laundering schemes and Michael De Santa’s first canonical appearance since 2013.
All told, more than thirty major drops have added hundreds of vehicles, businesses, radio tracks and quality-of-life tweaks, keeping the world in perpetual rotation.
Radio stations & OST
Grand Theft Auto V marked a historic departure for the franchise by becoming the first GTA game to feature a full original score alongside its traditional licensed radio music.
Released in 2013, the game's score was a collaborative effort between four distinct musical forces: German electronic pioneers Tangerine Dream, American composer Woody Jackson, and hip-hop producers The Alchemist and Oh No, with legendary DJ Shadow mixing and arranging the final interactive stems. Together, they produced over 20 hours of dynamic, adaptive music that responds in real-time to player actions.
Radio Mechanics
Players will experience radio interference when leaving a station's broadcast zone. Blaine County Radio is exclusive to Blaine County, while WCTR is only available in Los Santos County. Leaving these areas while tuned to the respective station causes signal loss and automatic switching to the next station. Electromagnetic interference may occur when passing under large structures like tunnels or bridges. The radio wheel is unavailable in North Yankton.
Character Interactions
Each protagonist has preferred stations and will dance to music they enjoy while in closed vehicles:
Franklin: Radio Los Santos, West Coast Classics, The Lab, and Blonded Los Santos 97.8 FM
Michael: Los Santos Rock Radio, Vinewood Boulevard Radio, Radio Mirror Park, The Lowdown 91.1, and Space 103.2
Trevor: Channel X, Los Santos Rock Radio, and Rebel Radio
