With this week’s launch of the next-gen variations of GTA On-line for the Xbox Sequence X and PS5, Rockstar has made it simpler and quicker to jumpstart your lifetime of crime within the best-looking and best-playing model of its on-line open-world mode. The entire identical graphical and quality-of-life adjustments that just lately arrived in GTA V, which my colleague Andrew Webster reported on right here, will also be present in GTA On-line.

Whether or not you’re a brand new participant, otherwise you’re migrating a personality from a earlier console, certainly one of my favourite enhancements is that it’s simpler to be funneled into the type of content material you wish to play. From the primary menu, you may enter heists, free mode (the place you may simply roam about with no rapid goal), or be directed to new content material, like “The Contract” missions that includes Dr. Dre and GTA V’s Franklin.

New gamers will first want to finish just a few small, get-your-feet-wet missions earlier than they will entry the broader slew of content material sorts. The sport retains out different on-line gamers till you attain degree 5, which requires about 25 minutes of play. That will annoy some who’re hoping to leap in instantly with mates, nevertheless it could possibly be key for holding new gamers engaged as a substitute of pissed off by repeat kills from extra skilled and kitted-out gamers.

These adjustments present a transparent sense of what GTA On-line gives at any given time, and it’s nice that Rockstar is delivering the web mode’s heap of content material in a extra streamlined method. Beforehand, leaping into GTA On-line felt too aimless, but concurrently overwhelming for me, as the sport tried to level me in a number of instructions directly.

However after leaping in for the primary time in a few years, it feels extra guided with the introduction of the brand new mode choose display, in addition to intelligent onboarding for brand spanking new gamers. And with the myriad graphical and quality-of-life enhancements surrounding load instances, it appears like a minor reinvention for an internet sport that basically wanted one.

One other large replace to GTA On-line will probably be seen instantly by new gamers, or those that wish to begin a brand new character. As a substitute of being minimize free from the beginning and, kind of, having to search out your individual enjoyable, you’ll first select a profession path (principally, a category), starting from an actual estate-focused government and nightclub proprietor to a straight crime-focused biker or gunrunner — and that can put you on a quick observe for accessing the type of gameplay model and content material that you could be like most.

I selected the biker class, and the sport tasked me with beginning a weed farm and making transactions on the darkish internet. Throughout the first 10 minutes of taking part in, I’m advised that I’m the president of my biker gang, which I’ve named “Schweppes” in honor of the very best seltzer model, and I can appoint a number of others to run the circus with me, if I need.

You’ll get $4 million GTA bucks from the beginning, which you’ll be able to spend on a clubhouse, enterprise, automobile, weaponry, and extra earlier than you even get out of jail. The sport truly gained’t allow you to proceed except you spend not less than $3 million of their startup money injection, presumably to maintain some semblance of steadiness for its on-line economic system. It’s nice to have weapons, automobiles, and a motivation to maintain going after 5 minutes of taking part in the sport.

I don’t understand how critically I wish to decide to the biker pathway that GTA On-line has put me on, nevertheless it’s having me check out issues I’d have by no means thought to do earlier than. In comparison with my earlier experiences with GTA On-line (first, at launch in 2013, then once more when the PC model debuted in 2015), I truly wish to preserve taking part in this time. I’m nonetheless much less fascinated with investing and managing property than I’m in racing and fascinating in gun fights, but the underlying construction and variance within the gameplay provides GTA On-line extra depth to match its new coat of paint.

For PS5 and Xbox Sequence X / S house owners who wish to try the most recent model of GTA On-line, it’s out there as a standalone buy for the primary time since its 2013 debut. It’s free to play for PS5 house owners till June 14th, 2022 (and $9.99 for Xbox till that date), however it would ultimately value $19.99 for each console platforms.