The official Grand Theft Auto 5 launch locator is now live, Rockstar Games announced Friday.
Consumers in North America and the UK can use the locator to find the nearest retail store hosting a GTA 5 midnight launch event .
Rockstar will be hosting a special midnight launch event at the GameStop in New York City’s Union Square on September 16. Attendees can check out the custom 2013 Banshee Bravado and take home limited Grand Theft Auto 5 promo gear.
Rockstar will also be visiting GameStop stores in and around Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, and Boston. Customers who pre-ordered at a 24-hour Walmart will get a GTA 5 logo keychain, and Best Buy customers will get exclusive character posters, while supplies last.
There have been 2.5 million pre-orders for Grand Theft Auto 5 , and the game is estimated to move 25 million copies in its first year. Analysts are expecting the game to be one of the most-sold of this console generation.
Part of the game’s projected success is due to its massive marketing and development budget. According to a report in The Scotsman earlier this week, GTA 5 is the most expensive game ever with a $265 million budget. For a quick Hollywood comparison, 2007’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End currently holds the record for most expensive film production with a $300 million budget, even after adjusting for inflation.
GTA 5 spent five years in development and is the first main entry in the franchise since 2008’s Grand Theft Auto 4.
Find the closest #GTAV midnight launch event near you with our official locator: http://t.co/Q3S1OIHxXE pic.twitter.com/MXwc4DUScf
— Rockstar Games (@RockstarGames) September 13, 2013
According to Brian Baglow, who worked as a writer on the first Grand Theft Auto game, the series has sold around 135 million copies.
With that in mind, everything about Grand Theft Auto 5 is massive, i ncluding the sandbox game’s map . There is desert and mountain terrain and a city, Los Santos, bigger than most of the previous entries entire maps. Los Santos alone is about three times bigger than GTA IV ‘s Liberty city, and is the same size of the vast majority of San Francisco , Manhattan, and the Greater Toronto Area, according to IGN.
