14 DAY TRIAL // After confirming that the long awaited online heists won't appear in Grand Theft Auto 5's multiplayer mode until early 2015, Rockstar Games now showcases how the actual missions will handle in the online experience and how players will have different goals depending on their roles.
Grand Theft Auto 5 appeared first on the PS3 and Xbox 360 in September of last year as a single-player only experience, but in October, Rockstar Games rolled out the GTA Online mode as part of a free update. While the multiplayer experience offered a huge amount of activities, there was a crucial aspect missing – the online heists.
Rockstar promised to release them as part of another free update at a later point in time, but the studio soon dedicated a lot of resources to the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game, which launched last month, and on the PC edition, which is set to ship next month.
As such, earlier this week, Rockstar announced that online heists had once again been pushed back, this time to the early 2015 period, as it needs extra time to ensure a great experience for its loyal fans.
More details are available about the actual heists
Now, the studio's GTA Online Producer Imran Sarwar has talked with IGN specifically about the online heist experience and how players will have to work together throughout the preparation and the actual job.
First up, four players are required with a rank of 12 or above. One of them must act as the heist leader and he or she needs a high-end apartment so that the planning can be done in a room with enough space for the actual board. From there, they can launch missions by talking to Lester.
According to Sarwar, leaders need to not only plan things out and choose the roles for their partners but also invest in the set-up costs in order to successfully pull off the job.
"Being a heist leader has advantages and disadvantages. On the upside, Lester contacts the leader directly when there’s news of a job and it’s up to the leader to invite players into the crew, assign positions, pick outfits and allocate each player’s cut. On the other hand, the heist leader will need to personally front the set-up costs in order to successfully pull off the heist," he explains.
Crew members will have different objectives
The studio wants to offer various incentives for players to switch up their roles and quite a few missions will see the crew act as a team or split up to perform different tasks, depending on the preparations required by the job.
"Some missions have all players working as one unit, some require players to take on specific tasks like hacking or crowd control, while others require players to split into smaller teams to complete separate high value objectives. We really want to push the co-op aspect and make players feel like they need to communicate effectively and work together to pull off each element," the dev adds.
Online heists will deliver some impressive experiences when they eventually launch for Grand Theft Auto 5, so expect to hear more from Rockstar in the following months.
Each finale is a big set-piece mission with players taking on multiple roles. All through this, players will be gaining access to new vehicles, new weapons, new items, and new clothing, as well as visiting some surprising locations and interacting with some familiar characters from the story.
