 To reflect the advances made in other games since the release of Grand Theft Auto IV , the team overhauled many of the shooting and driving mechanics for Grand Theft Auto V. The public reception of the shooting mechanics of the team 's previous games were considered during this process . Grand Theft Auto IV , Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3 ( 2012 ) were scrutinised to establish which areas needed work in Grand Theft Auto V to make it surpass previous titles . To increase the pace of shootouts , the team removed hard locking — a central mechanic in Grand Theft Auto IV — that allows players to instantly lock on to enemies near their crosshair . Associate technical director Phil Hooker noted that the team " found [ hard locking ] too disorientating and often broke your immersion with the game , as you didn 't have to think about enemy locations " . Hooker said the team introduced a timer that breaks the player 's lock on a target after a certain time to combat the problem with Grand Theft Auto IV , in which the player can " just rely on holding and shooting until a target is dead " . Another natural progression was reworking the cover system in combat gameplay , which was remodelled on the cover system of Red Dead Redemption ; entering and exiting cover such as low walls and vehicles is more fluid in Grand Theft Auto V than in earlier games in the series . The team also reworked the driving mechanics for cars and motorcycles . Houser felt that the cars would handle better than they did in Grand Theft Auto IV , which he thought were " big and boat @-@ like " , whereas in Grand Theft Auto V the cars handle similarly to those in racing games . 
