GTA Online Finally Adds Loadout Customization
The recent launch of the biggest GTA Online DLC to date, Further Adventures in Finance and Felony was a tad rocky to say the least. Some players have managed to bankrupt themselves by their own fault and are blaming it on the update, while the over-eager anti-cheat methods implemented are handing out bans left and right, even if unearned.
However, at the same time, the update has added a ton of new content to GTA Online which has revitalized the game after a bit of a content drought in the first half of the year. The update has added a whole new layer of gameplay with the black market mechanics.
Finance and Felony takes the whole white collar crime aspect introduced in Executives and Other Criminals to the next level. Running your criminal enterprise as a CEO, you and your associates must acquire illegal goods, store them in warehouses and deliver them to the buyers offering the best price.
You must coordinate your efforts from a high-end corporate HQ outfitted with a number of luxurious extras, including your own helipad. You'll run missions with three new top of the line supercars and a number of specialized vehicles like an armored trash compactor. When defending your warehouses you can rain an uninterrupted hail of bullets on your enemies with new box and drum magazines.
The best, most revolutionary addition isn't among these, though. It isn't the Cargobob either, which you can buy and carry tanks with again. It isn't the fact that you can outfit your character with VIP and bodyguard clothes in Freemode either.
It's the gun locker.
The freaking gun locker. GTA Online's oldest issue is with the weapon interface. The weapon wheel is poorly implemented, forcing players to cycle through every single weapon in each category in order to select the one they always use.
Not only is the fact that your character is constantly carrying around enough weaponry to arm the entire US army and have rifles to spare entirely unrealistic, it's also inconvenient.
Players have been clamoring for a new weapon system where they can select a given loadout in their apartments, or at least pick which guns are the default for each category pretty much since launch. The fact that every other DLC adds at least two new weapons merely exasperated the issue.
Enter Further Adventures in Finance and Felony, as well as the new executive offices. There are four corporate HQs on offer, each with a number of different bonuses. When purchasing the office, you can add an optional safe, accommodations and a weapon locker. All of these cost a small addit...
... Wait, a weapon locker?
Yes. A weapon locker. This little bonus, which costs an arguably high $520,000, will allow you to dump any unused weapons into it while your out playing criminal kingpin. Guns in the weapon locker will be removed from your weapon wheel, but you can always go back and re-equip them, so they won't be lost.
This means that if you only have one or two guns in each weapon category that you use often, you can dump everything else into the locker and switching between your preferred boomsticks will be significantly easier.
Some argue that it is a bit skewed that players have to pay for something that really just constitutes sound gameplay and interface design, but its not like GTA 5 has the worst inventory system out there (75% of RPGs have worse but get a free pass regardless...) and at least you now have the option to get the locker.
Have you outfitted your new corporate headquarters with the new gun locker?