Like any game, Grand Theft Auto 5 went through many iterations during development, and in spite of the impressive size and breadth of content the game sports, some ideas ended up on the cutting room floor.
While things that don't quite fit the game, haven't been well realized or don't translate well from concept to practice usually end up being left out, budgetary constraints and deadlines, or even just creative decisions sometimes leave the good stuff out too.
After combing through all the confirmed content that was cut from GTA 5 and Online, we picked out those we would have loved to see the most.
It is important to note that some of the content cut from GTA 5 was later added to GTA Online as DLC, but remains inaccessible in single player without mods, and we will be mentioning some of these — so don't flood the comment section with "but the Hunter is in the game".
Six Star Wanted Level
This is by far the game's fanbase most lamented cut. GTA 5's files make direct and clear references to a sixth wanted level, which lines up with all previous GTA games. However for some reason it was decided that a break from tradition was required and the wanted level was capped at five stars.
Just the wanted level on its own isn't even the full extent of the cut content. Some assets pertaining to law enforcement vehicles that would have pursued players in the original wanted system were also scrapped entirely, like the Annihilator (later added to GTA Online), the Police Fugitive or the Squaddie.
Some of you might say that the police in GTA 5 are already uncharacteristically skilled and dangerous in the game, the last thing you need is them to be even tougher, but consider this — it is most likely that during design, the sixth wanted level wasn't just a clean cut off the top, but the reduction of the tiers in the system resulted in a complete rebalancing.
This skewed level distribution led to a weird balance of law enforcement units on your butt. Of course, this doesn't explain why cops in Los Santos are omniscient terminators who can zero in on you even if you're alone in a desert, and who can also beat an aimbot for accuracy.
The sixth wanted level has perplexed the community for as long as the game has been out, with a data-mining "hunt" for it having been conducted at one point. It was definitely supposed to be in the game initially, but someone made a decision to cut it, and our over-the-top police chase fantasies remain unfulfilled.
Gang Wars
A lesser-known but no less awesome cut feature of game would actually have resulted in a vastly different approach to multiplayer. A faction-based gang warfare structure would have seen players affiliated with a given organization, working cooperatively with their fellow members in a turf war.
The files revealing this initial approach were discovered in 2016, 3 years after the game's release. This was from very early on in development with only a few HUD elements recovered, most of which had placeholder text describing what would need to be added later on, such as tooltips and the like. We're talking so early that the associated files included a working Chihuahua Hot Dogs logo that was literally hand scribbled.
