Rockstar announced Grand Theft Auto V on Tuesday, posting the game's logo on its website along with a note that it will release a trailer on Wednesday, November 2.
The publisher has shipped over 114 million total units of the popular open-world series since it was first introduced in 1997. The most recent spinoff, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, received glowing reviews when it was released for handheld systems in 2009.
Grand Theft Auto III, considered by many game critics and scholars to be a landmark release, made headlines when it was first released in October 2001. The game's detailed open world and high production values made it an addictive, satisfying experience to explore the streets of New York-inspired Liberty City, shooting pedestrians and destroying vehicles in your wake. While other games often gave players important choices, Grand Theft Auto III gave them an entire world, stuffed to the brim with people to meet and places to see. For many gamers, this was an unprecedented experience.
Though Grand Theft Auto III was not the first open-world game, it was certainly the most influential, inspiring countless others over the past decade. Some have used the snarky phrase "Grand Theft Auto clone" to describe the plethora of open-world games that followed in its wake.
Despite, or perhaps because of its immense popularity, Grand Theft Auto has found itself at the center of many controversies over the past decade. Anti-gaming advocates have pinned the Mature-rated series as a poster child for all things wrong with videogames, mostly thanks to its realistic depiction of drugs, violence and prostitution.
In 2005, Rockstar landed in some hot water when hackers spilled the beans on "Hot Coffee," a rejected minigame in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that depicted main character CJ engaging in multiple R-rated sex positions with a girlfriend. Rockstar said it had never intended for the minigame to be seen by players, but Hot Coffee was still hidden deep in San Andreas' code. A resulting slew of lawsuits cost parent company Take-Two Interactive quite a bit of change.
Though we don't know anything about Grand Theft Auto V yet, I'll take a wild guess and predict that there will be big guns, fast cars and plenty of angry protests.
See Also:
