GTA, how I’ve missed you. We’ve suffered numerous instalments of your pretenders since we last set foot in Liberty City, but they just weren’t the same.

I feel like I’m in a minority in standing by my high opinion of GTA IV, a game I felt certainly had flaws but did more than enough to justify the acclaim. Honestly, if they patched out the inane and annoying friendship system, I’d have no reservations about awarding that game a perfect score. Did it have as much to do as San Andreas? No, but it had different ambitions and fulfilled them admirably.

GTA V, meanwhile, strikes a balance that seems to have achieved the feat of pleasing everyone. It boasts the storytelling ambitions of IV – while arguably doing it better – and offers a ridiculous amount of content. It looks gorgeous, even on outdated hardware. Much credit, too, for the seamless character switching in an open-world game, which is an achievement both technically and narratively. I expect that to be much imitated in a genre that frequently follows the path forged by this series.

So how does Rockstar top this? Oh, I think you know.