Grand Theft Auto has always been Rockstar’s flagship series. It makes them the most money, it’s the franchise they invest the most effort into, and they’re constantly looking for ways to reinvent and reinvigorate each game. Grand Theft Auto IV was their attempt at darker storytelling while tackling geopolitical themes whereas Grand Theft Auto V was meant to be a lighter return to form that still managed to act as a solid character drama. Like any developer, though, Rockstar is not immune to the occasional poor decision making.

One of the series biggest pitfalls has always been its larger scripts. It’s clear that no one writer can tackle everything in your typical GTA game, but this committee style of writing can lead to contradictions, mistakes, and plot holes. Grand Theft Auto is far from the worst series when it comes to plot holes, but the typically tight narratives make spotting those holes all the easier.

For every fully developed character or story beat, there’s a plot hole lurking in the shadows waiting you suck you in. No game is safe from mistakes, but Rockstar’s clearly gotten sloppier in recent years. As great as GTAV’s story is, it probably has more plot holes than any other game in the franchise. Hold on tight to your seats, because you’ll never see Grand Theft Auto the same way again.

15 Police Ignore Gang Violence, But Don’t Ignore Speeding

If you’re familiar with Grand Theft Auto, then you’re probably familiar with all the memes people make about how dumb the police AI can be. Bumped into a pedestrian? You’re now a wanted criminal. A car hit you? Instant shootout. It’s silly, but it’s in line with how the police are depicted in GTA. It’s commentary, right? Wrong. If it were commentary, the police would treat everyone equally instead of singling you out.

Do you know what the cops do when gang members confront them? They run away. Very rarely will they ever fight back, but they’ll never give anyone else the same attention they give you. Rockstar is clearly capable of creating a detailed and immersive world, but instances like this just take you out. It might not be practical to make the cops react to everyone the way they react to you, but it at least gives the world some much-needed consistency.

14 The Lost And The Damned’s First Half Makes Zero Sense

The Lost and the Damned was the first of two expansion packs Rockstar released from Grand Theft Auto IV. Their goal with the DLC was to expand Liberty City and make it feel more alive. They wanted to convey that IV wasn’t just Niko’s story, there were other key people at play the whole time. Unfortunately, TLatD contradicts basic information from IV that really hurt the idea that all these stories are playing out together.

TLatD takes place before Niko ever arrives in Liberty City, but you can see him walking down the street during the opening credits. On top of that, IV makes a point to mention that certain bridges are down in Liberty City, but TLatD ignores that to give you access to the full map right away. It’s a nice gesture, but it causes unnecessary story issues where the game’s plot just doesn’t make sense until way later.

13 Merryweather’s Stock Have No Effect On Gruppe Sechs’

Stocks are one of GTAV’s more important mechanics. It’s a reliable way to get money, you can actually affect stocks in-game, and the game nudges you into investing just enough where you’re more than likely to play around with your finances. Unfortunately, Rockstar neglects one major detail: stocks affect each other in real life.

The game makes a big deal about Merryweather Security and Gruppe Sechs being business rivals, but when you inevitably increase or decrease the value of Merryweather’s stock, (and you will), Gruppe Sechs sits completely unchanged. There’s no excuse, especially since this kind of depth would only make the mechanic all the more dynamic.

12 Merryweather Would Have Kept Hunting Them Down

In arguably the biggest heist in the game, the GTAV trio steal a literal weapon of mass destruction from Merryweather Security. Merryweather, naturally, puts up a fight but you get away with it by the seat of your pants. Realizing that you’ve stolen a WMD and won’t be able to live it down, Lester gets rid of it by dumping it in the ocean and getting you off the hook.

But all you’ve done is throw away a WMD in the sea so you wouldn’t actually be off the hook. In fact, you’d be in even more trouble because you stole a weapon and then contaminated and destroyed it. Merryweather shouldn’t be letting up after this, they should be doubling down trying to hunt the cast down. If Rockstar wanted the main characters to steal a WMD, they should have seriously considered the plot implications of it instead of just brushing it aside like a joke.

11 Madrazo’s Men Would NOT Have Been Able To Find Michael And Franklin

Marriage Counseling is that wacky Michael mission in Grand Theft Auto V where Michael and Franklin think they’re destroying a tennis coach’s house, but it’s actually drug lord Madrazo’s mistress’ house. What a mouthful. As expected, Madrazo's men immediately start hunting down Michael and Franklin for revenge, but there’s one problem. How would they know what they look like?

Michael and Franklin do not interact with Madrazo or his men at all. No one actually sees each other. The workaround is that Kyle probably told Madrazo what kind of car Michael was driving, but this is a game all about stealing cars so then the plot hole becomes “why didn’t Michael and Franklin just find another car?”

10 Luis Can Resurrect Himself In GTAIV

While Grand Theft Auto IV was primarily Niko’s story about revenge in a foreign land, it also took its time to ensure Luis and Johnny were developed characters that players knew. They appeared in missions, had plot relevance, and were unkillable so there’d be no continuity errors. Except Luis isn’t unkillable and can very much die in Three Leaf Clover.

This isn’t a case of “maybe he was just hurt” either. Luis can actually be shot and killed and the game will not stop you. If you have no idea what happens after this mission and kill Luis, you’ll probably be very confused as to why he’s alive. Only Rockstar can get away with letting you create your own plot hole.

9 GTO Takes Place Before GTAV Actually Begins But Doesn’t Reflect That

Grand Theft Auto Online is messy to say the least. It wasn’t ready for launch, it’s full of bugs, it’s easy to hack, and Rockstar foolishly decided to insist that GTO takes place before Grand Theft Auto V begins even though literally everything in the game means it has to take place after to make sense of the story.

