New ‘Grand Theft Auto 5′ Rumors – Customization, Hostages, Animals, & Map Image?

The Grand Theft Auto 5 trailer has set off a flurry of speculation around the Internet – due to the limited number of details that were revealed in the teaser. Of course, there are a few things we do know: the game will take place in and around Los Santos (including beaches and the wealthier countryside areas), online multiplayer will return, as will the series’ focus on a deep story campaign.

That said, despite a number of theories, we still don’t know the game’s release date or even who Rockstar has selected for the central protagonist. This limited amount of Grand Theft Auto 5 confirmed information hasn’t stopped countless, albeit convincing, rumors from circulating – and today, we have another batch of potential gameplay details that, unsurprisingly, contradict prior reports.

Rockstar Games founder, Sam Houser, has already promised a GTA experience that represents “another radical reinvention of the Grand Theft Auto universe. We are incredibly excited to share our new vision with our fans.” It’ll be interesting to see what Houser and Co. classify as “another radical reinvention” – given that, while the scale of the Grand Theft Auto series has increased over time, the basic core mechanics have remained largely the same.

Previous reports speculated that the “new vision” would feature co-op campaign play, 32 player online game modes, car customization, as well as a Hispanic protagonist named, Adrian. In combination with the footage shown in the trailer, it was all but assumed that many of these details were accurate.

That is, until today, when a poster on the on the Grand Theft Auto forums, claiming to be affiliated with a “PlayStation magazine in the UK,” dropped a number of fresh tidbits after hearing details from a colleague who, allegedly, saw thirty minutes of gameplay. It goes without saying that the following details should be taken with a major grain of salt – since the source of the posting amounts to hearsay – not to mention some of the entries either contradict prior “leaked” information or sound less like concrete details and more like a carefully crafted list of confirmations that fans are hoping to hear (piloting planes and no more “dating”).

[Note if the story is fake, despite their best efforts, the list is still missing a number of items in our What We Want from Grand Theft Auto 5 feature.]

Here’s the full list from GTA forums poster/alleged journalist GTA5RULESALL (who hopefully has a higher standard for spelling in print than online – can you spot all 8 typos?):

Hi all, I am new to this forum and what I am writing here is not to spam/troll, etc. I work for a Playstation magazine in the UK ( I will not be disclosing any further details….) and a select few of our team have seen via video links with Rockstar in Scotland 30 minutes of in-game footage. I have not, personally, been privy to this unfortunately but I will relay to you what I have heard so far and I promise you that none of this is BS but that is down to the lot of you fans to judge. Ok, here goes:

• 1: The game world is absolutely massive and will push both xbox and PS3 to the very limit in terms of what it has accomplished. Yes, the main city is simply Los Santos however is it AT LEAST 4 times bigger than Liberty City in GTA 4 and that is just Los Santos. The surrounding country side, beaches, etc are massive. For instance, we saw the main character ( an African/American, early 30′s) travel by car from the center of Los Santos into the wildnerness and it took over 15 minutes. The views were incredible from farmhouses with cattle, huge wind farms, an oil refinery which appeared to be living and breathing with nearly 100 NPCs working on machinery, operating vehicles, lifting and loaded, etc, unlike the gas works in GTA 4 which seemed to only house a few NPC at a time. The forests are more beautiful than those in RDR and featured people camping, young NPC drinking and dancing around campfires, people riding dirt bikes and jumping over logs, streams, etc. The water effects, forna, plants, trees all looked beautiful.
• 2: The shooting mechanics have been greatly improved with animations for diving, climbing, rolling and crawling all added for better realism. The re-loading animations for new ammo also look cooler, less static.
• 3: There is much more climbable elements in the world such as ladders, overhand climbing, etc.
• 4: There are animals in the game from dogs to cattle but at this time it is not confirmed if you will be able to harm the animals. Rockstar were able to get away with it in RDR as it was a true depiction of the world in which the game was set. Allowing dogs/cattle to die in a game sent in current times may cause headaches with PETA. Its unclear if Rockstar were joking here.
• 5: There are planes to pilot and they can be crashed into buildings if you choose to do so….
• 6: Rockstar have included many, many more interior locations such as a shopping mall, college campus, police station, a huge hospital and there is also a vast underground sewer network which one mission later in the game involves a jet ski chase that culminates in a Fugitive-esque waterfall jump ( there are nods to the ridiculous but awesome Ballad Of Gay Tony missions).
• 7: The city is full of NPCs jogging, weight-lifting, hitting on women, being chased on foot by cops, shopping, washing cars, fixing fences, moving home, filling up their cars, etc.

