Grand Theft Auto Online is one of the most popular games in the world. The live service spin-off of Grand Theft Auto 5 offers frequent content updates, as well as events in between that encourage players to play a diverse range of content. Despite its success and post-launch content support, Grand Theft Auto Online developer Rockstar Games still makes mistakes. Take for example a recent decision by Rockstar to begin removing content to improve matchmaking, a decision that's now been reverted.
In a message from Rockstar shared on July 8, the Grand Theft Auto Online developer announced plans to begin removing certain jobs from the game. The footnote says only that the removal of these jobs will "make room for further updates." On September 16, Rockstar did another wave of job removals, taking out a broad swathe of content from Grand Theft Auto Online's parachuting, sea races, target assault races, and versus missions. The issue with their removal is that it made completing a certain achievement impossible.
The Numero Uno achievement for Grand Theft Auto 5 requires that Grand Theft Auto Online players "Obtain first place in all competitive game types." Naturally, the list of competitive game types required for the achievement includes victories in both parachuting and sea racing, which were no longer accessible. Grand Theft Auto Online players were understandable frustrated with the decision and asked Rockstar to revert the change until it had a better solution.
Rockstar, to its credit, has followed through. In the September 30 update for Grand Theft Auto Online, the Lamar Contact Missions update, Rockstar re-enabled both parachuting and sea races jobs. The jobs were reimplemented specifically to encourage players to unlock the Numero Uno achievement. Rockstar notes, however, that this is a temporary change, though it doesn't clarify when it plans to remove parachuting and sea races once more.
This will apparently be the cycle of Grand Theft Auto Online moving forward. Rockstar will continue removing jobs from Grand Theft Auto Online to "free up space" and "assist with player matchmaking." These jobs will be brought back from time to time but only ever temporarily.
While Rockstar clearly brought parachuting and sea races back to allow Grand Theft Auto Online players to acquire the achievement, it doesn't explicitly mention the controversy regarding the situation. If anything, Rockstar is warning players the achievement will once again be unavailable soon, indicating that it doesn't see the situation as worth making more meaningful changes over. That could change, but Grand Theft Auto Online players would likely be safe to assume that this may be their last chance to acquire Numero Uno for some time.
Grand Theft Auto Online is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.