GTA 5 Trailer Breakdown: 10 Things That Caught Our Eye

By now, you’ve likely watched the newly released debut trailer for Grand Theft Auto 5 at least a couple dozen times. Don’t feel bad though. We have too. Each time I see it, something new stands out. But rather than keep those observations and analyses to myself, I put together this little trailer breakdown to highlight some of the elements that stood out to me the most. If you spotted something that I missed, please share it in the comments section below. We’re all about learning around here.

1. Back to San Andreas: Well, all the speculation and rumor milling were eerily accurate as Rockstar North is taking GTA back to San Andreas, giving it the next-gen treatment ala Liberty City in GTA IV. There are countless Los Angeles (Los Santos) landmarks featured in the trailer including the Santa Monica Pier (Pleasure Pier), the Capital Records building, Venice Beach/Muscle Beach (Vespucci Beach/Muscle Sands), Skid Row, Rodeo Drive, and plenty of panoramic shots of the downtown skyline. In short, prepare to wreck havoc on the most detailed recreation of L.A. ever seen in a game. Just stay away from my house!

2. As in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, GTA 5 will give players the chance to reconnect with nature. Whether the rural counties of Flint, Red, and/or Whetstone will return, it does appear that a massive national park will be explorable. Couple that with the shot of a wind farm (most likely a reference to the windmill-covered landscapes found in Kern County, California, which also happens to be just outside Bakersfield at the foot of the Sequoia National Forest), and it’s clear that the game will feature settings outside of Los Santos proper. Whether that means we’ll be flying to San Fiero or Las Venturas remains to be seen. However…

3. Jets are back! And while the trailer features several shots of your standard Gulfstream-type planes, one shot shots a fighter jet screaming over downtown. We have no clear evidence that the game will feature other cities, but it would be sort of a waste of some super fight aircrafts if you could only fly it around Los Santos. Also, the original trailer for GTA: San Andreas only featured Los Santos. Just saying.

4. Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony gave players the chance to hit the range and knock a few balls around, and it appears GTA’s rich golfing tradition will continue in GTA 5. Side activities have always provide countless hours of distraction, and while I doubt we’ll be able to play full on golf in the game, at least we’ll have plenty of lush fairways to tear ass across as we engage in cart-to-cart combat.

5. Slightly familiar faces: Obviously, we don’t know the identity of the voice narrative the trailer, but there’s a good chance it’s the fella pictured above. As a lot of people have point out, he looks a bit like an aged Tommy Vercetti, star of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and voiced by actor Ray Liotta. But that voice over is not Ray Liotta, and if GTA 5 takes place in modern day, that would make Tommy somewhere in the mid-to-late-50’s, and I’m not sure having a protagonist that old doing the things that GTA characters do would fly. Still, the Vercetti-ish guy seen throughout the trailer does look to be an older gentleman, and the voice over talks about wanting to retire and be normal dad, so the main character is clearly a seasoned professional. He actually sounds like he has a bit more in common with Red Dead Redemption’s John Marston than any previous GTA character, especially given the whole “wanted to retire from…that line of work” setup.

Assuming the guy pictured above isn’t Tommy, it would keep with the trailer’s theme of featuring nods to past GTA leading men, specifically CJ Johnson from San Andreas (who i wouldn’t be surprised if we saw pop up at some point in the new game), and GTA 4 star Niko Bellic. They aren’t exact matches, I know, but it isn’t any more of a stretch than seeing the cowboy hat found in L.A. Noire as a reference to Red Dead Redemption.

Another thing worth mentioning here is that we see two distinct people driving vehicles in the trailer (outside of what are clearly AI-controlled pedestrian drivers). Given Rockstar's recent infatuation with letting players assume the role of multiple characters, it would seem likely we'll be seeing the events of GTA 5 from multiple perspectives as well.

6. Signage, logos, and slogans have always been a big part of GTA (and Rockstar games in general), so it’s hardly a surprise to see a number of them on display in the trailer. Here are the ones we spotted:

• Los Santos Police Department – “Obey and Survive”
• Pump Body Magazine – “Plenty of Issues to Work Out”
• Pump and Run Gymnasium
• Up-n-Atom Burger (In-n-Out-styled logo) – “Once it pings, eat like kings.”
• Postal service – “We aim not to lose it.”
• Bugstars Pest Control "Putting the FU in Fumigate"

7. For all of those gamers who were utterly devastated when they realized you couldn’t actually poison people with a crop-duster in GTA: SA, Rockstar has obviously heard your incessant complaints, because it appears that releasing toxic pesticides onto unsuspecting civilians will be possible in GTA V. Finally.

8. It just wouldn’t be a GTA game with a plethora of working girls, women of the night, ladies of easy leisure, bordello betties, aka prosties. If I had to put money on it, I’d say you’ll be able to approach one of these horizontal professionals in your automobile and offer them a fair monetary exchange for their unique brand of nocturnal-based services should you feel so inclined. Then again, if the narrator is a family man, that could complicate things a bit. Not so much because of the sex, but because of having to keep coming up with excuses for why you keep needing new shovels and more tarps for “yard work.”

9. There are tons of vehicles on display in the trailer, from sports cars to jetskis to planes, none of which are terribly surprising. What was surprising was watching as the above car’s convertible top retracted into the trunk. Assuming this is now a vehicle option, it would be a first for the series and will ensure plenty of hilarious videos of people exchanging fire with cops in helicopters and closing the convertible top to shield themselves from incoming fire. At least, that’s what I plan to spend a significant amount of time doing.

10. It’s hard to say if players will be donning a red jump suit and aiding in the above depicted heist, but it does suggest we can once again expect to engage in some good old-fashioned armed robbery with the help of some fellow ne’re do wells. More importantly though, I just love that the store’s door handle is the same font as the “V” in the game’s title. Coincidence?!

So there you go. Just some things to think about, and seeing as we don't have a release date yet (most likely sometime in 2012), we'll have plenty of time to do just that.