Development of Grand Theft Auto V

The development of Grand Theft Auto V began after Grand Theft Auto IV's release in April 2008. Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto V on 17 September 2013 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, on 18 November 2014 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and on 14 April 2015 for Microsoft Windows, as the fifteenth entry in the Grand Theft Auto series. Their flagship Scottish studio Rockstar North oversaw the work, sharing it with other studios around the world. The development team considered the game a spiritual successor to many of their previous projects like Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3. Grand Theft Auto V was unexpectedly announced in 2011; it was heavily promoted and widely anticipated.

Rockstar overhauled their proprietary Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) to increase its draw distance rendering capabilities. The game uses the Euphoria and Bullet engines for further animation and environment rendering tasks. The developers tried to use all of the potential power of both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, having become familiar with the systems' architectures over several years. The development team conducted extensive field research in Southern California while creating the game's open world, set in and around Los Santos, a fictionalised depiction of Los Angeles.

Grand Theft Auto V is the first game in the series that allows players to control three protagonists, to distinguish the game from its predecessors and let players explore the open world with fewer constraints. The team used motion capture to record the facial and body movements of the characters. Like previous games in the series, Grand Theft Auto V has an in-game radio that can tune into fifteen stations playing more than 241 tracks of licensed music, as well as two talk radio stations. The game also features an original score composed over many years by a team of five music producers.

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