Ten Years of Grand Theft Auto V! Your Memories

[Spider-Vice]

 

In the UK it's officially 10 years since the release of Grand Theft Auto V!

 

A game that on these very forums brought some of the craziest moments ever, some moments perhaps even crazier than the GTA VI leaks, right before release, where we scored tens of thousands of posts per day (dates in US format) of people analysing existing leaks, praising and criticising the game before they played it (i.e. handling and car damage), people already being on the last mission before release, those hyped about it coming soon, going to midnight launches, the Jetpack Hunt and much much more! The release of GTA Online right after was also when we broke our record of online users with ~15k, before the GTA VI leaks.

 

Much like GTA VI, there were rumours and fakes through the roof (Unity tech demos being marked legit by people lmao!), and even a "Leaks thread". Through info droughts of many months at a time the community persevered, even if sometimes frustrated, but every news release was a breath of fresh air and a resurgence of the hype everyone knew and loved. Some will remember the infamous "few weeks or so", others will remember the complaints about Max Payne promotion posts and the very unfortunately 2012-style naming of the game by gamers "Max Gayne" (although most people were still anticipating it, the usual), the countdown threads, and so much more that it's almost impossible to link everything unless you were here, or dig. Let's also not forget R* leaving some GTA V images within Max Payne 3!

 

On the 17th September, somebody had posted a short summary of the journey thus far.

 

Love or hate them, GTA V and then GTA Online became Rockstar's biggest games, and as such I'd love to hear from you your memories about the game, the pre-release if you were around, the release, midnight releases if you attended them, and anything else you wanna highlight - just your time with GTAV!

 

May I clarify this isn't a dump thread to comment on Rockstar in general, or if you think they've "fallen off", or whatever, this is about GTA V specifically.

 

------------------------------

 

Myself, I was already active here way back in 2013, in fact I was active through most of the pre-release, but as a PC player I had to wait quite a bit longer for the game to come out. I read a lot of spoilers though managed to dodge most of the big contextual stuff, saw all the hype and frustration happen, was here for the announcement and made one of those "OMFGGGGGGGGGGGG" (and also guessing it was Los Santos) posts about it in 2011, and also witnessed the mods at the time trying to deal with the absolute madness that the last month before release was.

 

Sony had leaked the game's preload accidentally, people datamined it, found radio shows and TV shows, then early retail copies started dropping, folks started criticising the game hardcore over 144p crummy streamed footage and this place became a mess of criticism mixed in with hype. But as soon as the game released most of the B&M/Whine and Complain threads (as they were already called back then, mythical GTAF crying baby picture included) were forgotten about and a lot of the critical folks (of course not everyone) were going crazy finding things in the game and enjoying the Story Mode.

 

Crazy times where there simply is too much to link, but everything is still here on the forums, and all you have to do is order this very section by most replies, most views, or go into the pages above 1000. Love it or hate it, it was extremely good times.

 

Your turn! You can use any of the links above to go back in time yourselves and even explore the old GTA V sections - although many images are dead, all the threads have been preserved.

[happygrowls]

The game that got me involved with this site, I'm thankful for you bunch of crazy bastards.

[wise_man]

I remember the pre-release period.

 

I wasn't in the Forum yet, but I actively checked Youtube, Wiki, the gta5.net, and other news outlets. Those teaser screenshots they shared almost daily were my daily dose of excitement.

 

I also wrote some short fan stories inspired by them on docs, imagining what I thought the story would be. Can admit that GTA V was my gateway to creative concept writing in this forum  so eventhough I'm in a love-hate relationship with it, there's an impactful positive takeaway from the game.

 

Can't wait to move on to GTA VI.

[PhPmayan]

Can't believe its been 10 years. I still remember the day I saw the first trailer and the day I got it! My aunt came for a visit in my country from USA and me and my older brother (he was 13 at that time and I was 9) asked her by email if she could buy us the game for our PS3 and she actually did! We were so excited about this and I remember seeing countdowns in many GTA forum sites until the game's release! If someone asked if I would see the game with this big playerbase in 2023 I wouldn't even believe it.

 

This game gave me many memories that I will never forget!

Every little bit of info I could get on the before the release game I saw it on different websites. 

I remember when I thought that we had to choose what character we have to play on (like 3 separate discs) but turned out its all in 1 lol

 

Can't wait for GTA VI and for what Rockstar is cooking for us i'm sure it will be a great experience!

