Grand Theft Auto V on Xbox One: Sharper, Faster, and Better Than Ever

A little game called Grand Theft Auto V is coming to Xbox One next month – and when it does, it’ll look, play, and run better than it ever has before. For those who are diving in for the first time, GTA5 marks the series’ return to the city of Los Santos (read: Los Angeles) and its surrounding San Andreas sprawl. It’s the biggest GTA title to date, and ups the ante in terms of density to boot. An on top of that, Grand Theft Auto Online – the included online multiplayer mode, lets up to 30 players explore the open world and engage in cooperative or competitive matches.

For those new to the GTA5, some significant changes lay ahead. The first is Rockstar Games’ decision to put players in the shoes of not one, but three protagonists – and you can switch between them on-the-fly. In missions that involve all three characters, players gain a tactical edge, as they’re afforded three vantage points through which to see the action. Can’t get a clear shot at an enemy? Switch over to a second character and see how said enemy looks through the eyes of your comrade, who stands at point-blank range. In some instances, this multi-character approach allows for different ways of playing a given mission: In one scenario, for example, you can choose between sneaking onto a luxury yacht under the cover of another character’s sniper rifle, or instead take the sniper rifle in your own hands and clear a path.

And then there are the heists. At certain moments in the narrative, you’re given a target to take down. Where in past GTA titles, this would come as part of a self-contained mission, here players have varied approaches in terms of how they tackle a score. It starts with a briefing that lays out all the options and lets you pick out crew members to assist on the job. Each member will take a percentage of the haul (which reflects how skilled they are at what they do), and the skills of these accessories to your crimes improve with each score. The Heists are loads of fun, and pay off in the form of cold, hard cash.

The remastered Xbox One version of GTA5 ups the graphical fidelity significantly, bringing the faux-SoCal game world to life like never before. And, in a first for the series, you can play from a first-person viewpoint – something that’s been made possible through the power of next-gen hardware. GTA5’s San Andreas has been fully rebuilt to take full advantage of this new first-person mode, resulting in the type of immersive, massively detailed experience that GTA fans have never seen before. Take a look at the video above for a closer look.

What’s more: Grand Theft Auto Online now supports up to 30 players, and the game’s 17 radio stations add over 100 additional new songs and DJ mixes. Players who pre-order the Xbox One version of the game will find a bunch of extra cash in their in-game bank accounts – to the tune of $500,000 for both the Story Mode and GTA Online, totaling a cool $1 million.

Finally, as previously announced, players who picked up GTA5 for Xbox 360 or PS3 will find that their Grand Theft Auto Online characters and progression can be transferred over to Grand Theft Auto V for Xbox One from that version of the game.