96 Fun Facts About Gta V

Which Rockstar studio led the development of Grand Theft Auto V?

Rockstar North: the Edinburgh studio began in Dundee as DMA Design, where it made the cute puzzle hit Lemmings before turning to car theft with the first Grand Theft Auto.

Which fictional state is the main setting of GTA V?

San Andreas: the state returns from the 2004 game, where it also held San Fierro and Las Venturas, but GTA V rebuilds only its southern end around Los Santos.

GTA V's sprawling main city is modelled on which real American city?

Los Angeles: Rockstar's artists logged Street View coordinates for each city block, then sent location scouts to photograph the real spots before building Los Santos.

In GTA V, what breed of dog is Chop, Franklin's four-legged companion?

Rottweiler: Chop officially belongs to a friend, yet he lives with Franklin for most of the story, tagging along for walks, games of fetch and the odd chase.

Who voices Trevor Philips?

Steven Ogg: he gave Trevor far more than a voice, acting out the scenes in a motion-capture suit, so the character's movements and face are his as well.

In GTA V, what was Michael De Santa's surname before he went into hiding in Los Santos?

Townley: he swapped the name for De Santa in a secret deal with a federal agent, which left his old partner Trevor believing for nine years that he was dead.

In GTA V, what do Michael and Franklin rob in their first heist together?

A jewellery store: the pair hit Vangelico to pay off a drug lord whose house Michael wrecked, and the player chooses between gassing the staff through a vent or going in loud.

In which town does GTA V's 2004 prologue heist go wrong?

Ludendorff, North Yankton: Michael is presumed dead after the botched robbery, and his accomplice Brad ends up buried in the grave that carries Michael's name.

In GTA V, the IAA is a parody of which real US agency?

The CIA: the game's IAA feuds with the FIB, its version of the FBI, and the protagonists are forced to rob one agency's armoured car on the orders of the other.

In GTA V, which disabled hacker plans the crew's heists?

Lester Crest: a wasting disease keeps him in a wheelchair or on a cane, so he runs each job from his computers as planner and scout while the others do the legwork.

In GTA V, which skill is Trevor's built-in speciality?

Flying: Trevor trained as a military pilot, and once out of the service he turned those piloting skills to smuggling.

In GTA V, what does Michael's special ability do?

Slows time in combat: each lead's ability fits his speciality, so Michael the marksman gets bullet time for shoot-outs, a trick borrowed from Rockstar's own Max Payne games.

In GTA V, slipping unseen into which business instantly wipes a wanted level?

Los Santos Customs: the garages take over from the Pay 'n' Spray shops of earlier games, and their doors stay shut if a patrol sees you coming, so you have to shake the police first.

In GTA V, which billionaire corporate raider becomes Michael's enemy over a movie studio?

Devin Weston: he tries to shut the studio down for an insurance payout, and when Michael's attempt to stop him ends with the death of his lawyer, the billionaire swears revenge.

What is the target of GTA V's final heist?

The Union Depository: the raid on its gold reserve comes off, but success brings the story's cruellest choice, as Franklin is promptly told to kill one of his own partners.

In GTA V's finale, which option lets Franklin spare both Michael and Trevor?

Deathwish: rather than kill a friend to order, Franklin rallies the whole trio for a last stand, and together they then pick off every enemy who wanted them dead.

In GTA V, which private military company do the protagonists repeatedly clash with?

Merryweather: the crew steals a prototype superweapon from a ship the firm guards, only for their own planner to make them hand it straight back before the government comes for them.

In GTA V, which gangster fresh out of prison repeatedly sets Lamar up?

Stretch: he swaggers home as a gang veteran demanding respect, but he made friends among the rival Ballas while inside, and the deals he brings keep ending in gunfire.

GTA V's focus on heists grew out of 'Three Leaf Clover', a celebrated bank job in which earlier game?

GTA IV: players raved about its one big bank robbery, but writer Dan Houser felt it hadn't fully caught the thrill of the crime, so the sequel was built around planning and pulling off heists.

In GTA V, which rundown desert town in Blaine County does Trevor call home?

