Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V interweaves the fates of three protagonists, Michael, Franklin, and Trevor, across a sprawling, meticulously rendered Los Santos inspired by Los Angeles, where the player freely switches between characters while planning heists and going about everyday life in an open world. Rockstar North created the studio's most expansive and graphically ambitious game to date, with elaborate satire of American society, consumerism, and media culture, complemented by the extensive online multiplayer GTA Online, which later became one of the most commercially successful live products in gaming history.

Switching characters was more than a technical trick: each had their own ability, their own circle of acquaintances, and their own rhythm of life, so returning to an abandoned protagonist often caught them mid-way through some absurd situation. Heists were planned in advance, with a choice of approach and hiring of assistants of varying quality, giving a single mission several possible shapes. The game launched at the tail end of the PS3 generation, and despite hardware limitations it offered a technically impressive world full of detail, dense traffic, and dynamic activities from tennis to scuba diving. An extensive soundtrack of radio stations featuring licensed music and original talk-show segments rounded out the satirical portrait of California.

Critics showered the game with near-perfect scores, and commercially it became one of the fastest-selling entertainment products in history across all media. Grand Theft Auto V subsequently made the jump to PS4 and PS5, and thanks to the ongoing development of GTA Online it remains commercially active to this day, more than a decade after release. The PS3 version thus paradoxically represented both the old generation's final major hardware leap and the first step toward a longevity few games have ever achieved, and it still stands as proof that the ambitions of that generation reached further than its silicon could handle, and that Rockstar managed to squeeze more out of aging hardware than anyone else.