IGN hands on GTA V Heists: They’re Real and They’re Spectacular

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Part Destiny raid, Part Splinter Cell co-op, and all open-world unpredictability.
BY RYAN MCCAFFREY“F*** it,” I yelled. “We’re going in!” I floored it in my Jester sports car and sped into the heavily guarded Merryweather Security base at the waterside Port of Los Santos while IGN’s Jon Ryan, one of my three heist partners, clawed at the dashboard and shrieked like a cheerleader from the passenger seat. We came here in search of a Valkyrie gunship helicopter, and dammit, we weren’t about to let 50 well-armed Merryweather goons get in our way.

We plowed through the first checkpoint and the two thugs manning it, setting the entire port on high alert. From there we swerved our way around shipping crates, parked vehicles, and more checkpoints, turning a few more Merryweather PMCs into Jester hood ornaments. We spotted the Valkyrie at the back of the base near a dock, skidded the car to a stop, and took cover behind a barricade. We needed a window of time just large enough to dart to the chopper and escape, pick up our two other literal partners-in-crime at a safe distance outside the base, and pilot the military helicopter to safety. But we didn’t pick off enough of them on our way in, and by the time we exited our car, we were surrounded and gunned down before we could board the copter. Mission over. Back to the checkpoint.

Yes, we may have waited 18 months for Online Heists to come to Grand Theft Auto V, but if the first one I got to play with Jon and two Rockstar reps is any indication, these massive (and free!) new quests will be well worth the wait. Because even in spectacular defeat, hoo-boy did we have fun! And better yet, the delirious insanity described above didn’t even happen during the actual heist proper; it was only one of the five setup missions!

The online heist we played was called “Raid on Humane Labs.” Our overall goal was to break into a laboratory, steal their data, and get out clean, splitting up $540,000 in the process. It featured five setup missions and then the heist itself, and from start to finish it took us almost exactly three hours. I’m confident we could get that down to two-and-a-half or even two flat with an experienced, well-coordinated team, but the point is that these long-awaited four-player online heists are meaty and, in our initial experience, very different from anything else in GTA 5.
One person, as we’ve previously detailed, is the leader who fronts all the cash and doesn’t get paid until the end. The other three participants get paid after each job, which could lead to squabbles over how big each person’s cut is. For the Humane Labs heist, we started by meeting at the heist leader’s apartment, where the anonymous middleman relayed instructions from the even-more-anonymous boss. We went over the first couple setup jobs on the planning board. We needed to get key codes from a contact in a downtown parking lot, and then steal two APC-esque Insurgent vehicles from a Merryweather test site in Blaine County.

I was the buyer, another player was my bodyguard, and two others were lookouts perched atop fire escapes above the parking lot. When the contact arrived, she seemed to know of us. “That bank…that was you, right?” she asked, likely alluding to one of the other Online Heists. And a moment later, “What you’re getting into now is a whole different ballgame, my friends.”
Before the conversation could continue, though, dozens of FIB agents swarmed our meeting, surrounding us at each of our four exits (the main exit and three alleys). I hopped in the car we arrived in and ran a few over while my teammates chose bullets, and after a few failed attempts, we got the job done. It was a simple warm-up mission, but enjoyable nevertheless. I took home $20,520 as my cut – as I would at the end of each setup mission.

The Insurgent-swiping quest ratcheted up the pressure a bit. It was easy enough for the four of us to get to the quarry where our two APCs were parked and take out the men guarding them, but getting away proved to be much trickier (and much more fun). Both Insurgents rolled out, two players to a vehicle, but only one Insurgent was equipped with a gun turret on the roof. I drove that one as the second car, our pals in the other APC bulldozing our way through waves of Merryweather scumbags who rolled up on us in heavy duty jeeps, trying to stop us. Our gunner even had to shoot down a couple of missile-launching helicopters.
Now it had really started to get interesting.

For our third setup mission, we had to drive to a dinghy boat parked in an obscure spot, ride it out to sea to an aircraft carrier, storm the carrier, steal a VTOL-capable Hydra, and return the Hydra to the airplane hangar in Blaine County. After driving the boat and blasting our way to the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, I made a break for the jet, got it off the ground, and started getting peppered by inbound enemy jets intent on taking me down. My heist-mates snagged jets as well, and what started out as a simple jet theft quickly turned into a massive aerial dogfight!

The capper? When we’d finished off the opposition and were all flying toward the hangar, what song came on everyone’s radio? “Danger Zone.”

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