Players quickly concluded that the new vehicle with the AA turret is based on the Dartz Prombron. Dartz is a car company which, in spite of existing in the real world, seems like it would perfectly fit into GTA without any alteration. They sell armored luxury vehicles with a military vibe at ludicrous costs, use whale foreskin leather for their upholstery (we're not making this up) and use joke-marketing which plays up the company as selling mainly to dictators and tsars. One of their more recent ad campaigns features footage of Donald Trump, subtitled "dictator of the USA". Again, this is a real company. Somehow.
We also see the anti-air missile rack configuration of the APC in action as it takes out a Savage with a single shot. Of course, the Savage has a reputation of being made out of paper held together by spit and prayers, and we'd be more impressed if the trailer showed off a bunch of Hydras being mercilessly obliterated, but it's still an impressive show of force — and hey, the Savage appears many times in the trailer. Maybe it got a buff?
We're also shown our first non-weaponized new vehicle of the update. Seen for a slip second near the 0:36 mark is a single-propeller fixed wing plane taking off amid explosions. Even though it barely had a second of screentime, this plane caught the attention of many players who debated what we're looking at. Theories included a refitted World-War 2 era fighter, which had players getting excited about some good old dogfighting, however some maintain that it's just the Velum already found in the game.
Another scene sees the jet-powered bikes jump out of the lowered cargo ramp of what seems to be a new plane allowing players to drive vehicles inside, have the plane take off, then drive out of it. Similarly, it has been shown that the Mobile Operations Center can lower the ramp while mobile and another vehicle can drive off or in seamlessly.
This answers our technical question about instancing from the last time there was a press release about the update. It seems entering and interacting with the MOC will not be instanced at all, meaning no loading screens separating the interior of the truck. This means that Rockstar has really refined some of the underlying code and optimized world interaction behind the scenes.
People who haven't had experience trying to code something like this will be hard pressed to understand what a feat this is. In-game, this looks like one mobile dynamic object, which can be entered by player characters (another dynamic object) can possess an interior which, since the vehicle is moving, will also move. Then, another dynamic object (the smaller vehicle) can drive into the first and instantly switch its relative reference point from the game world itself to the moving object (the MOC). At the same time, the trailer shows that other player characters can move around the interior freely and interact with objects. This is art. Oh, and keep in mind that other games can get thinks like pathfinding wrong, just to put it into perspective.
Additionally, it is shown that players can control the defense systems of the mobile operations center from a terminal inside the vehicle. Only the targeting system is shown, but it seems like guided missiles can be fired at selected targets. There is also a weapons locker and armor rack inside the truck, and based on a toolbox you'll be able to upgrade vehicles on the go as well. If course it goes without saying that the MOC is customizable.
The Juggernaut armor also makes an appearance in the trailer. It's unclear if the armor will be available in freemode by any means or if Rockstar snuck footage of a new Adversary Mode into the trailer, but we're holding out hope for the former. Aside from the Juggernaut outfit, a wide range of new clothing items will be available, of which we got a better look thanks to snippets of player characters in the trailer. There seems to be an abundance of new masks.
Gunrunning is definitely shaping up to be an extremely action-packed DLC, and we're looking forward to next Tuesday to finally dive into this new form of crime on offer.