Other details the poster designated as “Really Juicy info”:

• 1: Cars can be upgraded/repaired and it has been considered to have a car have fuel forcing the player to fill her up.
• 2: The dating aspect of the game is gone. You still have a cell-phone but only people you will meet in the game will call you to ask you to do a mission or to ask you to do something else before the mission.
• 3: Weapons include the usual arsenal you’d aspect but the flamethrowers, remote mines, laxer trip mines and claymores are included. It is possible now to pick up random objects in a street/buidling to use as a weapon. There is also a museam where it is possible to steal old age swords, axes, etc.
• 4: It is possible to rupture a fuel line and if you shot at the trail of gasoline it will lead straight back to the car blowing it up.
• 5: Mini games such as bowling, darts, etc have all gone. You can play basketball, weight train, arm wrestle, gamble and cage fight, enter triatholons, water races, cannoing, ab-saling, rock climbing, base jumping, ski diving. More to be confirmed.
• 6: Character customisation is back but only in terms of clothing, body weight, etc. The player you start off which, much like CJ, can’t be altered by race, age, height, etc.
• 7: Rockstar said burglary missions may return but only as part of missions and not on neigbourhood houses.
• 8: No children NPC at all. Ever.
• 9: There is now an ability to grab people and use as sheilds or in “hostage” situations.
• 10: The cops are much, much, much more realistic. If you kill somebody when you know there are no cops around you will not run the risk of a one star as often as you would in GTA4. The cops will use smoke and tear gas, dogs, riot gear and rams to knock down the doors of buildings you are hiding in.
• 11: You can enter some buildings and lock doors, push objects in the way to barricade.
• 12: You become better at things as the game progresses. If you only ride motorbikes then you will increase your skills, same as individual weapons.
• 13: Certain weapons can be customisable and some even home-made.
• 14: One mission involves breaking out a very familiar GTA icon from a previous game…
• 15: Torrential rain fall and sunshine and even tremors will appear in the game.

Obviously the ethnicity of the protagonist directly contradicts earlier reports – unless rumors are true that the story will actually feature multiple points of view. The tidbit about “breaking out a very familiar GTA icon from a previous game” is especially interesting – as many people claimed to see Grand Theft Auto: Vice City protagonist, Tommy Vercetti, in the trailer. Could the poster actually have insider information or… are they just as in the dark as the rest of us – stoking the fires of speculation with information people want to hear?

Gameplay mechanics and plot details aren’t the the only Grand Theft Auto 5 info circling the net – Kotaku reports that an “alleged Rockstar employee” has posted what could be an image of the Los Santos map via Twitter.

Check out the potential first-look at the Los Santos map below:

The Twitter account is pretty suspect, once again resulting in more questions than tangible answers. The user is hiding behind an anonymous name, under the handle @torontoJack233 – and ended their brief stint on the social networking site with the following tweets: “Good job i resign in 2 weeks nice to do something good before i go” and “I wonder what my boss would do if he found out? #gtaV”. Of course, the user’s original promise to delete the image “after 10 minutes” is stretching past 6 hours now.

The map itself looks real enough but if “toronotoJack233″ really wants to help eager fans (and piss off their superiors), maybe they should drop some real info and clear up some of these rumors – not just post a monochrome map and disappear into the Internet.

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Follow me on Twitter @benkendrick.

Sources: Kotaku and the GTA Forums [via GameRanx]