Sandy Shores: the town grew out of a research trip to Bombay Beach on California's Salton Sea, where the designers half expected a real-life Trevor to burst out on them.

The actor behind one of GTA V's lead characters is a cousin of the man who voiced which earlier GTA hero?

Carl Johnson: Franklin's actor is a cousin of rapper Young Maylay, who voiced CJ in the 2004 game, and it was DJ Pooh, who had worked on it, who told him about the new part.

What is the name of Rockstar's proprietary game engine used for GTA V?

RAGE: the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine made its debut in a 2006 table tennis game, and was overhauled for GTA V so players could see much farther across the map.

Which German electronic band, veterans of 1980s film soundtracks, helped write GTA V's original score?

Tangerine Dream: founder Edgar Froese used to refuse game offers as 'stupid', but after Rockstar flew him out to see this one he signed on and wrote 62 hours of music in eight months.

Which hip-hop producer curates and hosts his own radio station in GTA V?

Flying Lotus: on his station, FlyLo FM, he mixes new music he wrote for the game with other artists' tracks, and slips in a song by his own rapping alter ego, Captain Murphy.

Which British model voices the DJ of Non-Stop-Pop FM in GTA V?

Cara Delevingne: the model recorded the station's links in 2013, a piece of casting that put a crime game on the fashion pages of Vogue and the Telegraph.

GTA V launched in September 2013 on which two consoles?

PS3 and Xbox 360: the game was first slated for spring 2013, then slipped to September so the team could keep polishing it.

Which fictional cult was used in GTA V's viral marketing?

The Epsilon Program: fans who filled in the cult's online membership form found in the small print that it was really a casting call, and a handful of them were chosen to appear in the game.

Players on which platform had to wait until April 2015 for GTA V?

Windows PC: the port was due alongside the PS4 and Xbox One versions in November 2014 but slipped into the following spring, arriving with 4K support and a built-in video editor.

What major new viewpoint did GTA V's 2014 re-release add?

First-person view: seeing the world through a character's eyes forced the team to rework the animations and rebuild every car interior, right down to working speedometers.

What is the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S version of GTA V commonly called?

Expanded & Enhanced: the label comes from Rockstar's own announcement, and fans tired of the ageing game made its 2021 trailer one of the most-disliked videos on PlayStation's YouTube channel.

Which hacking group, tied to a 2022 leak of unreleased Rockstar footage, was linked to GTA V's 2023 source code leak?

Lapsus$: the group's key hacker was a British teenager who had broken into Rockstar in 2022 from a hotel room, using a TV streaming stick and a phone while out on bail.

Which GTA Online setting stops other players from killing you as you roam the map?

Passive Mode: it makes you immune to other players' attacks, but the bargain cuts both ways, because while it is switched on you can't hurt them either.

How did Rockstar make up for GTA Online's glitch-ridden 2013 launch?

In-game cash: the 'Stimulus Package' paid GTA$500,000 to everyone who had braved that first month, after freezes and wiped characters spoiled the launch.

Which service carried players' crews from Max Payne 3 into GTA Online?

Social Club: Rockstar ran crews through its own service so they would outlast any one game, and groups formed for Max Payne 3 in 2012 carried straight on into GTA Online.

Which rap mogul plays himself in GTA Online, sending players after his stolen phone?

Dr. Dre: in the 2021 story The Contract his phone, loaded with unreleased music, goes missing, and once players bring it back he lets them be the first to hear a new track.

As of 2026, which of these games has sold more copies than GTA V's 230 million?

Minecraft: only it, and Tetris if every version is pooled, ranks above GTA V, which Rockstar has released on three generations of consoles since 2013.

Which game was the only western title to get a perfect Famitsu score before GTA V?

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: its 2011 clean sweep of Famitsu's four reviewers beat Rockstar to the honour, the previous Grand Theft Auto having fallen just short of a perfect score.

Which 1995 film did GameSpot cite as a stylistic influence on GTA V's heist missions?

Heat: Michael Mann's thriller opens with a masked crew ambushing an armoured truck, a robbery the game restages almost beat for beat in its mission Blitz Play.

