The Most Incredible World Records In Grand Theft Auto 5
"Grand Theft Auto 5" was released all the way back in 2013 and is still considered one of the most impressive open world games ever made. In fact, it's one of only two games on the PS4 which received a near-perfect score on Metacritic. The L.A inspired city of Los Santos is a sprawling metropolis that ranges from luxurious mansions in the hills and sunny beachfront boardwalks to the trailer parks populating the desert outskirts. It's full of unique places to explore, missions to complete, and of course, cars to steal. The game still has an active player base on Steam and is even receiving a new "Expanded and Enhanced" edition for modern consoles a full decade after its initial release.
A big part of the reason for its continued popularity is the fact that a lot of players don't set the controller down after simply completing the story mode. Many who have finished the "GTA 5" campaign, done all the side missions, and explored every square mile of Los Santos have taken things a step further. Some of them have come up with unique and creative ways to play the game and other gamers have gone on to set some pretty incredible world records.
Fastest speedrun
There are a lot of interesting ways that players have found to beat "GTA 5," but beating the game as fast as possible has always been one of the most popular modes of competition. Classics are classics for a reason after all, and speedrunning a game like GTA is particularly impressive since much of the game revolves around long chases and managing to ditch authorities after a heist. Small errors during the elaborate heists, chaotic shoot-outs and fast-paced chase scenes can all result in a markedly longer play-time if the player isn't careful.
Speedrunners have several categories for how they beat a game. Some just do the basic campaign, some do races where they must complete all of the missions and others require players to have completed 100% of every single piece of content in the game.
One of the most impressive speedrun records is currently held by Belgian gamer Rayer who beat the game on any % and achieved the Deathwish ending, AKA The Third Way. They did this in just 5 hours, 25 minutes, and 32 seconds, shattering the previous record by over six minutes. Rayer posted a full video of their run on their YouTube channel so fans can see it for themselves.
Most non-lethal playthrough
"GTA 5" isn't exactly the kind of game that shies away from violence. Franklin, Michael and Trevor tend to rack up a pretty sizable body count in their mission to rob the various institutions of Los Santos, but what if they didn't have to? Some might argue that it goes against the bloody spirit of the game, but one player set out to attempt to beat "GTA 5" with the smallest number of casualties possible.
Streamer and YouTuber DarkViperAU spent three years attempting to perform a pacifist (or at least as pacifist as possible) run through "GTA 5." He posted 27 videos on his channel cataloging the three year journey and the various ways he manipulated the game in order to play while killing as few people as possible. Of course, "GTA 5" is designed around killing and his playthrough still ended up involving a fair number of cadavers making their way to the Los Santos mortuary.
DarkViperAU used several tactics to avoid killing enemies, including numerous instances where he simply hunkered down and waited for his allies to kill his enemies for him. Other times, he was forced to go to extraordinary lengths to keep them alive so that he might keep his own hands clean. Even with all of his clever attempts to kill as few people as possible, however, the game still required him to kill a whopping 96 people in order to progress through the game. It turns out the nicest person in "GTA 5" is still a monster.
YouTuber Nought modded his way into several records
Most of the records on this list require players to be the un-modded and untampered version of the game so that they are all on a level playing field. YouTuber Nought, on the other hand, decided to press the limits of what he would be able to do using mods in the game. He posted a video titled "I Broke 15 World Records in 'GTA 5'" on his channel where he went through several challenges one by one and used mods to break as many records as he possibly could.
He started by attempting to set the record for the biggest explosion that has ever occurred in "GTA 5." He did this by using an asset manipulation tool to line up hundreds of propane tanks in the desert and then shooting them with a rocket launcher. His first few attempts resulted in the game crashing as it was overwhelmed by the hundreds of nearly simultaneous explosions although he did manage a final detonation which he claimed was a world record. Similarly, his first attempt to perform the world's highest high dive resulted in Franklin jumping out of a helicopter and seeming to swim through the stratosphere, though he did finally manage to dive from a height where he could see the curvature of the Earth.
In the video, Naught also claims to have set thirteen other records including the furthest game of fetch with Chop, the most flips in a jump, and the highest basketball shot.