En af de store nyheder i Grand Theft Auto V er at man kommer til at spille som ikke bare en men tre forskellige personer på den forkerte side af loven (Franklin, Michael og Trevor). I et interview med den britiske avis Guardian fortæller Rockstar-bossen Dan Houser hvordan man fandt på at udforme spillet på denne måde.
"It was partly just to do something totally new. Partly, too, it was because at that point we were deep into the work on the two DLC episodes of GTA IV, and we thought, well, the bits where all the stories crossover is kind of cool, so why don't we just do that in one game? So okay, let's just do multiple characters."