We came to a group of two scientists and two PMCs. From a safe distance, we all took aim at a different brain. “On three,” a Rockstar rep said calmly. “Three…two…one…”
Four “ffft” sounds whispered out into the night from our firearms, and all four foes fell silently and simultaneously to the ground in a giddy-cool moment reminiscent of Splinter Cell Chaos Theory’s classic 2005 co-op mode. We did this another adrenaline-pumping couple of times before the last body hit the floor, leaving Jon to hack the garage door security panel. As our mission timer ticked down to less than one minute – did I mention that we were timed on this job? – Jon couldn’t get through the timing-based hacking mini-game. When he finally did, we had no choice but to find a vehicle if we had any hope of escaping in time. A nearby APC was locked, but a Humane Labs service van wasn’t! We all piled in and one of our Rockstar players drove us out the front gate as a caravan of Humane Labs reinforcements began streaming towards us. We all held our breath…but cruised right on by without incident because we were driving a company van. Whew…and wow!
Finally, the heist itself. We have to split into two groups: ground team, who infiltrates Humane Labs wearing night-vision goggles and gets the data from the server lab, and the air support team, who stays airborne in the Valkyrie, fending off Humane Labs’ reinforcement choppers before picking us up at the rendezvous point and getting us all out of there. I was on the ground team with a Rockstar rep, while Jon and the other Rockstar rep took to the sky.
I drove us to the Valkyrie, sat in the co-pilot seat (as opposed to the pilot or two gunner chairs) as we flew to the Lab, and then parachuted out with my Rockstar partner (nevermind that I managed to pancake into a concrete post near the ground, robbing us of our only Team Life). We ninja’d our way in there in total darkness in a mission reminiscent of one near the end of the GTA 5 campaign. But it’s a hell of a lot more fun with another person by your side. We kept our feet and our weapons silent, grabbed the data off of the target computer, then equipped our rebreather mouthpieces and swam for five minutes through underwater tunnels until we were clear of the Lab. We surfaced, paddled to the pickup point on the beach, and right on cue, Jon and his Rockstar co-pilot landed, picked us up, and we got out of there.
We weren’t entirely safe yet – not until we shot down one last wave of rival Valkyries by the skin of our teeth – and we landed our smoking helicopter, successfully completing the big heist. Cash was paid out, and celebratory drinks were had at the Vanilla Unicorn gentlemen’s club. To a job well-done!
If this sounds like it was a lot, and if it sounds like it was intense, it’s because it was both of those things. Just a single full heist arc yielded several great Could-you-believe-it-when? stories for the next day’s watercooler chat. Heck, this isn’t even all of ours from our single play session! Combine that with the inherent replayability of the differing roles and the sheer unpredictability GTA 5’s sandbox provides and Online Heists could easily see a Destiny raid-level of community passion and dedication.