On the evolution of Grand Theft Auto

Grand Theft Auto V is now playable from a first-person perspective.

That is, Grand Theft Auto, a series that’s as equally notable for its original birds-eye viewpoint as it is its current third-person stance, can now be viewed through the blood-shot eyes of its frenzied protagonist for the very first time.

To see how we’ve made it this far is to recollect the gradual yet incredibly realized evolution of the series as a whole. This, after all, is a game that breathed into life only via a botched attempt at making a simplistic top-down racing game. What followed, as evidenced by Grand Theft Auto Five’s new-gen refinements, were games as consistently enthralling as they were technically overreaching.

The original Grand Theft Auto game propped you atop the shoulders of one of its many interchangeable sprites and asked you to simply keep one eye on your beeper. Ah, the early nineties. Only by ignoring those monotone, dull chimes however did you ever get a sense of just what the overarching Grand Theft Auto ethos was. These linear city streets, with their sheer angles and colourful, fluttering denizens were simply begging to be explored and chartered. Every notable landmark, be it a parking compound in the washed-out pastel corridors of Vice City or a bus depot in San Andreas’ heat-baked suburban enclaves was a potential cache of precious ammunition or even a bribe token. This wasn’t a game that tethered you to its story and asked for little more than your completion, it was something else, something that reveled in your exploration of its every recess.

Of course, you could go park a petrol tanker in the middle of a police precinct and detonate it as per your beepers command, but you could also go and electrocute yourself on a train-line and watch in unsuspecting glee as your character turned into nothing more than a skeletal husk. These were the choices of the unshackled, and choices that would come to define Grand Theft Auto games just as much as their progressive stories or their unwavering ambition would.

The jump from Grand Theft Auto London to the three-dimensional haven of Grand Theft Auto was, up until recently, the defining passage of the series. No more encased within the walls of a suffocating labyrinth, you were free to watch your character run and gun and breathe, all from a brand new third-person perspective. Weapons rattled and churned with a decidedly realistic catalogue of sounds, the world moved and swayed without the need of your interaction, and the city burned and soaked against fiercely realistic weather increments. There was a true face to your genocide this time, too. His name was Claude, and although he never spoke a word, his tattered green pants and glossy black bomber jacket would come to be as much as staple of the GTA legacy as CJ’s jetpack and jeans or Tommy Vercetti’s floral print shirt and off-white sneakers.

Whereas Vice City brought us a similar world, albeit one bathed in an enchanting eighties glow, San Andreas went further than any other GTA to date, giving us the largest, most diverse sandbox we could ever hope to play in. From its misty forest tree-lines to the towering downtown skyscrapers, San Andreas ended a run of three successive, yet equally enjoyable GTA titles that all brought the series forward in their own inimitable style. Whether it was the three-dimensional world of GTA III, the wholly unique setting of Vice City or the overawing size of San Andreas, Rockstar’s games remained the same at their heart, yet succeeded partly due to their persistent evolution and unwavering need to make each successive game a completely different experience than the last.

Things in the GTA universe didn’t just get bigger though, they also became far more sophisticated and well rounded. Stories became these unforeseen blockbusters that unraveled beneath your very eyes and on account of your very actions. No more were you simply given money and told to ‘go away’ following the completion of a story mission, but instead you were given a reason to see it out to the end, even if you were otherwise content to simply raise your proficiency with the BMX or cover your morbidly obese incarnation of CJ with tribal tattoos. This was the GTA of the modern age; a game that lived and died by its tried and true emphasis on freedom, yet offered something more than just a series of aimless killing sprees amidst an urban high-rise.

In the case of Grand Theft Auto IV, not only was it a truly terrific game driven by an encapsulating story and littered with things to do, but it also basked in its own distinct identity. Ever since the original Grand Theft Auto, the game has been just as much about natural progression as it has been about firing a rocket launcher at a mass of traffic. Missions that cater to this level of wanton destruction yet still remain true to the games semi-realistic approach are perhaps the most enjoyable of the lot. Missions like GTA IV’s bank heist for example, or GTA V’s task of lifting a Hydra jet from under the noses of the military. And that’s before you even factor in the whole other entity that is GTA Online, too.

If it would seem that the Grand Theft Auto series has met some sort of progressive endpoint following the release of Grand Theft Auto V, then the aforementioned announcement that I made note of atop this article should belay any fears. Grand Theft Auto V is now playable entirely in first person, and that is perhaps the biggest leap that the series has taken since its original move to 3D. Just how different the Grand Theft Auto experience is when looking through the tinted glasses of its protagonist remains to be seen, but the mere fact that this is a possibility stands true to Rockstar’s continual investment in the Grand Theft Auto philosophy.

I sure as hell can’t wait to see what the distant future holds for Grand Theft Auto.