Summary
One inquisitive fan recently found a way to play a never-released beta build ofGrand Theft Auto Onlinewhich is nearly a decade old, having consequently discovered a number of features that Rockstar cut from the game. This is the second major leak centered on the hit game that surfaced over the last few months, arriving shortly after oneinsider leaked the release date of a recentGTA Onlineupdate.
October 1 will mark the ten-year anniversary ofGrand Theft Auto Online, which continues to enjoy a strong following to this date. The multiplayer component ofGTA 5originally launched a few weeks behind the single-player game, as Rockstar needed a bit more time to iron out its bugs and wrap up launch content development.
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Almost a decade later, YouTube user KimiSha19 discovered a way to play the first version ofGTA Onlinethat was technically always part ofGTA 5’sday-one build but never actually released. Following some experimentation with Xenia, the sameXbox 360 emulator that significantly boostsRed Dead Redemption’sperformance, the fan found that it’s possible to spoof the game version on the initialGTA 5build to access its pre-release online multiplayer mode. This piqued the curiosity of GTA Forums member BakeWithMe1000, who soon delved into this never-released version ofGTA Onlinein order to compare it to the finished product.
While the newly discovered beta version ofGTA Onlineborders on unplayable due to a variety of missing mechanics and bugs, it also includes a number of features that never actually made their way to the finished game. One of them is a detailed Wasted screen that shows what weapon was used to kill the player, in addition to revealing the locations of the fatal shots and head-to-head stats against their killer. Periodic drops of “special crates” are another such abandoned feature, although it’s unclear what exactly they were meant to contain. Furthermore,GTA Online’sUI looked vastly different, with the beta version of the game also offering the ability to call Edgar Carlos, Al Carter, or Lamar for “gang backups.”
One final notable distinction betweenGTA Onlineand its newly surfaced beta build is that the latter offered five character slots, whereas the former only has two of them. Some of the fans chiming in on this discovery expressed their disappointment with the fact that Rockstar never added additional character creation slots to the game, not least because of how many trulyuseless features made their way toGTA Onlineover the years.
While all of that cut content has ostensibly been long abandoned, there’s still a chance for Rockstar to revisit some of those ideas in another game. Its first opportunity to do so is believed to be drawing near, asGTA 6is reportedly targeting a 2024 release.
Grand Theft Auto Onlineis available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
