The latest Grand Theft Auto 5 update has removed a useful feature from versions of the game that run on older consoles. Publisher Rockstar Games announced the move in advance and provided players with instructions on how to save any data related to the feature.
Grand Theft Auto 5 was released on last generation consoles all the way back in late 2014, and these versions - aside from the visuals - were almost identical to ports of the game that were later launched on the PC, as well as the PS5 and Xbox Series systems. Rockstar Games' most recent update for the popular action-adventure title, however, has removed the video editing suite from builds of GTA 5 that run on the older machines, resulting in that feature now being only available on current generation hardware.
GTA 5's 1.006.002 patch, which was dropped on February 20 as part of the game's Title Update 1.68, removed the Rockstar Editor and its associated replay functionality from the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game. Released in 2015, Rockstar Editor allowed players to create, edit, and share videos of the game and its multiplayer component, GTA Online. The removal of this tool comes after Rockstar Games removed Easy Way Out from GTA Online in December.
This is not the first time Rockstar Editor was removed from a version of GTA 5. The feature was taken out of the game's Windows Vista build in 2018, and it was removed from the Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 versions in 2023. Meanwhile, Rockstar Editor was never added to the original PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of GTA 5 even though the two consoles shipped a combined 43 million copies of the game, helping make GTA one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time.
Rockstar Games said that this move was necessary as it would allow the studio to support ongoing updates for GTA 5 and GTA Online. At the time, the company provided instructions on how PS4 and Xbox One players could export or save Rockstar Editor projects, as those and any clips would also be deleted. A lot of impressive clips were made using Rockstar Editor, including a recreation of Furious 7's famous plane drop scene in GTA 5.
With Rockstar Editor gone, GTA 5 trophies and achievements related to the feature can now be unlocked using Director Mode, which is still in the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game. Grand Theft Auto 5 is sometimes considered one of the hardest games in the GTA franchise to fully complete on any system, since many of the achievements can only be obtained while playing GTA Online.