Thirteen years. Three console generations. 230 million copies. Over $10 billion in revenue. Ahead of Grand Theft Auto 6, IGN has wrapped up its retrospective series revisiting every core GTA — and the final stop, Grand Theft Auto V, remains, in Luke Reilly’s words, “a game so nice, they released it thrice.”
GTA V legacy review: IGN revisits Rockstar’s record-breaking 2013 classic as the final chapter before GTA 6.
GTA V Legacy Review: The Numbers Behind Rockstar’s Unkillable Classic
The retrospective isn’t a traditional re-review and carries no new IGN score; instead it’s a long-term look at what made each GTA remarkable in its moment, ranked on the series’ classic six-star wanted scale. For GTA V, the numbers alone are “wildly impressive and virtually unprecedented,” with only Minecraft — or “about 200 different versions of Tetris” — even in the conversation. But numbers don’t explain why people still buy it in greater volumes than most games will ever reach. That answer, the review suggests, starts with the setting. (Credits: IGN)
Where GTA IV’s Liberty City was a dense, entirely urban playground, GTA V’s vision of Los Santos is sprawling and varied — a downtown grid packed with tall buildings, but a map that stretches far beyond the city into sun-bleached San Andreas countryside. The aesthetic shift was stark: sharp sunshine, dazzling vehicle gleams and crisp shadows replacing Liberty City’s cold, drab grit.
Three Protagonists, One Unmatched Open World
Of course, the legacy of GTA V goes far beyond geography. The game revolutionized the series with its three switchable protagonists — Michael, Franklin and Trevor — letting players hop between intertwined storylines at will, and built some of the most ambitious heist missions ever seen in an open-world game. Then came GTA Online, which turned a 2013 release into a decade-plus live platform still printing money long after its single-player story ended.
With GTA 6 finally on the horizon, this retrospective is less a goodbye than a reminder of the absurd bar its predecessor set — one no sequel has ever had to clear.
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Source: IGN — read the full story there.
