Some parts of this guide may be outdated. This guide was created in 2018, when I was rather new to the game, and by the time you're reading this, several mechanics detailed here were probably changed for balance or reworks; The Criminal Enterprises update in 2022 really, really changed a lot of things. Take some of these tips with a grain of salt, as your experience may differ. Or just view this as a historical document.

Congratulations! You got Grand Theft Auto V for PC. You have the Enhanced version, meaning it's the one that everyone has. If you're looking around for a Story Mode guide, those basically don't exist outside the GTA Wiki. It's GTA Online content here on out, bud. Sorry.

If you're reading this, you likely came here because you're new. In that case, thank you for actually caring about my guides and content! Don't look at anything else I have.

Now, as a """seasoned""" player with $500,000+, I know that GTA Online is a lot like the real world. Everyone else is rich as ♥♥♥♥ (okay, maybe not EXACTLY like the real world), and they all want to kick your ass because even though there's a mental state, what good is it when they're shooting up your Greenwood in a Khanjali? Remember, you can't play if you're new.

Thankfully, you can just hide in Story Mode like a puss. But what happens when you become way too accustomed to cheating with the special abilities? What happens when you finish the game properly with Ending C, it better have been Ending C and you're bored as ♥♥♥♥, and you don't want to mod the game or play LSPD:FR because you're, as I said before and am repeating now, a puss?

Then you bite the bullet and go to GTA Online. And I'm here to passively-aggressively lead you through it, with this guide that I didn't regret making a few months down the line, but am acknowledging is horribly outdated several years later.

Always remember to store your Cash in the Bank. This can be done by either going to an ATM (or going to the Maze Bank website on your phone's Internet, which is always available and is a lot quicker than finding an ATM), selecting Deposit, and selecting all your money (should be the last option). This stores your money, meaning other players can't steal it when you die, plus you can spend it (Bank money is spent, not Cash, meaning Cash is basically useless if you're not buying stuff from vending machines or whatever; no reason why it's even in the game, to be honest). You can't deposit if you have under $50 in Cash.

If you destroy someone's Personal Vehicle, no matter the circumstances or reasoning, you'll still be charged $10,000 and you'll probably also be considered a "Bad Player". Yes, even if you blew up that Insurgent because the driver keeps chasing you down and shooting you.

Nobody really goes to Paleto Bay. Everything happens in either Los Santos or Blaine County, and even then, pretty much never anywhere north of Grapeseed. Paleto Bay is also pretty far from everything. Make that of what you will.

Doing missions lowers your Mental State. Do this in case you want to look like a helpless ♥♥♥♥ on radar before suddenly growing a pair and shooting that Hydra out of the sky before it can strafe you. Or just to lower your Mental State, I don't know.

The RPG is unlocked at Rank 100. However, the Homing Launcher and many other DLC weapons are unlocked at Rank 1. Why is it like this? Because, as is the case of most video games since the mid-2010s, the original vision of GTA V has been lost to time.

If you're a horribly low level and you don't have a lot of good guns or equipment (especially if you don't have any Mk II weapons or any armored cars like the Armored Kuruma), turn on Passive Mode before leaving your Safehouse. If you don't have a Safehouse, turn it on once you join a session. You can find the toggle button in either the Pause Menu (Pause > Online > Settings > Enable Passive Mode) or the Interaction Menu (bottom of the list). Note that people can still kill you by blowing up nearby vehicles. Also note that you can't equip or use weapons in Passive Mode, meaning your only means of offense against NPCs is running them over with your vehicle, knocking them over a lot, or fleeing like a ♥♥♥♥♥. Why can't they just let you use your weapons but simply not deal damage to others? I don't know.

GTA Online is supposed to be set months before singleplayer (which begins in August 2013, ends around November 2013), or at least that's how it was around release. Thankfully, time marches on, and since 2017 it's been confirmed to be set in the current year, meaning as of this edit, it's 2023 in Los Santos.

When you first load up, you're treated to an unskippable cutscene of Lamar (yes, that Lamar, take a shot each time he says "man") picking you up from Los Santos International Airport, because I guess you just moved here. He then drives you around the city until you get to a lot, where he proceeds to race you throughout the city in an Albany Emperor. You can choose a "starter car" before the race, but all of them are just standard sedans that aren't actually your own personal vehicle.

