The best GTA 5 mods

Since the release of Grand Theft Auto 5, players have been arguing over which version of the game is better. Regardless of which side of the debate you’re on, most people can agree that the PC version comes with a few advantages such as the various number of mods you can add to the game.

For those looking to upgrade their gameplay, we’ve created a list of the best GTA 5 mods you won’t want to play without.

Script Hook V and Native Trainer

If you’re going to download any mods, download this first. Script Hook V makes the game’s scripts available to others, and so is a requirement for some GTA 5 mods (often, they’ll bundle the scripthook .dll just to be sure). This mod also gives you access to a feature-rich trainer that can turn you into a virtual god.

Complex Control

Grand Theft Auto V might be the most successful video game of all time, but Epic Games’ Fortnite is the biggest game in the world at the moment, so it only makes sense to combine the two! The Complex Control mod is a single-player “royale-lite” that spawns your character in a random location on the game’s enormous map, and you win if you’re able to stay in the last designated zone for four seconds. Though you won’t be able to play an actual battle royale match against other people, the proof-of-concept offered in Complex Control has us hoping for a full-on battle royale mode in the next Grand Theft Auto game.

Euphoria Ragdoll Overhaul

Sometimes, you don’t need a fancy armor suit or a new mission to get the most out of Grand Theft Auto V. With the Euphoria Ragdoll Overhaul mod, the ragdoll physics in the game are improved significantly, with characters behaving more realistically after they’re damaged and before collapsing to the ground. Headshots will instantly send a person to the ground like a ragdoll, and civilians will react to nearby explosions by covering their heads.

Iron Man Mark 50

If the rocket launchers, planes, and explosives already available in Grand Theft Auto V aren’t enough for you, consider installing Iron Man Mark 50. Based on the suit Tony Stark wears in Avengers: Infinity War, it includes enormous wings on the back and transforms you into a walking weapon, capable of hovering in the air while you blast away at oncoming traffic with missiles. We’re not sure if you’ll survive the wrath of Thanos if you happen to run into him on the streets of Los Santos, but you’ll be able to cause quite a bit of chaos beforehand.

Spider-Man V

If you’re a bigger fan of the web-slinging Avenger, look no further than the Spider-Man V mod. Playing as Spidey himself, you can swing, zip, and wall crawl all around the GTA map to solve (or cause) crime. While it won’t be quite on the level as Marvel’s Spider-Man, you can’t do any better than this for a GTA Spider-Man mod.

World Improvement

GTA 5 already looks phenomenal, and even functions as somewhat of a moving portrait when you aren’t around, but World Improvement mod boosts the realism. It focuses on small details, like additional trees in places like Rockford Hills. It also adds new characters, and A.I. routines, such as police searches through Paleto Forest and car crashes around Los Santos. The best part about this mod? It receives new updates to introduce tiny — but profound — details regularly, so Los Santos will evolve, just like a real city would.

Superhot

The Superhot mod transplants Superhot’s innovative time-stopping mechanics into GTA 5. When you stop moving, time stands still. While it seems like an odd choice for an open-world game like GTA 5, the Superhot mod feels right at home when in close-quarters combat. When back in the long game, you can toggle the mod off with the press of a button and resume normal play.

GTA RPG

GTA 5 has a rich, open-world narrative, but it remains relatively linear throughout. The GTA 5 RPG mod adds a nonlinear story and skill progression system that makes it feel closer to Fallout than Grand Theft Auto. For starters, you can choose between three character classes. As you progress through missions using the mod’s quest system, you use skill trees to upgrade your character and weapons. There are even dialogue trees with NPCs and randomly generated loot and items.

The Red House

If you find that replaying single-player missions is growing stale, The Red House mod features an abundance of new content to stave off boredom. The mod adds more than 20 missions to the game, including a new heist. Some missions even include NPC bodyguards that assist you in your endeavors. An update, called the “Blue House,” added a set of stealth-oriented missions to the mod. All in all, the mission variety is solid and well worth your time.

Open All Interiors

Are you tired of not being able to enter the Sandy Shores sheriff’s department or any other locked building? The Open All Interiors mod gives you a full range of access to those previously off-limits places. What’s most remarkable part is that the mod repopulates all these spaces, even the ones which were removed before launch and never meant to be seen.

Map Editor

Your wish is your command with this GTA 5 map editor. With the use of a free-roaming cam, you can easily place cars, ramps, and even animals throughout Los Santos, then hop in and play with your experiments. It’s a robust tool with a myriad of options, but best of all, it’s intuitive and simple to use.

Fuel Script V

As realistic as GTA 5 can be in many aspects, one thing Rockstar chose not to simulate was running out of gas. This self-proclaimed first fuel mod for the game, Fuel Script V, adds a gas meter to every vehicle in the game. If you run dry, your car will stop just like in real life, so make sure to fill up at gas stations before going on a long drive.

Pedestrian Riot

GTA: San Andreas had a cheat that made pedestrians go bonkers. It was hilarious to watch. Predictably, an intrepid modder has gone out of his way to re-create that experience as Pedestrian Riot. With the flip of a switch, you can send everyone into insanity, creating chaos wherever you go. The mod gives them weapons, too, so be careful!

Field-of-view mod

For the first time ever in the series, GTA 5 offers a first-person mode. Far from a tack-on, Rockstar put a lot of effort into making it work just like a real first-person shooter. One thing they missed, though, is dynamic field-of-view adjustment. The default FOV is a bit narrow, which makes some players feel claustrophobic, and others motion sick. With this field-of-view mod, you can change the FOV to whatever setting is comfortable for you.

Bodyguard Menu

Why go it alone, when you can have a team backing you up? This bodyguard mod can spawn a variety of NPCs who will follow you around and assist you in whatever you’re doing. You can command them to do your bidding, or just stand around in formation looking tough. Up to seven bodyguards will follow you, but you can still spawn more after that. Creating an army just after you rouse up a 4-star police rating can be a literal riot.

Heist Vehicles Spawn Naturally

Heists are a popular feature in GTA 5’s online mode. Many of them include unique vehicles. But what if you’re not interested in online play, and still want to use the vehicles? The Heist Vehicles Spawn Naturally mod lets you do just that. It doesn’t just give them to you off the bat, though; they spawn in certain areas for you to discover. Or if you just want to jump in, you can view the modder’s list of locations.

Vehicle Cannon 2.0

The world of Los Santos is crazy enough as-is, but this mod cranks it up to eleven. Vehicle Cannon 2.0 gives players a weapon that swaps out bullets for full-sized vehicles. If that sounds crazy, well, that’s because it is. However, running around with the Vehicle Canon is an absolute blast — just don’t fire it in a confined space.

Simple Zombies

Turn the world of Los Santos into an apocalyptic wasteland with the Simple Zombies mod. Instead of hundreds of pedestrians, the city is filled with thousands of undead, brain-hungry monsters. The mod adds more than just zombies, as players will need to build shelters and recruit survivors in order to make it out alive, all while managing their hunger, sleep, and health levels. A complete survival mod, players looking for strategic gameplay should be happy with what Simple Zombies has to offer.

Intensity ENB

If you’re still disappointed by Cyberpunk 2077, install the Intensity ENB mod on your PC as a nice alternative. As you might have guessed from the name, this mod intensifies GTA 5’s backgrounds, making Los Santos shine brightly during the day and casting an otherworldly mood over it at night. The extreme environments might not be the same as Cyberpunk, but it’s a fun mod to mess around with until you can play the actual game.