With the newest re-release of Grand Theft Auto V and GTA Online, fans of the series are feeling the burn of multiple issues that are coming alongside these upgraded ports. You’ll see a bit more graphical fidelity, yes, but other than that, did you get a whole lot else with these new ports? There are a lot of things that players are feeling, but joy doesn’t seem to be one of them. Besides the botched Definitive Edition ports that came out last year, there hasn’t been a whole lot happening with the Grand Theft Auto series as of late, and fans are fed up.

What are some of the biggest things that players are upset about? Well, Crossplay is the biggest one of the group, and we are going to get a little more into that and go into ways that Rockstar could start earning the trust of its player base back, and ways that we think that GTA could benefit from these additions.

Grand Theft Auto V  Cross-Play and Cross-Progression

Rockstart started things off this year with upgraded ports of GTA V and Online, which started some controversy right off of the bat, since players on the PlayStation Platform were getting the Online portion of the game for a much cheaper cost of free, compared to their Xbox counterparts. Then, the multitude of issues that arose right off of the bat, with players having issues transferring characters from their last-gen systems to not being able to transfer them at all if they were on PC, fans are not happy.

So what did Rockstar do to help these players out? Really, not a whole lot. But, they did announce a new subscription service for their re-release, much to the ire of fans. They would much rather see things that many other companies across the board have already taken care of and handled, such as cross-play and cross-progression. Being able to play with friends is one of the biggest draws of the Online portion of these titles, but if you are playing on PlayStation 5, and your friends are playing on PlayStation 4, they’re going to have to upgrade their system to play with you again, unless you want to create a whole new character on your previous-gen system.

That’s right; once you transfer your character to a new generation system, you can’t bring them back to your older system. If games like Fortnite can allow players to play with friends, be it on Nintendo Switch, Mobile, PC, etc, you should be able to do the same between a system family, if not between generations. If your friend bought an Xbox Series X/S, you won’t be able to play, or even if they have a previous generation system, you can’t play. That is frankly unacceptable in this day and age since Rockstar is one of the most successful game studios on the planet.

Grand Theft Auto V is almost ten years old. Maybe it’s time to put this one out to pasture, and bring on a new generation of games, with cross-play compatibility, cross-progression, and stop living in the stone age. There are a lot of people that still love GTA Online, but let’s face it: the game is showing its age. Bringing the series to a new generation of systems, two different times for that matter, by releasing the same game over and over again feels lazy. Customer relations are being damaged at this point, especially by locking players who took their game to PC to try it out, and not allowing them to bring these characters to the newest re-release feels like a surefire way to make someone not purchase the next game you create.

It would have been great to see the power of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S showcased with a new release in the long-running series, but instead, we got another re-release in the long-running cycle of bringing Grand Theft Auto V to yet another system. Maybe we’ll see Grand Theft Auto V by the time the PlayStation 6 is released, or maybe we’ll get Grand Theft Auto V: This Time It’s Actually Maybe The Definitive Edition. It’s hard to tell, but the lack of modern features in this re-release is growing more and more apparent, and Rockstar needs to get the pieces together and make things right before it’s too late.

Grand Theft Auto V & Online are available now on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC.

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