Rockstar sure knows how to kick off the new year. Fully embracing the "new year new me" attitude, the devs of GTA 5 decided to throw tradition and released a DLC for Online on a Monday instead of a Tuesday. If this is any indication of the year ahead, there are some great changes coming to the game.
Even though the Bikers DLC season is behind us, Rockstar is once again expanding the lineup of two-wheeled vehicles in the game with the stylish Pegassi FCR 1000. This retro classic can be customized to an extreme measure at Benny's Original Motorworks — and at a decent price.
In fact, the FCR 1000 has immediately won over the community. The extremely wide range of customization options accommodate pretty much all tastes, allowing you to craft anything from a stylish streamliner, through a classic WWII style biker to a café-racer, as well as a handful of other favored styles and archetypes.
The stock bike, which is already pretty good looking and has damn good handling, costs a mere GTA$ 135,000, while the base customization upgrade at Benny's costs 196,000. Even when you add the additional customization fees you have a modestly priced ride, and one of the cheapest at Benny's.
Treading the fine line between old-school, no-frills engineering and over-priced hipster-bait, Pegassi's FCR is every bike to every man. And you know what they say: if it ain't broke, see how much you can mod it. Benny's unique upgrade harnesses all that poise and efficiency beneath a mid-century, stripped-back military aesthetic that'd almost make your grandpa wish he hadn't disowned you.
Performance-wise, the FCR isn't a record-breaker when it comes to races, however it isn't a pushover either and is among those bikes with the best handling. Once upgraded fully, this can absolutely be used to win races when in the hands of an experienced driver. Of course, this also depends on the track. You'll likely be left behind on courses which favor quick bikes that own on long, straight sections, whereas twisting and turning tracks that favor handling will benefit the FCR.
Rockstar also brought a new Adversary Mode to the game, which seemingly confirms that they're getting on top of the issues these modes seemed to have suffered back in 2016. For a while many players thought that the Modes are being overdone, since they didn't pay enough and many considered them boring, with a mere few exceptions such as Slasher and Sumo.
Recently, however, Rockstar has been consistently putting out fun Modes with decent pay, roughly since Power Play. We've gotten the fantastic Deadline and the unique Turf Wars since, as well as a few others which have seemingly broken the Adversary Mode curse.
Vehicle Vendetta is another in the increasingly long list of good Adversary Modes. The premise is simple, which si part of why it is brilliant: it's basically Power Play, but with vehicles. The Mode is set up as a vehicle team deathmatch with a number of neat power-ups thrown into the mix to shake up the gameplay.
These powerups can be collected by driving over them, or by stealing them from enemies with other power ups. Their effects include turning into a Rhino tank, turning into a Nagasaki Shotaro with insta-kill light-trail active, giving you three deployable proximity mines, giving you a full set of the Ruiner 2000's missiles, repairing your vehicle, removing all props from the map, allowing you to drive through opponents to steal their power-ups, slowing down time, reversing the opponents' steering and speed controls and finally forcing the acceleration of the opposing vehicles to on. There is also a random power-up which will grant you any one of these, sans the one which removes the props.
Naturally, this new Adversary Mode is the subject of a Double RP and GTA $ promotion, running through the 17th of January. This is a pretty long promo by Rockstar's standards and confirms that we won't be getting any new Adversary Modes up until the end date at the very least. If you're tired of grinding all the same jobs and missions, this might be a good way to shake up your money-making routine.
Speaking of making money, Rockstar just boosted everyone's profits for the new year with special bonuses. During the holiday event, Rockstar slapped a plus 50% bonus on selling cargo crates as well as exporting vehicles. While that particular — and very lucrative — bonus has since expired, payouts aren't dropping back to standard values just yet.
Through the 16th all vehicle exports will be paying out an extra 25%. Use this bonus in unison with the best vehicle exporting techniques, found in our guide here, to make significant profits. Suddenly, Import/Export won't seem all that expensive anymore. When done right, exporting vehicles can become even more lucrative than running crates while alternating between VIP work during cooldowns.
That said, if you're more into shuffling black market goods, this event has you covered as well. Special Cargo Warehouses, as well as renovations for Vehicle Warehouses are 25% off through the 16th, chopping a significant sum from their prices.
There are plenty of other discounts on offer too. All masks, engine performance upgrades, body armor, throwables and ammo of all kinds are 25% off, while the grenade launcher has been discounted by 50%. With all of these explosive price drops, this year is starting with a bang.
While the standard-issue new premium race reveal came in, there is another announcement which might also interest racers. Those of you who enjoyed, or still enjoy, the Stunt Races added to GTA Online with the Cunning Stunts update will be paying out double RP and cash while this event lasts, giving experienced racers a new way to make some decent cash.
As for the standard announcement, the new premium race on offer is Racing Alley. Remember folks, only the top three finishers win any cash with first place being a payout of 100k, however everyone benefits from a hefty triple RP multiplier.
Seeing as the double cash promo for Vehicle Vendetta ends on the 17th, and all other promotions end on the 16th, chances are we'll see the first bigger update of 2017 around those days. Rockstar might end up returning to form, seeing as the 17th is a Tuesday, making it a likely date for a DLC release. In the interim period, chances are a few more vehicles will be added to the game as standalone updates, continuing to expand the Import/Export DLC season.
Rockstar also dropped a friendly reminder for everyone that today is the last day to submit any entries to the Festive Surprise Snapmatic competition, which tasks budding photo artists with capturing the holiday spirit on their in-game lense. As always, five winners will be selected, all of whom will go home with an extra GTA$ 1,000,000.
Today is also the last day players can claim their free fireworks launcher and 10 ammo for it simply by logging into GTA Online, if they haven't already. The snow will also melt by tomorrow, so you better stock up on snowballs now, as you'll have to wait for a year to get another chance.
How will you customize your new FCR 1000 in GTA Online?
