One of the least surprising pieces of news from the PlayStation 5 reveal was that Grand Theft Auto Online and Grand Theft Auto V would be making the jump to the next-gen console. I'm still not entirely sure why Sony chose to open its big PS5 event with this news, but the prospect of a next-gen Online experience has the community talking.
It seems that the majority of GTA Online players can all agree that if the PS5 port does anything, it needs to drastically cut down on loading times. The sentiment was expressed on Reddit via a not entirely safe-for-work meme, but the post quickly amassed thousands of players nodding in agreement.
The PlayStation 4 version of GTA Online can take literal minutes to load up, so it's not a huge surprise that most players would want to see that addressed in the next-gen version. This isn't an unrealistic expectation at all, to be fair -a lot of fuss has been made about the PS5's super-fast SSD and its ability to cut down on loading times in a major way.
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The Reddit thread also prompted a wider discussion about why it is that the game's multiplayer component takes so long to load. It's a fairly complex issue that seems to centre on the fact that the game has to load up the massive Los Santos map, and then synchronise things like NPC and traffic data across all players in the server.
By this logic, I don't pretend to know if the PS5 SSD will be able to completely boost loading times, but it should at least help to speed a few things up. It certainly can't get any worse than it already is on PS4, which is... something.
Rockstar plans to launch GTA Online as a stand-alone game for PS5 in the second half of 2021, adding that it'll be available for free exclusively on PlayStation 5 for the first three months after release. Given that GTA Online traditionally comes free with GTA V, a standalone release suggests that it'll have a price tag eventually... a bold move for a seven-year-old game that most people already own.
Still, it could be that Rockstar intends to make this port well worth our time (and money). We don't really know exactly what the studio has planned for the PS5 release, 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".
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Let's just hope improved loading times are part of that enhanced experience, or I fear the GTA Online community might actually riot.
Featured Image Credit: Rockstar Games/SonyTopics: PS5, Rockstar Games, Grand Theft Auto V, GTA Online, PlayStation