8 Ways To Make A Second Playthrough Different

A snitch, a young thug, and a redneck walk into a bar. Sound familiar? The tale of Grand Theft Auto V’s triple threat is almost as famous as Hamlet at this point. Thanks to the glacial development pace at Rockstar with GTA 6, it is also almost as old.

Like any great story, GTA 5 hits you like a bag of bricks, especially since it lets you carve your own path in certain ways. However, even your favorite CD will wear out if you play the same track on repeat.

To help avoid burnout, here is a list of things you can do to spice things up and keep a second (or tenth, we don’t judge) playthrough fresh.

You don’t have to do all of them at once, or follow them religiously, but they’re the starting point for another chill journey through Los Santos.

8

Lawful Citizen

Peace, Love & Moderate Violence

One of the few things the GTA 5 protagonists have in common is enough criminal history to write a book. Playing through the game gets you in even more trouble with the law, but what you do between quests is your own business.

Ever since my humble beginnings with San Andreas, every time I replay a GTA game, I try to make a playthrough where I act as lawfully as possible within the confines of the game. As the great warrior-poet Ice Cube said, “today I didn’t have to use my AK. I gotta say it was a good day.”

Related

GTA V: Best Story Missions, Ranked

Grand Theft Auto games have a lot more than just stealing cars and doing some heists. Here are 10 of the most memorable missions in GTA V.

My favorite part of doing this is the driving. You quickly realize that most of the Los Santos citizens are idiots, and they will pick a fight over crashes they caused.

Being able to knock someone down while claiming self-defense is liberating, even though the police in-game won’t be too sympathetic to that.

7

Evil Incarnate

Five-Star Frank

Being a goodie two-shoes pays off, but the same can be said about embracing your inner Dennis the Menace. We are talking full-on rampage mode, inspired by Hollywood legend Michael Douglas in Falling Down.

Taking a liberal approach to violence is not uncommon when running a Grand Theft Auto playthrough, but you value it a little more when every single person is a valid target.

If you are playing it for the plot, killing everything in sight makes the journey between each quest arduous, since you’ll regularly reach four stars and up with the LSPD.

Figuring out how to untangle your way out of a max pursuit rating is unbelievable fun, especially when the ammunition starts to wear thin. You can then unwind, restock, and start all over again.

6

Cheater’s Paradise

I Wish for a Car, Cash, and an RPG-7

Whatever your approach to morality in Grand Theft Auto, a lot of what you do is limited by the tools you have at hand. Working up your arsenal requires time, money, and a little luck. But what if you didn’t need to do honest, questionably legal work to gear up?

Cheating in GTA is a time-honored tradition, especially for up-and-coming knuckleheads who have just finished a playthrough where they got used to having cool cars, tons of weapons, and all the money a life of crime can get you.

All it takes is a string of keys and a dream to get you the best tools in the game. We are talking assault rifles, cash, attack helicopters, grenades, armored vehicles, you name it. Gearing up quickly makes some of the more frustrating missions, so you can play the game at a more leisurely pace.

5

Mods Galore

Cops, Tanks & Sonic

At some point in life, most GTA 5 players reach a point where the game is just not complete without their favorite vehicle, shirt, or gun in the game.

The cool thing about the modding scene in GTA 5 is that you can add virtually anything you dream of to the game, even if it makes absolutely no sense.

Related

Every Grand Theft Auto Protagonist, Ranked

From Tommy Vercetti to Franklin Clifton, here are all the Grand Theft Auto protagonists, ranked according to their storyline and narrative depth.

For example, someone built a beautifully modelled recreation of the Russian TOS-1A thermobaric rocket launcher. Does it make sense? Not really, but hey, it’s cool. You can also swap the protagonists for Naturo, Spider-Man, and Shrek if that’s your fancy.

If you’re chasing a more comprehensive transformation, then consider the LSPDFR full conversion mod on PC. This flips the script by making you a police officer, giving you something akin to Battlefield Hardline but with a proper open world.

4

The Completionist

The 100-Hour Special

If you’ve played through GTA 5, odds are you’ve dabbled in some of the side quests, but did you get through all of them? A completionist run of the game takes around 100 hours, and there are plenty of missions to go around.

The side missions in GTA 5 come in two main flavors. The first kind follows the same structure as story missions. Michael has access to missions around his family and Dr. Friedlander, while Franklin can enjoy a little hitman moment working for Lester.

You then have more generic, shorter missions and thematic challenges. The Strangers and Freaks quest line consists of over a dozen NPCs that can give you missions throughout the map. You can also learn to fly and help the boys run a thriving business.

3

The Businessman

Diamond Hands, Baby

If you enjoy the property management side of Grand Theft Auto 5, you can lean hard into the business side of the game and make some big bucks in the process.

Besides doing quests and killing people, one of the most unique ways to make money in the game is to toy around with the stock market.

You can make your millions by investing in a nice and clean way, or you can game the market a little bit by putting bullets to foreheads.

The maximum your character can own in GTA 5 is $2 billion and change. While that’s a little far-fetched (though not impossible), set some financial goals at the start and go get that bread.

2

First Person Shooter

All About Perspective

Looking at life from a different perspective can really change how you go about things. That applies to Grand Theft Auto 5 as well.

Although the game did not have a first-person mode upon release, Rockstar added it during its port to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Admittedly, playing GTA 5 in first person has some quirks, but it’s not nearly as clunky an experience as Oblivion.

Living through the insanity of a regular GTA 5 while seeing things the way your character would really help you understand how mad everything is in Los Santos. It also makes the city a lot more beautiful to live in, if you can ignore the gunshots.

1

Ironman-Lite

Dead is (Kind of) Dead

I have a love-hate relationship with ironman mode in games that have it—you know, when dying once means your save is over. To be exact, I love it until I die, then I cry myself to sleep once that happens.

Knowing that every death is ‘forever’ raises the stakes immensely, and completely transforms how you play the game. To me, the main change is knowing when to pull back and run away once things look dicey.

One of the biggest problems with games that have something like this built-in is the number of times when you lose hours and hours of progress due to some bug or jank that you can’t control.

By virtue of not having a ‘default’ permadeath mode, GTA 5 lets you play it by your own rules. This means only starting over when you feel the death was fair, rather than a bugged motorbike flying into your head.

Next

10 Coolest Locations In The GTA Series, Ranked

These locations will give players plenty of reasons to explore the open worlds of the GTA series.

Grand Theft Auto 5

Released

September 17, 2013

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mature Humor, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol

Engine

Rockstar Advanced Game Engine