 

Happy 10 year anniversary, Grand Theft Auto V.

 

 

[Tommy "Nightmare" Smith]

I have some memories over the years with gta v, from the announcement to the release. I remember it vividly because I came across the amazon guy driving down my road to deliver my copy while I was going to my first ever job interview.

 

Most of all I'm grateful because this game gave me a lot of good memories and even more laughs with my nephew

[ionutx02]

Sadly, I didn't even see the pre-release content (including before the first ever announcement and trailer, that were released in 2011) because I was a kid, being busy to watch GTA San Andreas and Beyblade videos on YouTube at that time. My brother's PC barely could run older games like GTA San Andreas. 

The only leak I saw about GTA V around 2012 was this (evidently, when I was watching GTA San Andreas videos I came across this video in the recommended videos list:)

Spoiler

 

After the game was released, I remember watching videos about the game and I was shoked how different is compared to GTA San Andreas. I wished to play so much, that I installed GTA San Andreas ragdoll mods. I only played GTA V for the first time in 2016 when I bought a better PC, then I started to play GTAO in November 2017 and I had a lot of fun with my friends, playing the game for a year. I also remember the RDR2 revolver event in GTAO, while I didn't even know about Red Dead Redemption and that Rockstar is set to release another masterpiece

Edited September 16 by ionutx02

[Mats.]

I really loved the pre-release time here on the forums.

[Covered Wagon Fan]

GTA V was the first GTA game I ever played.  I pre-ordered the Special Edition for the Xbox 360 that came with a steelbook (back then I though a steebook was a book with steel pages etc) and a map.

 

I went to my nearest Gamestop to collect the game on the day of release, very excited.  When I got home and tore off the shrink wrapping and opened up the box, everything was there except the steelbook.  So I checked on the internet to see what a steelbook was, and I found out it was where the two game discs were kept.

 

I played it for a good bit, then I got a very bad cold and didn't touch the game for a long time.  I finished the main storyline on the 11th of August 2014.

 

I also ended up buying the game four more times for the Xbox One and Series X and PS4 and PS5.

[Lemoyne outlaw]

where does the time go? feels like it was yesterday that i was watching early gameplay of the first few missions over and over. then when youtube took them down i would search for more. by the time i got the game at the midnight release. i had already memorized so much dialogue. even though so many people hate on 5s story. i still think it's pretty good. although there is plenty of room for improvement.

 

i liked the multiple protagonist idea. but we don't get enough story for each of them. and each protagonist has their own set of friends and antagonists. like franklin has with stretch and the ballas. and trevor with the triads and the lost mc. they aren't seen much and they don't have much story to them. i assume rockstar didn't want to make the story too long because people complained how long gta 4 was. so they wanted it to be a little smaller. but having three protagonists and each one having their own individual stories going on seemed to be too much. i still like the story. but i can also understand why some people didn't. i just wish we had gotten the story dlc we were promised. i think that would have helped add more to the story and characters that needed more screen time.

 

i remember spending so much time off roading on a sanchez or quad bike in the desert with trevor. it was so much fun. and i still do it nowadays occasionally. i remember seeing all the content in this game and being amazed. having fighter jets and supercars. a desert and a countryside. small towns and a huge city. i just loved the variety of it all. and i really can't wait to see what kind of variety we get with gta 6. 

 

thanks rockstar for all the memories and fun times you gave me with gta 5. although as much as i like gta 5. i am very much looking forward to playing a new gta again. 

[PIEMONTE]

The one game my friends and I consistently come back to time and time again. Unreal soundtrack too. 

[E•MO•TION]

10 years?

 

 

Looking back, the one thing that really sticks out to me about the release is how cold it was for the midnight release. I showed up at the local EB Games around 10 or so, winter jacket and all, and spent the next two hours shivering in line lmao

 

Promptly went home to install the game, play a few missions, and fail a high school chemistry test that morning

[TheSantader25]

Man I feel so f*cking old. I consider this game the second best game I've ever played behind San Andreas so it's definitely special to me. It's crazy that thinking about it makes me all nostalgic now considering that we don't even have a newer GTA yet.

 

The pre release hype is unrepeatable. The night it was released, waiting for it to install with all them artworks  during the installation was truly special. I played nonstop for 3 days and finished it. I've probably played the story 10 times by now and have spent countless hours with my friends online. Though I don't visit online anymore I'm sure I'll revisit the story in the future again.