You can watch a movie Michael produces during the main game (even though it shouldn’t have been made yet), you can fight off the O’Neils (even though Trevor does that in the main game), and you successfully team up with Lester for a series of heists, but you’re never mentioned in the main game even though you’re supposed to be a great master heistman. Overall, GTO’s plot is just sloppy and should have taken place after the main game to save everyone the headache.

8 The Pacific Standard Job In GTAO Trivializes Every Heist In The Game

One of the biggest downsides to GTO taking place before the game actually begins is what it means for the heists. The heists in V are treated with utmost respect. Rockstar clearly put care into making sure each heist felt like a grand event that had a sense of progression. Lester even comments about how he’s never done a heist so big before during the Jewel heist.

But he has.

The Pacific Standard Job is the final heist in GTO, and it completely trivializes every heist in the main game. Its payout, is higher than the Jewel heist payout and its existence in the canon means the main cast has no excuse being so nervous for their first heist. It also means that the trio’s heisting is no longer unique or special to them. The game makes a big deal about their growing criminal syndicate, but random no name characters have apparently been doing it far before Michael re-entered the game.

7 Vice City Stories Is About Vic Creating His Own Empire, But It Isn't Mentioned In Vice City

Vice City Stories was that not-really-but-also-definitely-a GTA spinoff for the PSP that you never played, but your cousin did because you had a PS2 and he didn’t. Taking place before Vice City, VCS followed minor character Vic’s rise to mediocrity as he built his own empire in the titular city. His journey was so mediocre that there’s actually no trace of it in the original game. Or at least that’s what Rockstar should have done, because the whole rags to riches story doesn’t really work when your empire effectively does not exist two years later.

Vice City has no references at all to Vic having any sort of respectable empire which makes VCS’ story all the stranger. Rockstar could have deconstructed their typical plot formula, but they stuck to it and wrote a story that cannot make sense in its own universe. Great job, guys.

6 Dr. Friedlander Will Still Post On Bleeter After He’s Dead

Michael’s therapist in Grand Theft Auto V is one of the game’s best lowkey antagonists. He terrorizes, insults, and belittles Michael all while his patient is desperately trying to better his lot in life and gain some semblance of control. It all culminates in one final scenario where Michael can get revenge on Friedlander and kill him for all the hell he put him through. The unfortunate thing is that if you do it too early, the game will still think he’s alive and Friedlander will keep posting on Bleeter. It’s clearly an oversight that slipped through the cracks, but it does take away from the satisfaction of finally killing Friedlander when his ghost is still on social media.

5 Dwayne Cannot Read Or Write, But He Can Text You Just Fine

One of the downsides of GTA’s emphasis on humor is that it can cause some contradictions in the main story. If you hang out with Dwayne long enough in GTAIV, he’ll eventually mention to you that he can’t read or write properly. That’s an interesting character trait, but it doesn’t really hurt anything in the main game. What it does do, however, is make texting him all the more complicated because he clearly can read what you’re writing and he texts you just fine. It’s a funny line, sure, but it’s at the expense of character continuity in a character driven series.

4 Dead Man Walking’s Entire Plot Relies On A Plot Hole

Dead Man Walking is a Michael mission where David Norton decides to knock out Michael and send him to a morgue as part of an elaborate, wacky plan. The problem with this mission is that Norton tells Michael to call him once he wakes up in the morgue after knocking Michael out, meaning he had no way of hearing the instructions. Michael needs to get into the morgue to verify a body so Norton knocks him out so he can be sent to the morgue. The premise is already flimsy. It gets even flimsier when you realize the doctors will actually do an autopsy on Michael if you wait too long, killing him and ending the mission. This means Norton somehow knew Michael would hear him as he was knocked out and then wake up before the doctors decided to slice him open. It’s a fun mission, but it makes no real sense.

3 No One Ever Launders Their Money

Grand Theft Auto V is all about money. Heists are a central mechanic, and the game's logo is based on the five dollar bill — GTAV is very clear when it comes to its main theme. Given that our heroes are all bank robbers, you’d assume money laundering would be a key aspect involved in their day to day lives, but they never actually do any laundering. Instead, they just deposit the money from any given heist right into their bank accounts.

Lester does introduce Franklin to the stock market, and any character can buy property, but these aren’t instances of money laundering; they’re just additional forms of income. The heist money still exists independently of the trio’s main finances and can theoretically be linked back as stolen funds. You would think a game about cash flow and high stake robbery would take some time to explain laundering.

2 Why Would Trevor Instantly Believe Michael Is Alive

After spending years believing his best friend was killed in a heist the two participated in, Trevor has no doubts whatsoever when he finds out Michael’s alive. Trevor is a weird character, he’s deranged and has psychopathic tendencies, but you’d think a character who spent the better part of two decades mourning his closest companions would have some reservations upon hearing he was alive the whole time. Rockstar does use this whole debacle for drama way later in the game, but Trevor’s initial revelation is really just a one and done deal that Rockstar clearly didn’t want to develop. It’s a shame, because it really makes you question the actions of an otherwise concise character.

1 The Very Existence Of The Kill Michael And Kill Trevor Endings Are Plot Holes

On the subject of people acting completely out of character, Rockstar expects us to believe that Franklin would suddenly turn on Michael or Trevor and kill one of them because they had a little spat. It’s almost offensive how stupid killing either of the two is, because it’s just not something Franklin would realistically do. He respects Michael too much and he clearly cares about Trevor to an extent. The whole plot development hinges on Franklin throwing out any development he’s had over the story and murdering one of his friends because someone told him to. Deathwish is so obviously canon that it makes you question why Rockstar even bothered giving you the option to choose otherwise. It’s the worst kind of plot hole: one that ignores character motivation for cheap drama.