After that, you have to drive to this storage area under an overpass where you use your newly-acquired pistol to shoot like 50 guys who probably did nothing to deserve this before chasing and shooting some other guy because he has cocaine. From there, you're introduced to Gerald, an antisocial aggressive Big Smoke expy, except he's not as cool as Big Smoke and also doesn't turn on you. Sorry if I just spoiled a game from 2004, but yes, Big Smoke turns on you in GTA San Andreas.

Somewhere along the line, I guess you're also introduced to Simeon (yes, that Simeon, take a shot each time you casually take a car and suddenly get a two-star wanted level), Martin (yes, that Martin, take a shot each time he angrily calls you for not doing his missions), and Benny, who can customize specific vehicles (ranging from regular, common traffic cars to the Nero, which is pretty much an entire Bugatti) in his chop shop. There, you can either trick-out your Minivan provided you acquire a regular Minivan and you upgrade it to the Minivan Custom for like, $330,000 or ruin a classic car like a little ♥♥♥♥♥ by turning it into a lowrider, because the only thing Rockstar knows about classic cars is hot rods and lowriders. Yeah, they're "car people" in the same way the guys from Fast and Furious are also "car people" while also blowing up 500 classic cars in throwaway scenes each film.

From there, the game asks you to steal a car and set it as a Personal Vehicle by going to a Mod Shop and purchasing both a Tracker and Insurance. The Tracker marks your Personal Vehicle on the map (I think), while Insurance allows you to call Mors Mutual Insurance for another car in case your Personal Vehicle gets blown up by anyone in that 28-person session you're currently in. Now, this is temporary, so take a car (It can't be a high-performance car like the Infernus, those are "too hot" and are apparently already being tracked by the original owner), go to a Mod Shop, and get a Tracker and Insurance. Don't worry, at some point you'll only ever be buying vehicles online (legally acquired and already coming with Tracker and Insurance), so you'll never have to bother with this ♥♥♥♥ ever again.

Keep doing Contact Missions until you get $26,000 or more (try getting more). From there, go to the Dynasty8 site on your phone's Internet, select "Low to High" in prices, and purchase one of the small garages you can afford. Note that the cheapest Garage ($26,000) is right across from a police station. Make that of what you will.

Once you buy a Garage, drive over there and enter it; the game should introduce you to the Garage function, and after they finish telling you that you can save cars in a Garage or whatever the hell they do for people who have never played video games or seen road infrastructure before, voila, you own a Garage. Open the Internet, go to Legendary Motorsport, and buy the Elegy RH8 (free for Enhanced players, which is literally everyone who bought the game since mid-2014). As I said before, when you buy a vehicle, it's automatically fitted with a Tracker and Insurance. After you get your Elegy RH8, you can sell that older Personal Vehicle mentioned above. Don't worry, you seriously won't miss it, but if you want to keep it as a memento and don't mind losing garage space to a ♥♥♥♥-tier car you'll never use, go ahead. My first vehicle was a white Sabre Turbo. I sold it immediately. I barely miss it.

Remember that later on, when you get enough money, you can buy an Apartment. These are pretty much Garages with a living space attached to it, where you can rip a bong, get drunk, and change your clothes. High-End Apartments, which are more expensive, allow you to plan Heists, which are time-consuming and usually require a good group of four players, but are also fairly reliable ways to get a lot of money, provided your team isn't just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ randoms who keep asking for unusually high pay cuts or leave in the middle of setups. Or, provided you can even get anyone to join your lobby at all. Yeah, there's a reason the Cayo Perico Heist (which I strongly recommend you try and unlock as soon as you can, you'll need a whole-ass naval submarine though) can be done in singleplayer with a really high payout.

Oh, also, head down to Ammu-Nation. You can get more guns as you progress through levels (don't worry, they stop mattering past like, level 120), but you can get a Sawed-off Shotgun for free if you have a Social Club account linked, which is required to play Online anyway (it takes the Assault SMG's place on the Ammu-Nation wall, which is free in Story Mode but costs $12,550 here for some reason).

Nice job! You now own a loser's Personal Vehicle that you can't afford to modify; a terrible Garage in an inconvenient location that's frequented by other likely-hostile new players; and a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ shotgun that's only effective against NPCs, many of whom are probably also carrying the same thing. Remember to turn on Passive Mode so you don't get repeatedly mowed by high-levels in ♥♥♥♥♥♥ meta vehicles with undodgeable missiles.

