GTA5 Expanded & Enhanced Edition – worth the $20? This is what you get.

Rockstar’s cash-cow is now finally on the latest gen consoles. GTA5 Expanded & Enhanced Edition was released on PS5 & Xbox Series X|S on March 15th 2022, along with the Standalone version of GTA Online.

There’s a lot of talk in the community about whether this version is even worth buying, with many contemplating not migrating their characters to new-gen (keep in mind, once you migrate to new-gen, you can’t go back. Your data on old-gen will disappear). And you can’t play with your old-gen friends after you move (yes, it’s 2022, and Rockstar still can’t offer cross-gen.. go figure).

Given Take-Two & Rockstar’s not-so-honest conduct over the past decade, the skepticism is understandable. There’s a fair bit of mistrust that comes with their brand and it will take some work to get that back, if at all.

So…how much?

The standard price of GTA5 Expanded & Enhanced Edition for PS5 & Xbox Series X|S is $39.99. But until June 14 it’s available at just $9.99 on PlayStation 5 (75% off), and $19.99 on Xbox Series X|S (50% off). For some players, this is the 3rd console generation they will migrate their character over to, and to be asked to pay for the game again isn’t received well going by the community vibe on Reddit.

Peeping through Rockstar’s marketing lingo, what’s really different?

There are a few new elements to consider. As below.

1. Graphics are improved including ray tracing. This may be more noticeable on PC, but console gameplay barely looks any different in next gen.
   
2. Hao’s Special Works Auto Shop – this one is exclusive to next gen devices (not PC yet). Rockstar totally cheaped out and took the lazy route on this one – the Auto Shop is the car modification space in the LS Car Meet. The exact same spot, with Hao’s red banners on the wall.
   
   A few older car’s can be modified in here too now, including the Brioso, Sentinel XS, Turismo Classic, Banshee, Hakuchou Drag and Deveste Eight. You can also create a replica of another player’s car at the meet (a new feature).
   
3. There are 5 new vehicles that come to new consoles. These can also be upgraded at Hao’s Special Works (HSW) Auto Shop.

4. Returning players from the older generation consoles receive a complementary and fully HSW-upgraded Karin S95, plus free Dark Purple Pearl and Red Prismatic Pearl Chameleon Paints for all HSW-eligible vehicles.

5. Career Builder – new players get to join a career builder with $4m to spend on select enterprises (nightclub, bunker, and so on). This is a completely new feature that didn’t exist before and a huge boost to new players, saving them weeks of grinding!

6. New HSW Race Series & Time Trials – these are a new class of races purely for HSW vehicles.

7. Business buffs: the Nightclub save makes 5x more now ($50k instead of $10k per day with full popularity) and MC Businesses pay twice as much now. Again, this is only on next-gen.

8. New Main Menu and game landing page lets you jump directly to any mode you want to play, including a solo-public lobby (no more going to story mode and then launching it from there!).

Conclusion

For a game starved of quality of life upgrades for a decade, there are some available now. Compared to all the bugs, exploits, and logical improvements the community has asked for years, we got about 5% here – which is more than what Rockstar usually delivers.

Basically, the new features are nice, but nothing groundbreaking. If you have friends on old gen, stay. Wait till your friends are ready to move over too. There’s barely anything new worth jumping over for otherwise.

If you’ve never played before, and play solo on a new-gen console, sure spend the $20 and jump in.