GTA Online will be getting a slew of new content in its “Freemode Events” update coming Sept. 15, Rockstar announced today.
These Freemode Events will allow for new public events to occur every 12 minutes and it’s up to each individual player to decide whether or not they wish to take part. The idea behind Freemode Events is to give players more to do in GTA Online that isn’t predicated by scrolling through menus or waiting for matchmaking to find a Job to do. When a Freemode Event is about to occur, a notification will pop up in the corner of the screen to notify the player. The player can then have the game pinpoint a GPS location to travel to or press right on the directional pad to opt in for events without a specific location to travel to.
Some of the events included in the update are Hunt the Beast, where one player, dressed as a werewolf with a varsity jacket, is hunted by all other players; Penned In, a vehicle-required event where players attempt to push and shove each other out of a designated area and be the last one remaining in the area; and King of the Castle, which is a GTA-variant of king of the hill-type game modes found in other multiplayer games.
The full list of Freemode Events can be found below:
- Penned In – A vehicular free-for-all to stay inside an ever-shrinking and always-moving dome. If you’re caught outside the dome for more than a few seconds you’ll blow up and be eliminated from the competition.
- Criminal Damage – Rack up the biggest property damage bill you can before time runs out. Equip your biggest weapons and go to town on anything and everything in sight.
- Hunt The Beast – Players team up to track and kill the beast – a randomly selected player with superior speed and extra health – before it can collect 10 checkpoints scattered around the world within the time limit. The beast is invisible on the mini-map save for whenever it collects a checkpoint, which will cause it to blip for 10 seconds (and increasing in duration with each checkpoint collected).
- Challenges – Longest jump; longest skydive; longest wheelie; most vehicles stolen; most near misses; lowest parachute deploy; longest bail from vehicle; furthest distance low flying; and more.
- Moving Target – A vehicle is blipped on the map, the first player to deliver it to the marked destination wins.
- Kill List – A vehicle is blipped on the map, once the requisite number of players enter they must take out as many waves of enemies as possible.
- Kill List Competitive – Same as above, but multiple vehicles are blipped and players compete against each other to rack up the most kills in the given time limit.
- Checkpoints – 120 checkpoints spawn in a quadrant of the map. Players compete to collect the most in the given time limit. This mode comes in two variants: land & sea checkpoints and air checkpoints.
- Time Trial – A persistent blip on the map where players can try to beat the Rockstar par time and world record on a route that changes weekly.
- Hold the Wheel – A target vehicle is blipped on the map for 5 minutes. Players compete to be the one in the vehicle when the timer expires.
- Hot Property – Players compete to control possession of a blipped briefcase. The longer you have it, the more points you earn.
- Dead Drop – A briefcase is blipped for players to collect and deliver to a location. Players compete for the chance to deliver the briefcase.
- King of the Castle -The first player to a blipped location becomes King, and gain points as long as they remain King. Players compete to kill and become the King.
This update will also be adding the Rockstar Editor to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, a feature that was exclusive to PC players at first. Players can use the Rockstar Editor to create their own Machinima-style videos within the world of Grand Theft Auto 5.
Two new Adversary Modes, Cross the Line and Hunting Pack, will also be coming to GTA Online. In Cross the Line, two teams compete where one team’s goal is to make sure their entire team makes it across enemy lines and the other team tries to prevent that from happening. Hunting Pack requires a vehicle and has one player positioned as a target for other players to take down or protect.
Freemode Events nor the Rockstar Editor will be available to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 players, unfortunately. This aligns with earlier reports that Rockstar Games would no longer be supporting GTA Online for those two platforms due to technical limitations.
Source: Rockstar Games (via Kotaku UK)
