The latest update for GTA Online, After Hours, was released today. At first glance the update might seem as though it’s all about parties, nightclubs and music. But After Hours is one of the biggest updates the game has ever received. And, after two hours of playing, I think it might be one of the game’s most important updates as well.
After Hours starts like a lot of big GTA Online updates: You get a call from a character telling you to invest in a new building and business, in this case a nightclub.
Once you buy the club, pick a name, and customise it to your liking, you might think you’re all done. But unlike previous business-focused updates, After Hours has much more story and mission content, at least at the start.
You have to complete a series of missions in order to open your club. Picking up employees, stealing sound equipment, and getting your DJ to the club.
None of these missions are super complex or difficult, and thankfully you can easily complete them solo. But they are filled with dialogue and feature cutscenes. At one point, I almost felt like I was playing a new single-player expansion.
In fact, I felt like I was playing Ballad Of Gay Tony, because popular GTA 4 character Gay Tony returns in After Hours as your business partner.
The update also includes a few references to the GTA 4’s popular expansion The Ballad of Gay Tony, including some similar-sounding background music and a photo of Ballad of Gay Tony protagonist Louis Lopez.
The opening hour or so of After Hours is less focused on shooting and destruction compared to previous big updates, such as Doomsday or Gunrunning. You can also do missions to help keep your club popular and busy. These missions ask you to do fun things such as put up posters around town.
Overall the entire update feels more chill and narrative-driven than most other GTA Online updates.
The update isn’t all about fun, of course. There is money to make and business to do. The update allows you to make money via your nightclub, even letting you charge other players to enter your club and dance and drink.
But more interesting is the business consolidation features found in After Hours. Players can now use their nightclub as a hub for all their businesses, including drugs, guns and stolen cars.
Actually figuring out how this new system works takes some time, but essentially players can hire technicians. These techs will steal supplies and goods for your different businesses. Eventually when you have enough you can sell some or all of your illicit goods via the nightclub.
I’ll need to spend more time with the update to really see how well this new system works and if it is worth the $2-4 million in-game currency you need to spend to fully unlock it. But in theory, the idea of all your businesses in one convenient location sounds great.
There is a lot in this update, and Rockstar has announced more to come. Currently there is only one real world DJ in the game, Solomun, but over the next few weeks Rockstar will be adding more DJs, new music, new cars and more to GTA Online.
So far After Hours is already one of my favourite updates, and I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface.
Comments
5 responses to “GTA Online’s After Hours Expansion Almost Feels Like Single-Player DLC”
Never really gotten into GTA Online, and stopped playing single player after I’d done everything I’d wanted to. This does sound interesting though, might have to boot it up and have a look.
Just bear in mind that most of the online content is gated behind massive in-game currency costs.
So if you haven’t played much or any online you’ll need to either grind for weeks or shell out cash for some shark cards before you can do this stuff.
Hope you’ve got 200 hours to grind before you can access any of this content.
The cheapest cardnyiu need to buy a $2m club is $50US on Steam!
Rockstar needs to put in a huge playwall if they want to tempt you to fork out that kind of cash.
Pretty disgusting really when the missions are hidden behind that kind of wall. People should stop giving Rockstar a pass for it.
Not really. You can get a club for under $1.5 mil which you can easily get from just doing the original heists. Takes a couple of hours at most if you have a good crew.
Once you invest in businesses it is even easier to make money. If it takes you 200 hours to make $2 million you are doing it wrong.
That’s if you can access the Heists, which itself requires a fair investment.
Not at all. You can just farm them through the job finder
Feels like the single player DLC R* said they’d be bringing out since before the release of GTA V, before they instead decided to double-down on modder-laden GTA:O and the money they can suck out of it?
Started off when GTA:O went up (a while after game release, thanks to infrastructure issues) with a decent size crew. One day about six months later, a modder hit our session and threw money and xp (RP) at the lobby, and anybody who was in that lobby got banned and/or reset for cheating. With R* there’s no recourse for appealing that decision. Ever. That was about 1/4 – 1/3 of the crew gone and never to return.
They kept bringing out new story-less updates with higher and higher $ requirements for each new feature. Cars came out at 3-4x the price they would have been compared to similar-performing cars at release. Sharks got jumped multiple times with the addition of flying cars and bikes, and the proliferation of seeking missiles. Modders went pretty well unchecked, while innocent players unlucky enough to share a server with a modder got banned.
I have no doubt R* went into this wanting to bring out an epic game. All they’ve done is create a cash cow for TakeTwo Interactive, and prove how little player experiences matter when compared to the almighty dollar.
Answer: GTA Online suspensions are triggered by a number of factors, including modding in GTA Online, exploiting or abusing game mechanics, manipulating protected game data and code, or interfering with other players’ gameplay experience.
Suspensions from GTA Online due to these reasons may be temporary suspensions or permanent bans depending on the severity of the infraction.
If you receive a temporary suspension from GTA Online, the next infraction will result in a permanent ban. If you are temporarily suspended from GTA Online, you will not be able to access GTA Online from the moment you are suspended. Your suspension expiration date is shown on the splash screen after being returned to Story Mode following an attempt to play GTA Online.
In addition, your GTA Online character(s) will be reset. All GTA Online progress, property and inventory will be reset.
All GTA Online suspension and banning decisions are final and may not be appealed.