From open world to collective theatre: embodying and creating in GTA V
Within the framework of this new project dedicated to Machinimas and modding techniques, the research program focuses on the agency of NPCs in open-world games. Since its introduction in 1981, the concept of open-world has radically changed the way players interact with the video game universe. Unlike linear experiences where one is led to follow a precise narrative thread, open-world games offer freedom of movement and action that tends to go beyond the distinction between directed progression and individual exploration. Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) stands out as one of the major works of this genre. Released in 2013 by Rockstar Games, it represents one of the most advanced models for creating a vast world, inspired by the city of Los Angeles and its surrounding neighborhoods, offering the free exploration of a real moving city. Analyzing its operation allows not only to decipher the mechanisms that compose an open world (side activities, dynamic systems, and environmental immersion), but also to understand how these aspects intertwine to generate a unique gaming experience, where the player becomes both an actor and an explorer of a virtual urban space.
Grand Theft Auto V stands out for its richness and freedom of action. More than just an action game, it offers continuous immersion in the living, varied, and surprising universe of the fictional city of Los Santos and its surroundings, which largely draws inspiration from the city of Los Angeles. This is one of the particularities of GTA; the map is not imaginary but reproduces elements existing in the real world. From the first installment, the cities of Liberty City, Vice City, and San Andreas represented New York, Miami, and San Francisco, respectively. Fiction and reality thus blend in the game's space.
In GTA 5, the space of Los Santos is fully accessible from the beginning of the game. The player is not limited to a simple succession of missions but can explore and experiment with a multitude of proposed activities.
The player embodies several main characters during their adventure: Franklin, Michael, and Trevor, three criminals with the common goal of dominating Los Santos. Each of them has their own personality, character, skills, and background, which oppose and complement each other in the game. For example, Franklin has the ability to slow down time while driving, which facilitates negotiating turns.
GTA V also integrates a learning dimension. For example, endurance progresses by practicing different available sports activities, strength increases with bare-handed fights, stealth develops during stealthy approaches, driving improves by driving different types of vehicles, and even free diving improves thanks to underwater diving. This strengthening experience allows the player to discover all the activities but also to develop a balance between each character.
What makes GTA V strong is also the density of its environment. The city of Los Santos is teeming with details, inhabitants with varied behaviors, and unpredictable situations. The player can simply walk around, observe urban life, steal vehicles to explore the city and its surroundings. Open worlds offer the player freedom of evolution, who can just as easily follow the story proposed by the game as deviate from it to explore the entire map if they wish. As a result, the player has the choice of their actions, which makes the gaming experience even more personal as they become the hero of their own story. If the solo mode of Grand Theft Auto V has captivated the gaming community precisely because of the freedom it offers and the immensity of its environment, the appearance of GTA Online has further extended these horizons by transforming Los Santos into a shared and constantly evolving gaming space. This online mode optimizes the open-world experience by focusing on various structuring elements.
Initially, the player no longer represents a main character defined by the story but has the possibility to design their own character and modify it according to their tastes. According to research on open-world design, this possibility of customizing one's avatar stems from a role-playing game mechanism that enriches immersion and gives the player a sense of ownership of the virtual space (JCSS, 2021*). The Editor mode goes even further by allowing players to create their own maps and scenarios, adding an additional creative dimension that goes beyond the simple consumption of written content.
Subsequently, GTA Online stands out thanks to unique activities that cannot be found in solo mode. Whether you are looking for races, collaborative missions, or new challenges, the open universe is teeming with dynamic events that resemble improvised theater. As highlighted by Iñigo Atucha in his article « Improvisation and narrative rewriting: playing in free mode of GTA Online », the free mode of GTA Online acts as an open stage where players, through their actions, constantly reshape the rules of the game and generate new forms of narration.
Another major element lies in the economic and criminal management of the open world. The player can develop real illegal economic activities (drug trafficking, organized gang robberies) and thus build their own criminal career in the online universe. According to various studies, this transformation makes GTA Online a mini-MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) where companies and properties become levers for long-term progression and investment, making the virtual universe both perennial and constantly evolving.
Finally, the range of items available for purchase, apartments, garages, bunkers, boats, airplanes, reinforces the feeling of progression and adaptability. These acquisitions are not secondary: they pave the way for new activities, thus consolidating the improvement cycle specific to the online mode. As highlighted by Cameron Williams, a former Rockstar designer, traditional open worlds are frequently affected by « exploration fatigue »: players end up abandoning exploration in favor of the main line. GTA Online, by constantly adding scripted missions and social activities, manages to counter this fatigue by maintaining a regular flow of motivating content and connected players.
