Highlights
- Getting all achievements/trophies in GTA 5 is a demanding task, especially with the inclusion of GTA Online.
- We've collected some of the most difficult achievements you can attempt to unlock while playing both GTA 5's story and online mode.
- Many of these are long and difficult challenges that require multiple playthroughs or enlisting the help of a few friends.
Getting all 77 achievements/78 trophies in Grand Theft Auto 5 is a truly tasking demand. Story mode achievements are difficult enough and time-consuming, but GTA Online is where the real challenge and time sink lies.
You'll have to do virtually everything GTA Online has to offer, although many of the content updates can be thankfully skipped. The silver lining here is that it's not as brutal as Grand Theft Auto 4. That completion might as well be your own personal Hell with how tedious the multiplayer portion is. Still, GTA 5 ain't a cakewalk.
This includes DLC achievements, not just the ones in the core game.
Updated January 3, 2024 by Dominic Allen: With the announcement of GTA 6, players have surged back into GTA 5 in excitement. Some achievement/trophy hunters would like to 100 percent all the GTA games before the arrival of the sixth main instalment, so it would be a great time to update this list. There have been some changes to GTA Online in recent content updates as well that should be addressed regarding certain hard achievements.
10 Kifflom!
The Feeling Of A True Puppet
In terms of quests in the Story mode, the Epsilon Program is the most frustrating and, frankly, time-wasting of them all. You'll have to finish it to get the Kifflom! achievement. The two most annoying parts are the sections where you must sleep for ten days wearing the Epsilon clothes and the bit where you run five miles in one specific area near Sandy Shores.
It's so boring and just not fun. You feel like a total buffoon running in circles shouting Kifflom for about a half hour. Thankfully, you can get some retribution at the end of the questline, but it's still a section you'll never ever want to do again.
9 San Andreas Sightseer
Like Cleaning A Dirty Window To Perfection
Like many open-world titles, there's an achievement for fully exploring the map. In GTA 5, this means you must clean up the huge in-game map to a degree that is more than necessary. Most of the map will be obscured starting off. The best way to clean it up is to use a helicopter, and you should get one from playing as Trevor.
Even though this achievement is hassle-free, it still takes an annoyingly long amount of time. You'll think you're done, but the achievement still hasn't popped, and you must think about which area on the map you didn't clean enough. What's even worse is that it appears map progress resets a bit when transferring Xbox One and PS4 saves over to next-gen. That's going to suck if you still don't have it.
8 Cryptozoologist
Peyote Plants Have Never Been Harder To Find
Director mode is an awesome single-player addition, allowing you to play as other NPCs, goof off, and even use it to make machinima. There's unlockable animals in this mode, and you must get them all for the Cryptozoologist achievement. This entails eating Peyote Plants hidden within San Andreas. While there's not a huge number of them, what's frustrating is the game doesn't keep track of which ones you've already eaten.
Not even Rockstar Social Club helps here. As well, sometimes the plants will bug out and not spawn, forcing you to reload a save in hopes that it'll show up again. However, this is more common with underwater Peyotes, which aren't required for the achievement. When you get them all, make sure to load up Director mode and start as an animal for the achievement to pop.
7 Close Shave
Threading A Needle
There are two achievements tied to completing Stunts in vehicles. While the Stunt Jumps are brutal in their own right, requiring good vehicles, good driving, and some luck, the other one just takes the edge. Close Shave forces you to complete all Under the Bridge and Knife Flight tasks throughout the map.
10 Games To Play If You Like GTA 5
Though there's no topping what GTA 5 was able to achieve, these games have bits of it in their DNA.That's 65 Stunts total, and again, the game doesn't keep track of them, which is annoying if you've taken a long break. The Under the Bridge challenges aren't too bad, but the Knife Flight ones are another story. Squeezing between two objects in a sideways plane is very difficult without getting killed. Make sure to quick save. Finding the right plane for this can also be tough, considering there are no convenient options given to you during the story.
6 Career Criminal
A Big Time Sink
Career Criminal is the big 100 percent completion achievement, and to Rockstar's credit, it's far more manageable than 100 percenting GTA 4. You don't have to do everything in the game this time around. In terms of challenging tasks, there are three major ones.
First, you'll need to complete every Franklin side mission, which is time-consuming, especially as it ties into the second hard task, finding all the collectibles. There are 50 Spaceship Parts and 50 Letter Scraps you must pick up, and you'll have an ending quest after each collection is finished. The hardest part is the races. There are 18 in total you must win, and they can be incredibly tough, especially the Triathlons.
5 Solid Gold, Baby!
Time-Consuming But A Nice Way To Replay The Story
GTA 5 allows you to replay completed missions and side quests, unlike some other entries in the franchise. Since you can replay missions, they're now graded with tasks to complete to get that juicy gold medal. For this achievement, you need 70 total. That's a lot, considering there's only around 120 to get in all.
This will take a long time, but there are two bright sides. One, there are a lot of easy missions here, but they'll only take a small portion of those 70 medals. Second, you don't need to finish all the requirements in a single run. This is a huge blessing. If this weren't the case, the achievement would probably be the third hardest in the game.
4 Above The Law
A Gargantuan Grind
While GTA 5's Story mode is great, most play in GTA Online. It's still a blast with friends, but also contains the most devilish achievements in the title. Above the Law requires you to reach rank 100. This is an absurdly long grind.
Even with the best strategies, it'll take months, and without them, probably a whole year. There is one method that involves another account and console, but most won't have a second PS5 or Series X|S to make use of it. This will be tough no matter which path you go.
3 Numero Uno
An Achievement You'll Want To Boost
Numero Uno requires you to get first place in all 15 competitive game types. If you win with a tie, it won't count, which doesn't make a lot of sense, considering you still got first place. This is pretty ridiculous to do legit because GTA Online's player base is so good at this point.
GTA Online: Every Heist And What They Pay Out, Ranked
Which heists in GTA Online are worth your time?You'll have your fair share of rookies to compete with, but game types will still be populated with more experienced players. This achievement is fairly simple if you have some boosting partners, so you'll want to do it that way.
2 Live A Little
Your Sick Supercar Collection
To get the Live a Little achievement, you must cough up eight million dollars to purchase vehicles as part of The Heists update. This is more challenging now than it's been in the past because one of the best ways to rack up money previously was The Cayo Perico Heist.
That was an incredible way to earn truckloads of money, but in 2023, the payout was nerfed significantly. Gaining eight million total dollars is much more tasking now. Of course, you could buy shark cards, but what's the fun in that?
1 Masterminds
Assembling The Perfect Team
The hardest achievement in GTA 5, by far, is Masterminds. You'll need to beat all three Criminal Mastermind challenges present in The Doomsday Heist, which entails completing everything except the Preps without any of your team dying. You'll actually have to do this three total times: one with two players, one with three, and another with four.
All your teammates must be the same, and hard mode must be selected, too. This is pure savage. Teamwork and cooperation must work to its fullest to get through. There is a workaround for death by quitting the game application on Xbox and PlayStation, but it won't save you every time.
