14 DAY TRIAL // Without a doubt the biggest feature of Grand Theft Auto 5, the recently released open world title from Rockstar Games for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, is the fact that you control not one, but three major characters – Michael, Franklin, and Trevor.
After being placed in the shoes of solo protagonists, like GTA 3's Claude, GTA: Vice City's Tommy Vercetti, or GTA: San Andreas' C.J., Rockstar began to evolve the narrative of its titles to accommodate more stories.
We’ve already seen this trend in Grand Theft Auto 4 several years ago. While the core game focused on Niko Bellic, the subsequent expansions, Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, had other main characters, in the form of Johnny Klebitz and Luis Lopez, who crossed paths both with Niko and the other characters from the game's world of Liberty City.
With Grand Theft Auto 5, Rockstar takes things even further and allows players to take control of three different characters – Michael, Franklin, and Trevor.
This not only allows players to explore the huge world of GTA V in an easier way, but it also allows Rockstar to tell more stories that focus on either all of the characters or just some of them.
Both Michael and Franklin are the typical GTA protagonists, as their archetypes have already been seen in the likes of San Andreas, for Franklin, or GTA 3, with Michael, to some degrees.
Trevor, on the other hand, is the wild card and I'm pretty sure that a lot of typical GTA players will find themselves in his chaotic nature and fondness of violence or sudden impulses.
Throw all these characters together and you have the recipe for a game that easily handles the story of a middle-aged man whose life isn't going as well as he'd hope (Michael), the story of a young guy trying to make it out of the hood (Franklin), and the story of a crazy dude who just wants to eliminate his competition and become the top dog (Trevor).