Why Grand Theft Auto 5 has a weak and overrated story

Grand Theft Auto 5 launched in 2013 and was clearly a huge commercial success , it made over a billion dollars in the first 3 days of release and had midnight launch queues stretching for miles. It was a graphical and technological leap up from Grand Theft Auto 4 and introduced a huge open sandbox city and map for players to enjoy and explore. This is the largest reason as to why it has sold over 215 million copies and still sells well to this day per year, it gives people the freedom to do basically anything they want to do. A key part of a GTA game is the protagonist and the story itself, in GTA5 we was introduced to 3 playable characters — Michael, Franklin and Trevor. It was the first time the series introduced 3 , likely inspired by the GTA4 DLCs showcasing 2 new stories and playable characters on top of Niko Bellic and the main game. The question is did this work? Did it live up to the highest rated Xbox 360 game being GTA4? I believe the GTA5 story was weak and often overlooked by many people.

To begin with, lets examine the lives and personalities of the 3 playable characters. Michael De Santa — a retired criminal in his mid 40s living with his highly dysfunctional and conflicting family in Rockford Hills, given to him as a place to stay under witness protection by Dave Norton. He has a short fuse which is triggered by minor inconveniences and aesthetically is a fat balding old man who doesn't scream style and cool alike Tommy Vercetti from GTA Vice City or Niko Bellic. We have Franklin Clinton — a typical street gang member doing odd jobs and living a hard life with Lamar who keeps dragging him down in life. His personality rarely changes throughout the whole game and he never really has much character development. Lastly we have Trevor Phillips — who I believe to be the strongest protagonist in terms of writing and character depth who seems like a hill — billy lunatic on the surface but underneath a deeply insecure and tragic character that gets overlooked by many people. He had an unfortunate upbringing and couldn't make it into flying school due to mental conditions leaving him distraught ever since. He demonstrates a deeply compassionate, down to earth and raw personality which progresses throughout the game as his relationship with Michael and other characters develops. This is what i believe is the strongest aspect of the GTA5 story and the rest of it revolves around it rather than bolstering it.

The antagonists in GTA5 are one of if not the weakest aspect of the entire game who have no sense of intimidation, charisma or sense of threat to them at all. The game features a select number of lousy ,comical and really quite lame antagonists who really are quite forgettable and I recently replayed the story to see whether they are any good or not and they're not. We have Martin Madrazo , some drug cartel owner who beats Michael with a bat at the start and then proceeds to befriend him later in the game. We have Steve Haynes who is nothing more than an arsehole co worker who just bickers with the trio the whole game and tries to betray Michael at the end but fails. We have Devin Weston , some pathetic businessman who prances around the whole game and at most withholds payment to the trio for a job. They're the main 3 among others such as the Chinese group and Stretch whom don't hold much authority either. Compare these to the likes of Dimitri Rascalov and Mikhail Faustin from GTA4 or Micah Bell from RDR2 or Dutch from RDR1 and you can see how shallow these are in comparison.

GTA5 I believe leans far too much into satire and comedy and forgets some of its core components. I understand that its trying to make a mockery out of Los Angeles and the surrounding areas but this effect is drawn out too much and makes the game feel like a comedy rather than a grounded story about criminals. Another issue with GTA5 is the fact that a significant portion of the games missions are quite boring and unappealing. There is only about 4 or 5 genuine heists in the game out of 69 main story missions which leaves a lot of them lacking substance. For example to name but a few, the dock mission is terribly boring just moving crates back and forth, Michael going to the Life Invader office is just plain silly and the painfully tedious mopping the FBI floor with Michael highlights how a game made in 2013 is undercut by the majorly engaging missions of Max Payne 3 in 2012 or RDR1 in 2010.

Now lets focus on the map itself and how its design is terribly flawed. The majority of the game takes place in Los Santos(the city) and that is well designed and interesting and fun to drive around. It has diverse areas such as Vinewood, Rockford Hills , Downtown etc which serve their purpose well. Now this makes up only about one third of the map leaving the other 2 thirds basically one big desert with a couple small homesteads like Sandy Shores and Paleto Bay. In these areas there is very little to do, see or engage with other than mountain biking and the military base to steal jets etc. Not to mention the fact that its so boring and tedious to reach these locations as the map is rectangular as opposed to GTA Vice City or GTA4 where every part of the map is populated and engaging. This is clearly a design flaw which hopefully and doesn't seem to be repeating itself in GTA6.

Overall GTA5 thrives on people being able to do whatever they like in an exciting city with relatively modern controls and graphics, and the fact its GTA. Purely looking at the narrative aspect it falls short from the points I've mentioned and therefore shouldn't receive as much praise as it might for this part of the game. Fortunately, GTA6 looks to be improving on every aspect from what he have seen so far and hopefully Rockstar will learn from their mistakes.