With that, welcome to GTA Online, the reason video games have been terrible since the mid-2010s!

You don't.

Pretty much everyone that isn't you has a rank that's in the hundreds. They probably have a couple million dollars, and they sure as hell don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about Mental States or paying insurance for your Personal Vehicle.

Sure, you can meet some real pals in a mission or a heist and become "friends", but note that this isn't exactly guaranteed. Personal story, I once did The Fleeca Job with some guy, and once we were done, he shot the ♥♥♥♥ out of me twice, blew up my Futo, and left. GTA Online is the game of choice for people like this.

There's usually "those sessions", too. I once went on a session, modified my Cheburek, and got blown up while driving back to my Apartment. When I respawned, I quickly turned on Passive Mode before an Insurgent Pickup turned the corner. The session had one hell of a killfeed, with maybe 10 or so each minute. I asked if it was "one of those sessions", and some guy replied "yeah, it is". He didn't ask what I meant. He didn't need to.

Oh yeah, and there are also modders. There's usually the newbie that comes on the server and asks if there's one; specifically, a "nice modder". If there is, expect him to immediately ask for either a high rank, a free vehicle, or a few million dollars. Now, sometimes this works. One guy who asked actually found a modder who just did ♥♥♥♥ for him. I passed him on the Senora Freeway, and he was flying what I think was a Hunter. I think the modder was there with him.

However, there's always the total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ modder. The very first session I was in, I was getting clothes at a Binco, and the moment I exited, some modder was freezing everyone. Once he let us go, we all got permanent campfires on us. This other session, I was shopping at a Binco (again), and once I left the tops rack, we all got caged.

Yes, people get kicks out of this. Rockstar tries to do something about it, but it usually doesn't work. Yeah, turns out the game is "peer to peer" or whatever, meaning you can mod your game like this all you want and the devs can't do squat.

Have fun!

Heists consist of you and up to 3 other players running down to Circle K to get Lester some milk and a bag of Takis. Heists are unlocked at Rank 12, provided you have a high-end Apartment with a planning room. Lester calls and tells you about Heists when you unlock them. You can also join other heists that you haven't unlocked yet, providing you've been invited.

2 Players

Rob a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bank. That's it. You and your partner look around, jack a Kuruma from a bunch of Asian dudes, hit up the bank, and get picked up by Eddie Toh (from the singleplayer heists) while he's in a Cargobob with a massive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ magnet on the bottom. You then fly off in front of Fort Zancudo with zero consequences, somehow.

Payout:

• $57,500 - Easy
  
• $115,000 - Normal
  
• $143,750 - Hard

4 Players

Agent 14 meets you and your crew and immediately asks you to break some guy named Maxim Rashkovsky out of Boilingbroke Prison. You steal a plane from the Vagos and a prison bus from a prison escort before you steal the prison transport schedule and grab Rashovsky's sick-ass car from a container ship. After that, you shoot some lawyers and Rashovsky's former business partner before actually breaking the guy out, or at least trying to before the plane crashes 5 million times.

Payout:

• $200,000 - Easy
  
• $400,000 - Normal
  
• $500,000 - Hard

4 Players

Agent 14 asks you to invade Humane Labs because they have WMDs. Yes, that's the actual justification, except this time it's true. You meet someone in Downtown for keycodes and get shot, steal an Insurgent and get shot, jack a Hydra from a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ U.S. Navy aircraft carrier for an EMP, take a Valkyrie from Merryweather's base and get shot, and stealthily parks the EMP-laden Insurgent in the lab. Later, half the team enters the lab with NVGs while the other half battles the Merryweather goons outside, before you all leave in the Valkyrie to blow it up.

Payout:

• $270,000 - Easy
  
• $540,000 - Normal
  
• $675,000 - Hard

4 Players

Simon from The Walking Dead heads to Los Santos to forcefully ask the player to help steal a ♥♥♥♥ ton of drug-filled action figures after you casually steal his meth lab. You and your crew do just that, stealing from every gang and enemy faction in the city and moving the product in two vans with its own obligatory shootout, before Trevor ♥♥♥♥♥ up anyway. Remember, this is a few months before the story.

