Sony kicked off last night's PlayStation Future Of Gaming event on kind of a weird note... by announcing that Grand Theft Auto V is coming to PlayStation 5.
Rockstar Games confirmed that the epic open world crime adventure will receive an "expanded and enhanced" version on PS5 in the second half of 2021. We can probably also assume that Xbox Series X will receive a similar upgrade, though this wasn't confirmed during the PlayStation show.
For context, Grand Theft Auto V first released for PlayStation 3 in 2013. It was then ported to PlayStation 4 in 2014. While I think we all kind of saw this coming, I'm still honestly a little surprised that the game is being ported once again to new consoles, over seven years after its initial release.
Rockstar also confirmed that it has plans to launch the massively popular Grand Theft Auto Online as a stand-alone game in the second half of 2021. At present, the only way to play this online component is via a copy of GTA V. The developer added that, for the first three months of its release, it will be available for free exclusively on PlayStation 5.
Advert
That does, however, suggest that the stand-alone version of GTA Online will come with a price tag eventually... which seems like an unusual move for a free online mode that comes bundled a seven-year-old game. But what do I know? It could very well be that this "expanded and enhanced" content makes the PlayStation 5 version of GTA V and GTA Online a definitive and wholly unmissable experience.
We don't really know exactly what the studio has planned for the port, but it did tease "a range of technical improvements, visual upgrades and performance enhancements to take full advantage of the console's powerful new hardware, making the game more beautiful and more responsive than ever".
Advert
This news comes just months after it was reported that GTA V has now sold an incredible 130 million units worldwide, and 10 million copies in the last four months alone. As if that wasn't bananas enough, GTA V now accounts for nearly 40 percent of the entire series' sales.
With numbers like that, it's no wonder that Rockstar intends to milk the game well into next-gen. It remains to be seen what this enhanced port means for the in-development GTA VI, but I guess we shouldn't bank on seeing the sequel any time soon.
Featured Image Credit: Rockstar GamesTopics: PS5, Rockstar Games, PlayStation, GTA V, Grand Theft Auto