GTA 5 in 2013 vs Today: 13 Years of Evolution

GTA 5 launched on September 17, 2013, on PS3 and Xbox 360. Nearly 13 years later, it is still one of the best-selling entertainment products ever made, running on hardware that did not exist when Rockstar shipped it. The graphics, the online economy, the community around it, and even the way people play have all changed dramatically - while the core game underneath has barely moved.

Here is what actually changed between 2013 and today, and what has stayed exactly the same.

The essentials:

• GTA 5 has sold roughly 225 million copies worldwide as of early 2026, up from 34 million in its first year alone.
• The game jumped from 30fps on PS3/Xbox 360 to native 4K and 60fps on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, via the free "Expanded and Enhanced" upgrade released March 15, 2022.
• GTA Online went from a buggy launch with no heists to a sprawling business simulator with casinos, nightclubs, submarines, and a private island.
• FiveM, the unofficial roleplay mod, now regularly draws over 200,000 concurrent players on Steam alone - bigger than most standalone games.
• GTA Online's July 2026 update, the Kortz Center Heist, is widely expected to be the last major content drop before GTA 6 launches on November 19, 2026.

Graphics and performance: from PS3 to PS5

At launch, GTA 5 ran at 1080p and 30fps on PS3 and Xbox 360, hardware that was already eight years old. It looked remarkable for the time, but it was capped by consoles built for the 2005-2006 generation.

The PC version, released in April 2015, was the first real leap: 4K support, longer view distances, better shadows, and native mouse-driven controls. But the biggest jump came seven years after that, with the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S "Expanded and Enhanced" edition on March 15, 2022. That free upgrade added:

• Native 4K resolution in Fidelity Mode, or upscaled 4K with ray tracing at 60fps in Performance RT Mode
• Ray-traced reflections and HDR support
• Much faster loading times, thanks to SSDs replacing spinning hard drives
• DualSense haptic feedback and 3D audio on PS5
• A rebuilt front-end menu for jumping straight into Heists, Races, or Freemode

The underlying RAGE engine now has to scale across roughly two decades of hardware, from 2005-era console chips to an RTX 4090. That is an unusually wide range for a single game to still be running on in 2026.

GTA Online in 2013 vs today

GTA Online launched on October 1, 2013, two weeks after the main game, and it was rough: server crashes, lost characters, and almost no content beyond deathmatches and races. There were no heists at launch - Rockstar had promised them and had to delay them for over a year.

Compare that to what exists now:

	GTA Online at launch (2013)	GTA Online today (2026)
Heists	None	Dozens, from the original Fleeca Job to the Cayo Perico Heist and the Kortz Center Heist
Properties	None	Apartments, businesses, nightclubs, a submarine, an arcade, mansions
Map	Base Los Santos and Blaine County only	Same map plus the Cayo Perico island expansion
Player cap (official)	16	32, with FiveM RP servers supporting far more via OneSync
Monetization	Shark Cards introduced within weeks	A mature virtual economy generating hundreds of millions annually

The real turning point was the Heists update on March 10, 2015, which finally delivered the co-op heist missions Rockstar had promised at launch. From there, GTA Online kept adding business simulators: Gunrunning, Nightclubs, the Diamond Casino, and eventually the Cayo Perico Heist in December 2020, which introduced the game's first real map expansion and let players buy their own submarine.

By 2026, GTA Online has effectively become several different games layered on top of each other: a heist game, a business tycoon sim, a car collector's showcase, and a hangout space, all sharing the same map that shipped in 2013.

The end of an era

That long run of content updates appears to be ending. The July 2026 Kortz Center Heist, which adds an art studio property and a new multi-stage heist, is widely reported as GTA Online's last major update before Rockstar's attention shifts fully to GTA 6. The previous major drop, "A Safehouse in the Hills" in December 2025, finally added purchasable mansions - a request players had made for years.

Take-Two has confirmed GTA Online itself will keep running after GTA 6 releases, but do not expect the same pace of new heists and businesses. Rockstar's online development effort is moving to GTA 6's version of Online instead.

The modding and roleplay scene

One of the biggest changes nobody predicted in 2013 is FiveM, the unofficial multiplayer mod that lets communities run their own GTA 5 servers with custom scripts, economies, and roleplay rules. Rockstar eventually acquired the studio behind it (Cfx.re) rather than shutting it down, an unusual move for a company that has historically been aggressive about protecting its IP.

FiveM roleplay servers have grown into their own subculture, complete with dedicated streamers, custom scripts marketplaces, and server economies that rival small MMOs. In 2026, FiveM has broken its own concurrent player records on Steam, passing 200,000 concurrent users - a number few standalone releases hit, let alone a decade-old mod for a decade-old game.

None of this existed in 2013. The original GTA Online had no official mod support at all.

Sales: from 34 million to 225 million

GTA 5 sold 34 million copies in its first year, an enormous number for 2013 but one that suggested a normal, if very successful, sales curve. Instead the game kept climbing:

• 2020: roughly 20 million copies sold in a single year, its best year since launch, driven partly by pandemic-era gaming and a PS4/Xbox One price cut
• Early 2025: passed 210 million lifetime units, with Take-Two reporting 5 million units sold in a single quarter
• Mid-2025: 215 million lifetime units
• Early 2026: past 225 million lifetime units

For context, that puts GTA 5 among the two or three best-selling entertainment products in any medium, alongside Minecraft. A 2013 game is still selling millions of copies a year in 2026, largely because the PS5/Xbox Series X version keeps it visible on modern storefronts and because GTA Online keeps a live audience playing it daily.

What has not changed

Strip away the graphics options and the business simulators, and the core of GTA 5 is untouched. It is still the same map, the same three-protagonist story of Michael, Franklin, and Trevor (see our breakdown of their special abilities), the same Mount Chiliad mystery still unsolved by the community, and the same easter eggs players have been hunting since 2013.

Rockstar has never released a GTA 5 sequel or a true remaster with a new story - everything since 2013 has been the same base game, re-skinned for new hardware and kept alive with GTA Online content. That is part of why the jump to GTA 6 feels so significant: it is the first genuinely new Grand Theft Auto world since 2013.

Why this matters heading into GTA 6

GTA 5's 13-year run is the reason Rockstar can afford to take its time with GTA 6, and also the reason expectations for it are so high. A single game sustained an entire online economy, a modding subculture, and hundreds of millions of sales for over a decade on hardware that spans four console generations. When GTA 6 launches on November 19, 2026, it inherits both that audience and that bar.

If you want a feel for what the early days of GTA Online actually looked like before all of this content existed, our look back at 2013 GTA Online covers just how different - and how broken - the launch version really was, including the money glitches that defined that era.

FAQ

Is GTA 5 still worth playing in 2026? Yes - the PS5/Xbox Series X version runs at native 4K and 60fps, GTA Online still receives content through mid-2026, and the FiveM roleplay scene is arguably more active than official GTA Online.

How many times has GTA 5 been re-released? Three times: the original PS3/Xbox 360 version (2013), the PC/PS4/Xbox One version (2014-2015), and the PS5/Xbox Series X/S "Expanded and Enhanced" version (2022).

Will GTA Online shut down when GTA 6 releases? No. Take-Two has confirmed it will keep running, but major new content updates are expected to slow down significantly as development shifts to GTA 6's online mode.