Grand Theft Auto 5 first released in 2013 (coming to PC in 2015), and from the vantage point of 2024 we can see it was a live game in disguise. The singleplayer side of the game, which for the first time featured three protagonists players could switch between on-the-fly, acted as Trojan horse for Rockstar's second swing at GTA Online, the multiplayer mode that would come to dominate the studio's time and attention and generate unfathomable levels of cash.
This meant that some plans went by the wayside.