It was just last week when Rockstar Games announced Grand Theft Auto 5 with a simple logo taking over their official site, which quickly became a countdown timer leading to yesterday where the first GTAV trailer was unveiled.

After speculation of the game being based in Los Angeles and rumored details of story and co-op/multiplayer support, we're finally able to piece together analysis from the trailer as well as official information from Rockstar Games today, where they've issued the first official announcement regarding the title.

First, the official lowdown: Rockstar describes Grand Theft Auto 5 as their largest and most ambitious title yet. As we know, the game will take place in and around Los Santos, including the beaches and the surrounding countryside. The game promises a deep story and online multiplayer is confirmed. While the trailer yesterday seemingly presented more of the same from what Grand Theft Auto 4 brought fans, Rockstar Games founder, Sam Houser, hints that the game will be quite different.

“Grand Theft Auto V is another radical reinvention of the Grand Theft Auto universe. We are incredibly excited to share our new vision with our fans.”

That's the official and outside of the multiplayer confirmation - something we expected anyway - nothing new is revealed. Taking Houser's words into consideration when looking at the Grand Theft Auto V trailer more carefully, perhaps by "radical reinvention" he is referring to the structure of the story. While there is one clear narrator voicing the trailer - who sounds like Ray Liotta's Tommy Vercetti character from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City but it's not according to his rep - the gameplay footage clearly presents at least three different characters individually and together for what appears to be a bank heist.

Could that mean the narrative switches between different stories as players play different characters? Could online multiplayer then include co-op play? This is one of the rumored leaked details as well as one of the key features we listed in Game Rant's wishlist of five things we want from Grand Theft Auto 5 - it does offer the next logical step to the series.

The last bit of speculation is surrounding the game's release date. Grand Theft Auto 4 released in 2008, nearly four years ago, and we've suspected for a long time that GTAV would release in 2012, justified further with the timing of the game's announcement and trailer. While Rockstar hasn't set a release date, and they carefully worded that the game is in "full development" in their official announcement, the trailer looks rather polished for in-game footage.

Grand Theft Auto 4 came out four years after Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and next summer would put Grand Theft Auto 5 nearly another four years after that. NowGamer pieced together from rather interesting information that hints that the release fate of GTAV could be on May 24th of next year. There are two reasons for this, first being the below screenshot from the trailer [click to enlarge] which contains the numbers "2405" (i.e. May 24) at the bottom, just below a sign that says "For Sale."

Part 2 of this theory related to the song played during the trailer, "Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake" by Small Faces, a song that originally debuted on May 24, 1968. Coincidence? Or is Rockstar going ahead with another spring release for their next Grand Theft Auto game?

On a side note, the more I listen to the narrator, it really does sound like Ray Liotta to me...

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Source: NowGamer, IGN