Class A thugs: why Grand Theft Auto Online marks a new beginning at Rockstar

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...GTA-Online.jpgIf GTA V’s singleplayer campaign is the gateway drug, it seems Online is where players will get a shot of the really hard stuff. With GTA Online that feeling of dashing or driving around a living world is no longer illusory; promising a persistent and continually expanding world, it’ll be the reason to return to Los Santos long after GTA V’s final cutscene is played out.Plenty of what we see in the video released today is unsurprising. Player customisation is de rigueur for this sort of thing, as is the ability to form crews, take part in missions together and earn a reputation. Earning (and spending) money along the way, building a property empire and splurging cash on fast cars will all be enhanced, online parts of what Grand Theft Auto has always been.What’s truly new is the expansion of that world. In the past, Rockstar has spent years (and hundreds of millions of dollars) building a meticulously detailed game world, only to stop and move onto another. GTA Online will bring a sense of permanence to Los Santos, and every future expansion of its borders will give players a fresh reason to return over weeks, months and years.Limitations have hardly been an issue in Grand Theft Auto before, of course, but the places Rockstar has realised so wonderfully – Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas – have always been finite, regardless of their scale. Even with the advent of GTA IV DLC, Rockstar never extended Liberty City’s borders, giving us new things to do within them instead. The promise of an ever-expanding space in GTA Online almost makes GTA V’s singleplayer campaign appear restrictive in comparison, however spectacular it turns out to be.

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