At the start of GTA V, Franklin repossesses cars for which crooked dealer?

Simeon Yetarian: he sells cars to buyers who can't afford them, then sends Franklin to take them back, a racket that ends when one target turns out to be Michael's son.

Which two Australian retailers pulled GTA V from shelves in December 2014?

Target and Kmart: the chains acted on a petition, started by survivors of sexual violence, that drew more than 40,000 signatures, while the game's publisher said it stood behind its product.

Which actress sued Rockstar claiming GTA V's Lacey Jonas character was based on her?

Lindsay Lohan: her suit called Lacey Jonas, a starlet the player helps flee the paparazzi, an 'unequivocal' copy of her, and Rockstar shot back that she had filed it for the publicity.

Which GTA V character meets new GTA Online players at the airport?

Lamar Davis: Franklin's friend, who has already befriended each newcomer online, hands over a pistol and then challenges them to a street race.

Which award did GTA V win at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards, before release?

Most Anticipated Game: voters handed it the prize nine months before anyone could play it, and a year later it went back to the same show and left with Game of the Year.

Which kind of vehicle, missing from the previous Grand Theft Auto, returned in GTA V thanks to its far bigger map?

Planes: Liberty City was judged too cramped for them, so the next world was built on a scale that, in writer Dan Houser's words, would let players 'fly properly'.

In GTA V, what happens to a hired heist accomplice who survives the job?

Their skills improve: a cheap, shaky recruit who lives through one job comes back sharper for the next at the same small cut, so training rookies can pay better than hiring experts.

Rockstar's first GTA VI trailer, released in December 2023, confirmed a return to which city?

Vice City: the series' version of Miami comes back in a present-day setting, and Rockstar had to publish the trailer ahead of schedule after a rough copy leaked online.

In 2021 Rockstar paid a fan $10,000 for an unofficial patch that cut what in GTA Online?

Loading times fell by up to 70% with the fix from a player known as t0st, which Rockstar adopted officially and rewarded as a bug bounty.

Which digital storefront's servers crashed in May 2020 when it gave GTA V away for free?

Epic Games Store signed up a flood of new users through the giveaway, even though the game had already been on sale since 2013.

Which 1980s soundtrack star hosts the classic rock station Los Santos Rock Radio in GTA V?

Kenny Loggins was cast to fit the playlist: Rockstar settled on the sound of each station first, then picked a DJ who matched its genre.

Los Santos, the sprawling city at the heart of GTA V, has a Spanish name that means what?

The Saints is a play on Los Angeles, which means The Angels. The city debuted in 2004 as one of three on a single map, and for GTA V it was rebuilt from scratch as the only one.

In GTA V's backstory, the meth-dealing gunrunner Trevor Philips was born in which country?

Canada, just over the US border, is where Trevor grew up with abusive parents before washing out of the military and drifting into robbery.

In 2013 GTA V set a record for any entertainment launch by earning $1 billion in how long?

Three days was all it took, and the opening-day takings alone were nearly double what analysts had forecast.

The actor behind GTA V's Michael blended a 1950s sitcom dad with which Al Pacino gangster from 1983?

Tony Montana of Scarface supplied the menace, while Ward Cleaver of Leave It to Beaver supplied the suburban father worn down by his family.

Critics likened GTA Online's Deadline mode, a battle on glowing neon bikes, to which Disney film franchise?

Tron, and above all the 2010 sequel Tron: Legacy, was the comparison reviewers reached for when the mode arrived in November 2016.

A Christmas random event added to GTA Online in 2022 was inspired by which 1988 action film?

Die Hard was one of two festive nods that December; the other random event was modelled on Dr. Seuss' Grinch.

In GTA V, Michael comes home to find his wife having an affair with her coach in which sport?

Tennis coach in his sights, Michael gives chase to a hillside mansion and wrecks it in a fury, and the bill for the damage drags him back into crime.

Which actor, who at first scoffed at the idea of a video game role, plays Michael in GTA V?

Ned Luke changed his mind once he had read the audition script, and went on to gain 25 pounds to play the retired bank robber.

