Why GTA V falls behind some of its predecessors

I recently tried GTA V on PC after more than a decade away from the series, and I was surprised by how underwhelming it felt compared to earlier titles like GTA IV, which I still think is the better game overall.

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By. Jacob

Edited: 2025-08-25 10:41

Recently, I tried GTA V on PC, after more than 10 years of not having played a new GTA game — the last one I played was GTA IV, which I still consider a better game overall due to its features outside the main missions (the story mode). I was really surprised to see how bad GTA V was compared to its predecessors. It has better graphics, but that’s meaningless when central features and functionality are missing.

The developers have learned absolutely nothing from previous titles, and the game feels more like a entusiast-developed, crowdfunded beta than something you’d expect from an experienced publisher.

I’m also disappointed that the lacking gameplay seemingly hasn’t been improved much over the years since its release. It’s quite normal to keep updating games post-launch, as seen with titles like Stellaris. It’s not like they haven’t had the time to patch it and add more features and content to satisfy more critical players.

But… to put it very briefly, GTA V suffers from the same flaws as all its predecessors — and in some ways, it’s even worse. The most central flaw is that you can’t buy and sell cars from in-game dealerships, which is one of the most obvious key functionalities a game like GTA should have. It would have at least given players something meaningful to do with their money — buy cars legally. Nothing in the game has any value because you can just steal it, and there are no lasting consequences to your actions.

There are no consequences to your actions. You don’t gain notoriety for killing someone or stealing dozens of cars. The wanted level system is still comically irritating and unrealistic. The police always know where you are and magically pop in and out of existence, just like in earlier games. Almost no improvements have been made to this system to make it more believable. Even after a murderous rampage, you can magically lose your wanted level and go back to normal like nothing happened. Absolutely no consequence. If you die, you respawn at a hospital with all of your weapons still intact.

Cars magically disappear when abandoned. Even just looking away from a car you’ve exited — right next to your character in the middle of nowhere — can cause it to disappear entirely.

Gameplay is remarkably unrewarding. There’s literally nothing interesting to do outside the main missions. You’re driving around in a completely static world, unable to interact with much. Almost all buildings are closed, including shops, and you can’t buy anything from the few that are open (unlike in GTA IV). Not even the countryside merchant stands are interactive…

I would expect the exact opposite by now. Nearly all buildings should be accessible — either to enter or break into — with corresponding consequences.

Controls and camera are broken. The PC controls are clumsy and feel unfinished, and the camera still auto-corrects itself after a second or two, like in older titles. The only way to stop the auto-correction while driving is to constantly move the mouse. It’s extremely irritating.

The first-person camera mode is interesting but poorly implemented. It feels clumsy, and in this mode, your character always runs instead of walking. Broken. Broken. Broken.

Character stats are poorly implemented. It feels like they tried to reintroduce some of the character stats from San Andreas, but somehow made them worse. Instead of improving the system, it distracts from the game and makes it feel unfinished and broken — like most other potentially interesting aspects of the game.

Pedestrians in GTA V die too easily. Sometimes pedestrians will die just from being hit a single time with your fist, and paramedics will not heal them when arriving. I expected this to have been improved, but instead it was made worse than in previous games. E.g. Paramedics should take the pedestrians and drive them to the hospital.

The only way to rob pedestrians is to kill them. Realistically it should be possible to threaten pedestrians to rob them, which should have consequences and build "notoriety" for robbing people. It is very odd this is not implemented.

Character customization is lacking tremendously. You can still get haircuts, but you cannot take off your clothes and run around naked, or put on silly clothes or costumes to get reactions on your outfit choices. There is some of this in GTA V to be fair, but it is lacking. It would have been hilarious to see more dept to this system. In San Andreas, you could eat to get fat, and lift weights to look like a bodybuilder, and those were also interesting things to do besides main missions.

Final thoughts

I'm sad to say that GTA is no longer the groundbreaking fun it once was. The novelty of driving around a city and stealing cars has long worn off. That was also a flaw with the first GTA; after finishing the game, there just wasn’t much left to do. At least in GTA 1, you could steal and sell cars — something curiously missing from more recent entries in the franchise.

Even the first GTA, with its top-down perspective camera mode, would still be entertaining today — if only it were updated to work on modern devices.

It makes tremendous sense to have a long-term strategy for the games you create, so they remain enjoyable 5, 10, or even 20 years down the road. Game development should be an iterative process where you keep revisiting and improving lacking gameplay elements over time. Doing so with the GTA series could have made it truly dominant in its genre.

The only reason I’d consider buying a game similar to GTA — or even the next GTA — is to find something that feels less lacking than previous installments. Graphics have always been, and will always be, secondary to gameplay.

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