GTA 5 Modding Will Be Allowed, Unless They Negatively Impact GTA: Online

The Grand Theft Auto games, with their vast sandboxes and well defined physics, have always invited all manner of mods with their PC releases over the years. A big reason that PC players have been itching for the PC release of the game already (which finally seems to be happening!) is so they can experience an entirely new generation of mods for the title; and Rockstar, it seems, is willing to play ball, and allow as many of them as you’d want, with one caveat.

“Since GTA Online has such a massive and vibrant community, our primary focus is making sure that nothing detracts from that experience or has a negative impact on the overall community of players,”lead gameplay designer John Macpherson said regarding mods in an interview.

This is also the reason that the game will not be launching with any form of mod tools, like GTA4 did- instead, Rockstar are including a full featured video editing suite in the package, which is what Macpherson stressed on in the interview.

“We’ve increased the number of options available so that players can manipulate film speed, depth of field, different kinds of camera positioning and the various blends between them, filters, and more,” said Macpherson. “We have also expanded the ways that players can manipulate sound on their movies.

“Within the editor, players can add and edit multiple radio tracks to a single video, choosing from the huge range of score composed for the game as well select songs from the GTA 5 soundtrack and even in-game advertisements. Director mode gives players the opportunity to play and record their own scenes using any actor from GTA 5 including story and Heist crew characters.”

That said, the GTA5 modding scene is not dead- for instance, Hayssam Keilany is working on bringing the iCEnhancer mod to GTA 5, which means others might follow in his wake- just as long as they don’t fall foul of GTA: Online, which seems to be Rockstar’s main concern right now.

Even so, I can’t imagine PC game players will be happy about this.