In GTA V, Franklin meets Michael while repossessing a car owned by which member of Michael's family?

His son's car was being repossessed on a fraudulent pretext for a crooked salesman, yet the botched job grows into a friendship between the two men.

In GTA V, Michael wrecks a hillside mansion owned by which drug lord, who then demands compensation?

Martin Madrazo's bill for the wrecked house is what pushes the retired robber into planning his first job in nine years.

In GTA V, the retired bank robber Michael eventually lands which job in Vinewood's movie business?

Film producer is the role he wins, and his fight to stop a billionaire closing the studio ends with the accidental death of the man's lawyer.

In GTA V, which FIB agent, Dave Norton's superior, forces the trio into raids on a rival agency?

Steve Haines has the trio hit an armoured car and steal a nerve agent, then makes Michael and Franklin wipe the evidence against him from FIB servers.

In GTA V, whose body does Trevor find in the grave that was marked as Michael's?

Brad Snider died in the botched 2004 robbery, yet Trevor spent nine years believing his old accomplice was alive in prison.

Which triad kingpin becomes Trevor's enemy in GTA V after a drug deal with his men collapses?

Wei Cheng's henchmen later corner Michael in a shootout where a betrayed Trevor abandons him, and in one ending the trio hunt the kingpin down.

Which biker, the hero of the expansion The Lost and Damned, leads Trevor's rivals as GTA V begins?

Johnny Klebitz gets only a brief return: once Trevor learns Michael is alive, he breaks their truce and wipes out most of his competition.

Which GTA V mission, in which Trevor tortures a hostage for the FIB, lost that gameplay in Japan?

By the Book drew criticism from politicians and anti-torture charities, though Trevor ends the mission by freeing the hostage and calling torture useless.

Rockstar built each GTA V lead on one trait: Michael greed, Trevor insanity, and Franklin what?

Ambition drives Franklin out of repo work and gang life, and the writers saw three leads as a break from the usual lone criminal climbing the ranks.

Which real-world event led Rockstar to build GTA V's story around the pursuit of money?

The 2008 financial crisis is what turns the game's leads back to crime; its writers wanted a post-crash mood for a tale about bank robbers.

Tom Hardy's portrayal of which notorious British prisoner shaped the performance of GTA V's Trevor?

Charles Bronson, as seen in the biopic Bronson, was the stylistic model, though the actor also wanted players to feel sympathy for Trevor.

A trip to Bombay Beach inspired GTA V's makers to set Trevor's story beside which body of water?

Salton Sea visits were part of wider fieldwork: the team took around 250,000 photographs across Southern California before building the map.

Estimates put the combined cost of developing and marketing GTA V at roughly what figure?

$265 million made it the most expensive video game ever produced at the time, with more than 1,000 people across Rockstar's studios working on it.

Which Rockstar co-founder, who started the company with his brother Sam, co-wrote GTA V's story?

Dan Houser called it Rockstar's strongest plotted game because its three leads are so intertwined; he resigned from the company in 2020.

Which company, led by Strauss Zelnick, was the parent of Rockstar Games when it published GTA V?

Take-Two Interactive saw its share price jump the moment GTA V was confirmed, and later said the online mode's microtransactions led its digital revenue.

Which NaturalMotion animation software, built into Rockstar's engine, simulates bodies in GTA V?

Euphoria animates characters on the fly from a simulation of body, muscles and nerves instead of replaying predefined animations.

Which hip-hop producer worked with Oh No on GTA V's music and the album Welcome to Los Santos?

The Alchemist and Oh No sampled and reworked recordings from the game's other composers, then filled the radio station The Lab with new songs.

Which Queen song soundtracked the 2013 GTA V trailer devoted to Michael De Santa?

Radio Ga Ga was one of three character trailers released the same day; Franklin's used a Jay Rock track and Trevor's a Waylon Jennings song.

Every pre-order of GTA V came with an access code for which in-game aircraft?

Atomic Blimp codes were only one launch stunt: GameStop also raffled a real-life Bravado Banshee, a sports car built to match the in-game model.

