Top 5 most frustrating features in the GTA series

The GTA series has its fair share of annoying features that serve as nothing more than as a frustrating way to waste a player's time.

Every player remembers a frustrating mission or two in the GTA series. Sometimes those missions can be infuriating because of some bad features, rather than core design. Not all features are fun; sometimes, they can serve as an unnecessary obstacle that forces the player to play around them.

Naturally, there are over a dozen GTA games. There are several annoying features that do nothing more than frustrate the player. More often than not, they're tied to earlier games in the series, but that doesn't mean that games like GTA Online don't have their fair share of frustrating features.

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Five of the most frustrating features in the GTA series

5) Shark Cards

By itself, Shark Cards aren't the worst thing in the world. However, it is still an example of a feature that promotes a "pay to win" philosophy. Interestingly enough, it's not the feature itself that's frustrating to use. Rather, it's frustrating for the players who don't use it.

Instead, they will have to grind normally while a new player can spend hundreds to thousands of real-life money to catch up. Some players don't care about this, but most fans despise how this devalues their hard work.

By itself, Shark Cards are anti-frustrating as it serves to skip all of the tedious work. Still, it's a hot topic of debate, which has led to some players being frustrated by its existence.

4) The 2D universe's method of saving

GTA 2 players can save their game here for $50K (Image via Rockstar Games)

There is a great reason why the GTA series doesn't have saving features similar to the 2D universe. In GTA 1, the player couldn't save whenever they wanted. Instead, it was only available at specific points in the game.

In GTA 2, the player had to spend $50K to save. This allowed players to save more often compared to its predecessor, but it was still incredibly inconvenient compared to the later games in the series.

Compared to other features on this list, this entry died off quickly (thankfully).

3) Upside down cars catching on fire

The 3D universe might have had better save features, but it introduced its own fair share of frustrating additions. One of which is the fact that a vehicle turned upside down will catch on fire.

This feature is especially frustrating when the player manages to turn the vehicle over, yet it's already on fire. It then explodes, which can hurt or even get them Wasted.

It's brutal when this happens in a mission, as it can make a player waste more time than necessary.

2) Instantly drowning

Tommy can't swim in Vice City of all places (Image via Rockstar Games)

In some of the older GTA games, the player would rapidly lose their health if they were chest deep into a body of water. This made any mission near a body of water rather annoying, not to mention any unsuspecting player is bound to try to swim at least once.

Not being able to swim is incredibly frustrating in a game like GTA Vice City. Understandably, Rockstar didn't see it as a necessity to program at the time, but drowning gets a player Wasted, which ties into the next entry on this list.

1) Losing all weapons when getting Busted or Wasted

It can be frustrating to lose one's weapons in a GTA game (Image via Rockstar Games)

This is yet another feature that was far more prominent back in the day. Reckless GTA players would get Busted or Wasted frequently, which would make buying a lot of weapons and ammo pointless at times. Sometimes, this meant that it was easier to load a save file if it would save the player both time and money on getting the weapons again.

GTA San Andreas handled it interestingly, as the player had two girlfriends that would allow them to keep their weapons (one for getting Wasted and the other for being Busted).

Note: This article reflects the writer's personal views.