Edited September 17 by TheSantader25

[WinterFrosty86]

I can confidently say till date no other game has beaten this game's vibe of driving around in sunsets with non stop pop radio

Edited September 17 by WinterFrosty86

[Ancient Dreams]

Ahh, the feeling of getting back from school and powering on my xbox 360 to press play gta 5... miss those times so much

 

Edited September 17 by Ancient Dreams

[EddieLTU]

This is it, i am for sure old. The entire hype for the game was big, and it took me until the May of next year when i finally got the game, and i played the living crap ever since.

[GhettoJesus]

I remember the trailers and my classmate pre-ordering it. We were all hyped for it, and I read all 6 or 8 (I forgot how many) pages of the review in the gaming magazine I used to read. Hell, I even remember watching gameplay with a few of our friends on one of our phones before classes in school. We watched it with no volume because turning it up would have been a no-no, so we tried to guess what they were saying. I remember we guessed that Michael and Friedlander are having an argument, and that they are planning a heist or something.

 

As I didn't have a console, and my PC wasn't strong enough to run the game, I patiently waited until I managed to put together a better PC that could run it, and I got to play the game in 2016. Until then, I basically spared myself all the gameplay and spoilers, so I was super excited. I didn't even know that the first mission starts in the snowy Midwest in 2004, so I was surprised to say the least. I expected a main menu or something at least.

 

It was super fun for the first playthrough, but the game dropped the ball in so many aspects in retrospect.

[John M]

As a player since day one, for me GTA V is like a second home, something you can't do without, which always takes you back to your origins. Even though every now and then I can feel bored of the game (I'm referring more to GTAO) but when I see the Los Santos skyline at sunset, or listen to a song from Los Santos Rock Radio, it always makes my heart sink and everytime it's a very strong emotion!

 

For this special occasion, I've just released a Cover of "Higher Love" by Steve Winwood from Los Santos Rock Radio, here's the Full Song + Videoclip, hope you enjoy!

 

 

This game has accompanied me and many other people for the past 10 years, it is not something we can ignore, it will remain in our hearts forever

Edited September 17 by John M

[ClimateLockdowns]

The hype for the game at the time was insane I can remember playing GTA Online for the first few months it was so much fun not knowing the map it felt so much bigger than today doing Down The Drain and Rooftop Rumble to rank up I wasted so much money selling cars so I could buy others for my 10 car garage haha happy birthday GTA V 

[(Vip)Met]

Ten years ago today I was going to get a (totally legit and legal) copy of GTAV for XBOX 360 with my middle school friends, then went home and launched it and watched together.

[yb11]

I remember going online every day in the pre-release phase and hoping for new info to drop. Then, whenever something new dropped, I would spend hours looking at every little detail in all the screenshots and trailers and watched tons of analysis videos on Youtube. Ever since then, about once a year, I would watch all the trailers in the order they were released and get this nostalgic feeling. 

 

Btw, I only recently realized that R* seems to have deleted the second GTAV trailer from their official accounts. Does anybody have any idea why they did that?

Edited September 17 by yb11

[vulkan251]

1 hour ago, yb11 said:

I remember going online every day in the pre-release phase and hoping for new info to drop. Then, whenever something new dropped, I would spend hours looking at every little detail in all the screenshots and trailers and watched tons of analysis videos on Youtube. Ever since then, about once a year, I would watch all the trailers in the order they were released and get this nostalgic feeling. 

 

Btw, I only recently realized that R* seems to have deleted the second GTAV trailer from their official accounts. Does anybody have any idea why they did that?

Did it have a copyrighted song in it? cause if so they might be getting ready for removing songs from license expiring

[Gettin up]

I lost interest waiting and didn't have PS3 or Xbox at the time. So for me the release date was actually in 2015 when it was released on PC.

Still, I think it changed a lot from previous games and can't wait for GTA 6.

[Spider-Vice]

1 hour ago, yb11 said:

Btw, I only recently realized that R* seems to have deleted the second GTAV trailer from their official accounts. Does anybody have any idea why they did that?

That happened a few years ago already, I'm assuming some sort of issue with using the song in the trailer.

[DeathNyx]

I always played all games since release starting from Vice City but after GTA IV i kinda abandoned the series only to return in GTAV (thx to GTAO) in recent years. In any case... happy 10th anniversary GTAV.