Which companion app released with GTA V let players customise cars and teach Franklin's dog tricks?

iFruit reached iOS first, then Android and even the PlayStation Vita, before Rockstar ended support for it in December 2022.

Which GTA V tool, complete with a Director Mode, lets players cut their gameplay into videos?

Rockstar Editor clips can be dressed with the game's own soundtrack, filters and depth-of-field effects, then uploaded straight to YouTube.

GTA V's second trailer, from late 2012, features Skeletons, a single by which American singer?

Stevie Wonder's track played over the first proper introduction to Michael, Franklin and Trevor, in a trailer that had been held back for twelve days.

Which singer hosts blonded Los Santos 97.8 FM, a radio station added to GTA Online in 2017?

Frank Ocean's station arrived with The Doomsday Heist update, which also brought underground facilities and a jetpack.

Which veteran Grand Theft Auto radio voice hosts the TV talent contest Fame or Shame in GTA V?

Lazlow Jones had voiced radio hosts across the series since 2001, but the mission named after the show marks his first appearance on screen.

In a 2024 GTA Online Halloween event, UFOs abducted players and took them to which military base?

Fort Zancudo also hosted a limited-time Business Battle in the same update, which handed players a non-lethal melee weapon called the Shocker.

Dataminers found GTA V's cancelled story DLC included an expansion set in which earlier setting?

Liberty City was one of at least eight story add-ons shelved when the team turned to the online mode and Red Dead Redemption 2.

Besides a film actress, a star of which reality TV series sued Rockstar over a GTA V character?

Mob Wives star Karen Gravano claimed a character copied her likeness and life story; the suit was dismissed in 2016.

Which truck is Trevor's personal vehicle in GTA V?

Bodhi is the name of the actor's only son, a family tribute slipped into a game he spent about three years performing for motion capture.

Which paid monthly subscription did Rockstar introduce for Grand Theft Auto Online in 2022?

GTA+ began as a console-only bundle of in-game perks and later added a library of classic Rockstar games for its members.

Which vehicle, crewed by a Russian sailor named Pavel, is needed for GTA Online's Cayo Perico Heist?

A submarine and its one-man crew back the raid on drug lord El Rubio's private Caribbean island, a job that can be finished entirely solo.

To plan GTA Online's Diamond Casino Heist, players must first buy which business as a front?

An arcade hides the planning room, and its cabinets are playable games in their own right; the robbery itself needs at least two people.

GTA Online's Doomsday Heist ends with a raid on a missile base hidden inside which mountain?

Mount Chiliad hides the silo where players stop a rogue billionaire and his AI from launching missiles and starting a nuclear war.

Which hovering motorcycle, added to GTA Online in 2018, became notorious as a tool for griefing?

Oppressor Mk II bikes carry machine guns, homing missiles and flares, which made them a feared way to harass other players.

GTA Online's Arena War demolition derbies are held in a stadium named after which fictional company?

Maze Bank Arena hosts the armoured-car contests, whose machines reviewers likened to those of Mad Max and Robot Wars.

Which 2021 GTA Online update added the LS Car Meet, an underground hub for street racers?

Los Santos Tuners also sold players an auto shop, a front for robbery contracts handed out by two regulars of the meet.

Which fast-food chain owns the cartel-run farm that players raid in a 2024 GTA Online update?

Cluckin' Bell's chicken farm fronts for a drug cartel in league with the police, and a former casino security chief turned cop helps plan the raid.

Which billionaire, aided by an AI called Cliffford, is the villain of GTA Online's Doomsday Heist?

Avon Hertz poses as a patriot guarding the country from foreign attack, then turns on the crew and tries to trigger nuclear armageddon himself.

Which GTA Online property, added by 2017's Gunrunning update, is used to research and make weapons?

A bunker came alongside the Mobile Operations Center, a semi-trailer workshop where players customise their weapons and vehicles.

What does GTA Online call its special versus game types, such as Siege Mentality and Sumo?

Adversary Modes arrived alongside the 2015 Heists update; later ones included slasher-themed rounds for Halloween and a couples contest for Valentine's Day.