Payout:

• $202,000 - Easy
  
• $404,000 - Normal
  
• $505,000 - Hard

4 Players

Lester decides to rob the main branch of the Pacific Standard Bank in Vinewood. To do this, the crew steals a delivery van with a transponder, saves some guy on an island from the cops so he can use the transponder, steals a van from another heist crew, attacks a Merryweather convoy for thermal charges, and steals bikes for a getaway that skilled players don't use anyways. Then you rob the place and die 19 times in a row.

Payout:

• $500,000 - Easy
  
• $1,000,000 - Normal
  
• $1,250,000 - Hard

2-4 Players

Part of The Doomsday Heist, a three-part mini-story where you save the world. Agent 14 gets the crew to steal an Ambulance from Mount Gordo so they can get a dead agent's data cache from the LS Coroner's Office and the agent's helicopter in El Burro Heights. After that, you steal some Deluxos and omegahack a bunch of targets. Then after that, you steal an Akula and hack the NOOSE Facility's servers. And after THAT, you raid the IAA base under the Satellite Relay Station to stop foreigners from hacking the IAA.

Payout:

• $325,000 - Normal
  
• $812,500 - Hard

2-4 Players

The crew must now work with the IAA to prevent a war by taking out enemy agents. You steal a Police Riot before using its keycards to break into a hangar and steal an Avenger from Merryweather (note how even after all this, they'll still do services for you). Then, you have to save the United Liberty Paper Contact (from GTA IV) by shooting up his kidnappers' apartment and freeing him at the Grand Banks Steel Foundry. Then, you steal a Riot Control Vehicle by inciting a riot using Tear Gas before using the RCV to save hard drives from being flame-grilled by Russian agents. THEN, you steal trucks carring Strombergs and torpedo control units to destroy a convoy and scan a submarine, which one team later actually raids and disables, while the other team covers using the Avenger.

Payout:

• $475,000 - Normal
  
• $1,187,500 - Hard

2-4 Players

After San Andreas's defense systems get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ over, the crew has to save Agent 14 from Merryweather, use a Chernobog to escort the ULP Contact, take down a drug dealer's heavy-lift helicopter in a convoy for a Barrage ATV, steal a Khanjali while destroying enemy weapons caches, and blow up SAM turrets on Mount Chiliad using a Volatol. After that, the crew storms a missile launch base operated by Avon to prevent him from using a nuke to rear-end humanity. This is the only time you'll ever do something morally correct.

Payout:

• $1,200,000 - Normal
  
• $1,500,000 - Hard

2-4 Players

Remember that time when you helped the Diamond Casino in those missions you probably didn't do? Well, it's time to rob them for some reason. You can tell I never followed why, but I think the bad guys sort of won in that mission chain. This heist can actually be done multiple ways depending on setups and what you actually do in the mission: you can sneak in there like Rainbow Six, charge in there like Payday, or infiltrate in there like... well, GTA V's "The Big Score" Subtle approach. Your payout varies based on the loot taken.

Payout:

• $2,115,000 - Normal, Cash
  
• $3,619,000 - Hard, Gold

1-4 Players

Yes, that said "1-4 Players": presently the only singleplayer heist, the Cayo Perico Heist was created after Rockstar realized GTA Online players don't actually like playing the game online with others, and follows you and Russian submariner Pavel (this was before February 2022, plus Pavel's a bro) as you repeatedly rob the ♥♥♥♥ out of cartel boss Juan "El Rubio" Strickler, initially for Martin Madrazo's loser son Miguel, but later just because it's funny (I swear to god, that's an actual justification the game gives). The Cayo Perico Heist is unique in that it not only has a "Gather Intel" stage where you scope out the place, but it is also set on the titular Cayo Perico island off Colombia or some ♥♥♥♥, which you somehow fly to in a beater Cessna. With multiple approaches to just about everything, including some honestly well-made stealth (pretty much required if you want to keep your full payout), the Cayo Perico Heist is the heist of all time, provided you love repetition and grinding.

Payout:

• $900,000 - Normal, Tequila
  
• $1,430,000 - Hard, Diamond (Panther Statue never happens, not listing here)

I'll probably update this later as time goes by and new updates are added. Maybe I'll find or remember something and add it.

Thanks for caring about my content.

Fu͏c͏k ͏y͏o͏u.