Can't wait to celebrate GTAO as well, hopefully there will be an huge event!.... Right?

Edited September 17 by DeathNyx

[bahraini_carguy]

Today also marks my 11th year on GTA Forums.

I was 13 when i joined this forum, with a late 2000s dell laptop and a then-decade old beige PC running windows XP. I still kinda remember all those realistic steaks memes, that Zidane troll dude, that time someone leaked a photo of the submarine and the countless hours that i've wasted on trailer analyst/whining threads all day long. There was also that video series that's basically a mockery of threads on GTAF but it seems to have been lost to time sadly. I don't think i was ever that much hyped for any game ever since GTA 5 came out, some came close but never quite (admittedly, i partially lost interest in most modern games that aren't from Rockstar Games and RGG Studio).

I remember having to pay around freakin' 32 Bahraini Dinars ($85-ish in 2013 money) for a copy just because it was "banned" (yes & no but that's a long & confusing story). I didn't mind though because i really wanted to play this game. Aside from the occasional awkward moments, i really enjoyed it despite some minor shortcomings. In fact, i liked it so much that i've bought it again...and again...and again...and maybe even in the near-future if i got tricked into like funding a big gaming company once again.

 

Also, shout out to everyone who participated in the OG North Yankton thread, including @WildBrick142, @theNGclan and @universetwisters.

Edited September 17 by bahraini_carguy

[Legomanarthur]

The wait for this game was excruciating. I remember when the first trailer dropped as well as the first screenshots months and months later, it was tough. And in spite of preordering the game way in advance, I still received my copy a day after release. Thank goodness for my Xbox 360.

While I have some gripes with V, it's not a bad game by any means, I certainly played Online more than storymode which I didn't expect to when the game came out. To think that it's been ten years and we still haven't gotten an "official" announcement of its sequel by R* is quite depressing but hey, it's going to happen eventually, right?

 

Anyway happy birthday GTA V!

 

[Johnny Blackbird]

At this very hour (13:59 CEST) I bought GTA V. I still have the receipt so that's how i know the hour September 17th was a crazy day.

According to my trophies, I finished the prologue and the first mission almost at 19:00. The rest is history.

[mr_j]

Some of us might have some love and hate with this game (Online that is), but it all started with the trio in 5. Probably because it was the weather.

 

They did improve and tried various settings since GTA III, and with each one they pushed further (story, gameplay, setting, even the music), making you feel like in NY in 2000, or 2008, or in LA, filled with parody and horny jokes.

 

I madly loved to play RDR2 as some keep forgetting they work on other games as well, but GTA is something I still love to comeback to. Be it Liberty City or vibing through the '80s or free roaming in Sandy Shores, they achieved quite a lot with GTA 5, and gave players a lot to do, sometimes maybe a bit too much

 

Thank you Rockstar Games. Your games are also like a time machine, which make us go back in a different time, live through memories linked to them. 2013 was no exception.

 

Happy 10th!

 

 

And please, for the love of gaming, please think and reconsider the game balance and the in-game setting/realism next time you think adding a stupid flying bike or car. It doesn't fit at all.

[Zak Ras]

It was the first GTA game I bought on release day, what with finally being an adult.

 

Oddly, I remember a kind of immediate indifference to the announcement trailer. It was amazing to see Los Santos again, all the life in the city, planes being reintroduced, I didn't know Michael (who I've very recently learned was called "Balcony Man") was gonna be a main character. It must've been having gone through GTA IV's marketing, that last game I remember following the lead-up to via gaming magazines, and knowing how long R* could go between releasing Trailers, and ultimately how long it would take until we got to release day. But the internet had evolved since 2007 - I remember my introduction to the Rockstar Newswire was Olli43's GTA V o'Clock that he did in the months leading up to GTAV covering any and all news he could get his hands on.

 

Doing a weekly check of that newswire was the first time I'd done that since 2009/2010 in the lead-up to Halo 3: ODST & Reach. And unlike GTA IV, I heard about their plans for post-release episodic story content when they announced it themselves. Granted, we've taken an extended detour across LS, and the Caribbean Sea, but that's resulted in one character that I don't know if R* will ever be able to replicate the history and invesment that players have put into over the last decade... but I'll leave that there for another 2 weeks.

[Garfield 2]

Remember how fed up we were with Liberty City after 4 years?