Behind the scenes GTA 5 camera work reveals Rockstar's trickery, featuring transforming NPCs, random T-poses, and a half-built plane

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Grand Theft Auto 5 is basically Looney Tunes off-screen

Grand Theft Auto 5
(Image credit: Rockstar)

It takes a lot of game development ingenuity to ship something like Grand Theft Auto V or Red Dead Redemption 2. The sheer scope of Rockstar’s open-world epics requires all manner of ‘cheats,' shortcuts, and clever workarounds to maintain stability.

A compilation by Lucas7yoshi, a creator specializing in deep dives through GTA 5 and GTA Online, demonstrates the absolute wackiness that's frequently occurring just off-camera in cutscenes. Some instances make more sense than others, but they’re all absolute comedy.

Then we cut to a group walking downstairs through the ground of their own hallway. Next, as something crashes out the back of an airplane mid-flight, a lone character T-poses just off to the side. It’s all very Looney Tunes.

Others literally step down into the ground, as if they're moving off-stage, or make their weapons float while picking them up. One of the plane scenes involves an aircraft that’s only part-assembled, and an NPC transforms into another background character after walking off-screen, showing a clever re-use of assets.

It all combines to demonstrate how much of a cartoon Grand Theft Auto is even away from all the explosive nonsense that goes on in the main game. There's even a shovel just embedded in the ground during a particular scene for no discernible reason.

Perhaps it's load-bearing. I wonder what garden tools will be hidden away in Grand Theft Auto 6.

GTA 5 sleuth finally has an explanation for this 12-year-old Easter egg, and it turns out it has roots in a GTA 4 urban myth.

Anthony McGlynn
Anthony McGlynn
Contributing Writer

Anthony is an Irish entertainment and games journalist, now based in Glasgow. He previously served as Senior Anime Writer at Dexerto and News Editor at The Digital Fix, on top of providing work for Variety, IGN, Den of Geek, PC Gamer, and many more. Besides Studio Ghibli, horror movies, and The Muppets, he enjoys action-RPGs, heavy metal, and pro-wrestling. He interviewed Animal once, not that he won’t stop going on about it or anything.

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