In short, GTA Online does not merely expand the open world of GTA V, but also opens new perspectives by combining freedom, creativity, social interactions, and economic strategies. It illustrates how a virtual world can be maintained over time, thanks to frequent updates and constant player involvement in building their experience.
From this perspective, another determining element for the continuity of the GTA Online experience is the continuous provision of additional content (DLC). These additions, periodically offered by Rockstar Games, feed the universe with new options and constantly revive the interest of players. Unlike a frozen online game, GTA Online evolves over time and offers a dynamic and constantly transforming experience. These regular updates take several forms. They often introduce new weapons and equipment, allowing players to experiment with new playing styles. They also add innovative vehicles, ranging from futuristic sports cars to extravagant motorcycles, including airplanes and even submarines that further expand this principle of exploration. Some updates enrich the game with unique activities, such as new races (made by third parties), competitive modes, or even cooperative missions.
By maintaining this rhythm of novelties, Rockstar does not merely extend the lifespan of the game: the publisher transforms GTA Online into an evolving platform, capable of capturing players' attention in the long term and keeping the universe of Los Santos at the heart of gaming news.
This positioning attracts many types of players with varied interests. Some players, for example, seek to drive all the cars available in the game. Others scour the entire map to discover each hidden reference (easter egg). Others still extend this openness and rely on the game to organize a virtual society.
This almost unlimited freedom does not only attract players with diverse profiles; it also inspires inventive approaches that transcend the limits of the game. Machinima stands out among these artistic forms as a natural extension of the experience offered by GTA V. With its bustling environment, the variety of its characters, and its integrated creation tool, the Los Santos Editor mode transforms into a real virtual filming platform. The combination of a faithful representation of city and countryside settings and great freedom of interpretation and staging makes this tool a preferred choice for creating short films, parodies, or even new fictional works. Starting from a video game entertainment, GTA V becomes an audiovisual creation field where players take on the role of filmmakers, giving birth to an entire machinima culture (Machinima is a technique that involves creating a film from a virtual universe, such as that of a video game).
GTA 5 has a large community of RP (roleplay) players, players evolving in specific role-playing servers of the game. If, like in the online mode, players can create their character, RP offers a new dimension, that of inventing a story and assigning a specific role to their character to then make it evolve within Los Santos. But it goes further than a simple action in the game, as specified by Nicolas Bailleul in an article entitled «From GTA V like to GTA Life, towards a video game social network», players «embody the role of a fictional character by embracing their character, their story, and their desires». We thus witness a real diversion of the initial use of the game where GTA becomes a space for collective creation in which everyone can develop a role, build stories, and experiment with new forms of sociability.
Role-playing requires strict adherence to the rules intended to preserve the coherence of the story: participants are required to act as their character would, to observe the laws established on the server, and to avoid any attitudes likely to harm immersion (abuse of bugs, abusive exploitation of rules, random murders). This need for coherence converts the digital space into a kind of collective theater stage. It is each of the decisions, however minor they may be, that contribute to the co-construction of a story between players of the same server.
These RP servers are generally set up by third parties by integrating mods (such as FiveM or RageMP) that offer the possibility to directly modify the original map of GTA and introduce new game mechanisms. These modifications give rise to activities from the real world: practicing the profession of police officer, doctor, taxi driver, seller, or even priest. The open world of Los Santos then transforms into a real living metropolis, where interactions between players are at the heart of the experience. RP amplifies the experience lived within the open world by blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction.
Grand Theft Auto V and its online extension demonstrate how an open world can transcend simple video game entertainment. Thanks to its dense and well-structured universe, the game does not limit itself to offering quests or tasks: it transforms into an experimentation space where freedom, creativity, and social exchanges combine. Players' interest is sustained by the regular integration of new content through DLCs, while trends like role-playing or machinima reveal the ability of this virtual universe to transform in the hands of its community.
GTA V is a flagship game of its time: it illustrates a new way of envisioning digital universes, where the boundaries between game, social network, and artwork tend to blur. The true power and longevity of Los Santos seem to reside in this fusion between an interactive fictional world and a place of sociability.
Bibliography
Nicolas Bailleul, From GTA V like to GTA Life, towards a video game social network, [online], https://journals.openedition.org/narratologie/11687
A descriptive-analytical study of the Open-World Game Design “Grand Theft Auto V and online version” with an emphasis on Role-Playing Capabilities https://jcss.ut.ac.ir/article_92688_9586ff3ddd9dea24a40fe451c1dcf7de.pdf*
Improvisation and narrative rewriting: playing in free mode of GTA Online https://journals.openedition.org/narratologie/11687*
Staging choice and experiential narrativity in video games and choose-your-own-adventure books https://journals.openedition.org/sdj/1010?lang=en
Translated by AI from the French version.