Grand Theft Auto V Legacy News

GTA Online's weekly update introduces a new game mode and motorcycle

It's Thursday in Los Santos, which means it's time for GTA Online's weekly update. It looks like we've got our usual raft of weekly discounts and goodies, though some neat additions that relate to the recent major update are the main standouts. Rockstar will have the full rundown on its website later today, but the update is already live, so fans have dug in - why wait, after all?

This time around, one of the notable additions to the online game is the new Double Down adversary mode. One team of players with infinite lives and double-barrelled shotguns storm a location that Franklin and Lemar are tasked with holding down for four minutes. The duo only has one life to spare each, but they do have access to a much more extensive array of weaponry to make up for it. As it happens, the new mode is also offering triple rewards this week.

You can now buy the Nagasaki Shinobi motorcycle if you fancy adding something else to your garage. The new set of wheels features in The Contract update and can now be picked up from Legendary Motorsport for $2,480,500 GTA bucks.

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GTA publisher buys mobile games giant Zynga for $12.7 billion

Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two has announced plans to acquire Zynga, the developer of social games like Farmville and Words With Friends, in a record-setting deal worth $12.7 billion (£9.4 billion). The acquisition will be finalised some time before July, subject to approval by regulatory authorities.

The acquisition makes Take-Two among the world's biggest publishers of mobile games, and the company plans to use the deal as a bridge into "growth markets" including India and the Middle East, according to a press release. That'll be helped along by Zynga's Chartboost advertising system and its "diverse array of titles that focus on many of the most popular genres in mobile gaming, including casual, hyper-casual, lifestyle, mid-core, puzzle, social casino, and sports games."

"This strategic combination brings together our best-in-class console and PC franchises, with a market-leading, diversified mobile publishing platform that has a rich history of innovation and creativity," Take-Two CEO and chairman Strauss Zelnick says in the release. "Zynga also has a highly talented and deeply experienced team, and we look forward to welcoming them into the Take-Two family in the coming months."

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GTA Online's weekly update brings bonus rewards on Power Play, Nightlife Leak

It's the first Thursday of 2022, which means the first of this year's GTA Online weekly updates is here. As ever, we've got a good idea of what it brings courtesy of fans who have taken a look ahead of Rockstar Games' newswire post later today, and this week offers bonus rewards on a smattering of different modes and missions, as well a new round of discounts.

First up, the latest weekly update is offering triple the usual GTA$ and RP on the Power Play adversary mode, as Tez2 notes on Twitter. In case you need a refresher, this is the deathmatch-like "turbocharged showdown between two teams", as per its description, which has players grabbing power-ups with zany effects to gain the edge over the other team. Preparations for the VIP Contracts, meanwhile, are offering double the regular rewards, along with the Nightlife Leak mission and Specialist+ level contracts.

There's a new vehicle joining the game this week, too. The Comet S2 Cabrio (which will set you back $1,797,000 in-game bucks) has been added, while the latest GTA Online prize ride is the Euros two-door sports car. You can nab this by earning a top-three spot in nine Pursuit races.

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All I want in 2022 is GTA 5 single-player DLC

We've seen a lot of negative fan reactions in 2021, but one flew under the radar. In September, Rockstar Games revealed that Grand Theft Auto V would be coming to next-generation consoles in 2022. Admittedly, the list of new features is pretty meek, with the trailer making vague promises like "improved graphics" and "seamless character switching", but the negative response was surprisingly comprehensive. You probably would have seen a better reaction from fans if Rockstar had unveiled a line of NFTs based on Trevor's stained underwear for GTA Online.

At the time of writing, the trailer has 299,000 dislikes and just over 64,000 likes. It's not that Grand Theft Auto V isn't great, or that GTA Online doesn't get enough attention, but after eight years with no meaningful single-player updates people seem to be getting bored.

Growing up with Grand Theft Auto has meant meeting colourful characters, travelling to iconic cities that capture a moment in time, and, er, abstaining from violent rampages every time a parent enters the room. The relatively recent addition of GTA Online gives you the pen to write your own story through street races and epic heists, but after so many years it's hard not to feel nostalgic for the joy of a new single-player adventure set in Rockstar's criminal sandbox.

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Bully 2 may have been killed by stretching resources too thin, layoffs – report

Game Informer’s Blake Hester published a detailed report all about the Bully 2 that might have been and what led to the studio developing the sequel’s downfall. In short, Rockstar New England was pulled in multiple directions to the point where Bully 2 was no longer the focus of the developers who worked there.

Rockstar New England, which was purchased by Rockstar when the former was Mad Doc Software and was responsible for the next-gen remaster of the first Bully at the time, had ambitious plans for the sequel, a bigger, more characterized game that could stand alongside L.A. Noire and Grand Theft Auto 4 as a grand tentpole release worthy of the Rockstar name.

It was not to be, though, as the studio got pulled in multiple directions, called on to assist with projects like Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3 and immersed in the crunch culture that came with working on those games. This caused many developers at Rockstar New England to leave, but the studio was also hit with layoffs, ensuring that Bully 2 wouldn’t see the light of day. It’s a shame, too, because the game was “six to eight hours playable”, though not shippable at that point.