With GTA Online up and running on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, fans new and old are picking up the game again. These new versions, dubbed GTA 5 Expanded & Enhanced, have renewed interest in GTA Online over the past few months, especially with the promise that these enhanced features will be making their way to the Steam version soon.
One of the first updates to the game since this version launched has now been released, and while it doesn’t add new content, it makes a lot of quality of life changes fans have wanted for a while. This coincides with a big bug fixing update to GTA 5 across all platforms.
GTA 5 update 1.56
This update fixes a host of issues that have plagued different versions of the game for a while. Specific to the PS5 was an issue where the adapted trigger feedback on a select few cars was far too strong. Then, specific to Xbox Series X/S were issues involving game audio not loading when launching the game, or joining a party.
On top of that, the full patch notes list fixing “several crashes”, which are unspecified, and a glitch that locked the game up when trying to transfer characters to the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions.
Motion blur settings
Post-processing effects, such as motion blur often divide opinion, especially amongst PC gamers. Some enjoy the smoothness and visual quality it brings, while others find it irritating, and those prone to motion sickness can suffer greatly from its effects.
It’s commonplace for these sorts of options to be customisable on PC, but they are only now being introduced as options on consoles. GTA Online is catering to those who want greater control over their experience. It now has a slider that adjusts the severity of the motion blur, all the way down to completely removing it.
Faster transitions
One thing that has always been a nightmare for GTA Online players is the load times. When the game first boots up, it can take upwards of 5 minutes from launching the game to loading into the world. This goes extra on PC, where even story mode suffers from long loads.
One of the fixes in update 1.41 improves the experience for the recently released PS5 and Xbox Series X/S editions. Changes have been made that optimise the transition between story mode and online. It’s a small fix, but one that should save you time and frustration when trying to get online.
Expanded & Enhanced on PC…sort of
The Expanded & Enhanced edition of GTA 5 has been available on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S for a little while now, and it pushes the game’s performance and graphical fidelity to a new level. With 4K resolution and 60fps on consoles, the game is taking full advantage of the technology on offer.
This upgrade has also been promised for the Steam version of the game on PC. It’s not quite ready yet, but this update is a promising sign. PC players have found that the files for Expanded & Enhanced have been added to the game’s directory, they’re just currently empty. Hopefully, this means a full update will be coming sooner rather than later.
Hide jobs/events on the map
A theme throughout this GTA Online update is customisation options. There is a push to give greater control over the experience, which pairs well with the different modes on offer with the Expanded & Enhanced edition.
One of these is a simple quality of life option that allows you to hide jobs and events from their UI, be it on the minimap or regular map. With such an expansive amount of jobs, heists, events, missions, and more stuffed into GTA Online in 2022, it’s easy for the map to become way too crowded with icons, making it much harder to read. This change gives you the ability to dispose of that which does not spark joy like Marie Kondo.
Increased payouts for MC Business & Nightclub
When it comes to making the most money possible in GTA Online, investing in the MC Businesses & Nightclub features is the way to go. As well as being luxurious places to visit in the urban open-word, businesses let you store and sell drugs for a tidy profit, whilst the nightclubs can earn huge cash on a continuous basis once it’s up and running.
The two are designed to go hand-in-hand, with nightclubs allowing upgrades such as cocaine lockups, which can keep the drug money flowing. Despite already being great ways to make money, update 1.41 has made them even better. It’s not specified by how much the payouts have been increased, but you can expect to be making more than ever from them going forward.
Written by Ryan Woodrow on behalf of GLHF.
