Why I Love... GTA Online's Techno Nightclubs

GTA Online’s digital interpretation of big city nightlife is the most authentic there is. And we speak from years of experience.

- Joe Donnelly

PUBLISHER ROCKSTAR GAMES / DEVELOPER ROCKSTAR NORTH / FORMAT XBOX ONE/XBOX 360 / RELEASE DATE JULY 2018

I’m an hour and a half into a GTA Online session and I haven’t stolen one vehicle. I haven’t robbed a bank or loaded a gun. And I haven’t murdered a single player. What I have done is dance my little heart out up and down the sweaty, sticky dance floors of Tony’s Fun House in downtown Los Santos. Realworld superstar DJ Solomun is winding up a typically hypnotic minimal techno set, and the atmosphere is electric. My in-game avatar perpetually sways back and forth to the beat, and my real life neck aches from doing the same thing in person. Rockstar sure knows how to do virtual nightclubs.

Launched in late July, Grand Theft Auto Online’s After Hours update lets players own, run and promote their own establishments. They can set ticket prices, stock the bars, chill out in the VIP area, and decorate the dancefloor with strobes and lasers and smoke machines, among other atmosphere-enhancing furnishings. Players can also enlist the services of real-world artists The Black Madonna, Dixon, Tale of Us and the aforementioned Solomun to spin the wheels of steel to scores of dedicated revellers.