14 DAY TRIAL // Grand Theft Auto V will take players to Los Santos and its surrounding areas next month and the development team says that the virtual world is now an even more accurate depiction of Southern California, its unique features and eccentricities.
Much of the love for the location is linked to how impressed the team from Scotland was when first visiting the real-world towns of the state.
Aaron Garbut, the art director at developer Rockstar North, tells Buzzfeed that, “It feels like everything is sunny. The buildings, the people, the cars, the architecture, even the smog, it all centers around the sunshine. There’s poverty, violence, and a real underside to the city, but it’s the sun that gets you first. It’s a particular kind of light too, not just the smog; it’s there in the countryside as well.”
The team worked to capture the way light changes the shapes and the colors of everything and says that GTA V manages to transmit the core Californian look to its open world.
Garbut adds, “look a little closer and you see the other side of California that you don’t see at first glance — the more interesting side, the oddness, the underbelly.”
The GTA series has always been known for its ironic approach to the stories that it tells and the fifth core installment seems to be ready to mock almost all aspects of the American and Californian dream.
The game will keep its open world structure, but for the first time gamers will be able to play as three characters that see their destinies collide in surprising ways, most of them involving some kind of virtual violence.
GTA V will be launched on September 17 on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and the PlayStation 3 from Sony.
Apparently, the rumor that the game was also coming to the PC was unfounded.