Review · by site editor · Aug 25, 2026
GTA V, Twelve Years On: A Retrospective Review
What does the most-shipped video game in history feel like in 2026?
“Buy if you have not played it. Buy again if it has been five years. The single-player is the best $20 you will spend this year.”
Pros
- + Three-protagonist structure still works
- + Los Santos is the densest open world in any game
- + Mod scene is the deepest in any single title
Cons
- − Gunplay is dated
- − Online economy is hostile by design
- − Last-gen ports lean heavy on PC mods to feel current
I bought GTA V on launch night in 2013, on a 360 I am almost certain caught fire under the load. I bought it again on PS4. I bought it again on PC because I needed mod tools. The fact that we are still talking about this game on the eve of its sequel is itself the review.
What aged well
The city. Los Santos in 2013 was already a marvel. Twelve years and three console generations later it is still the most fully realised open city in any game I have played. The radio stations, the pedestrian dialogue, the small ambient routines on the boardwalk and on the Vinewood signs — the world is dense in a way that no Ubisoft formula sandbox has matched.
The three-character structure. Trevor remains the hardest character study in any AAA game I can think of, and the seam-stitching between the three protagonists during heists still reads as a more elegant solution to mission pacing than the genre's gone back to.
What did not
The gunplay was already a bit creaky in 2013 and has gotten creakier with time. Even in 2013 it felt like a generational step behind The Last of Us, which had shipped three months earlier. It is a third-person cover shooter where the cover is the weakest part.
The Online economy. We do not need to relitigate this. The game shipped in 2013, GTA Online shipped a month later, and the economy has been balanced around shark-card friction for a decade now. The trajectory of GTA Online is a story about the publisher's relationship to its single-player audience, and that story is not flattering.
On replay value
If you are buying GTA V in 2026 expecting it to be a pre-show for GTA VI, you will be fine. The campaign holds. The driving still feels right. The PC version with NaturalVision Evolved and a couple of trainers is a screenshot studio nothing else can match.
Verdict
The single-player campaign is the second-best game in the series, behind San Andreas, and ahead of IV. The fact that this is contestable at all is the achievement.