GTA 5 Story Recap: Full Plot, All Three Endings and the Canon One

The story in one paragraph

Rockstar’s own summary of GTA 5 is that “a young street hustler, a retired bank robber, and a terrifying psychopath” get tangled up with criminals, the U.S. government and the entertainment industry, and “must pull off a series of dangerous heists to survive.” The hustler is Franklin Clinton, the retired robber is Michael De Santa, and the psychopath is Trevor Philips. The story is set in Los Santos and Blaine County in 2013.

The three leads

Character	Where he starts	What he wants
Michael De Santa	A mansion in Rockford Hills, living under a new name after faking his death	To get out of a dull retirement without losing his family
Franklin Clinton	South Los Santos, repossessing cars for a crooked dealer	A way out of small-time street crime
Trevor Philips	A trailer in Sandy Shores, running drugs and guns	His old crew back, and the truth about what happened to it

Prologue: North Yankton, 2004

The game opens nine years before the main story. Michael, Trevor and their partner Brad rob a cash depot in the snowbound town of Ludendorff, North Yankton. The getaway goes wrong. Brad and Michael are shot, and Trevor escapes alone, believing Michael is dead.

Michael is not dead. He had made a deal with FIB agent Dave Norton before the job: Norton got the credit for stopping the crew, and Michael got a new identity and a quiet life in Los Santos.

Act one: Michael meets Franklin

In 2013, Franklin and his friend Lamar repossess cars for the dealer Simeon Yetarian. One job sends Franklin to take a car from Michael’s son, Jimmy. Michael catches him, and instead of turning him in, takes him on as a protégé.

Michael then makes an expensive mistake. Chasing the tennis coach who was sleeping with his wife, Amanda, he pulls a hillside house off its foundations. It is the home of the mistress of drug lord Martin Madrazo, who demands about $2.5 million for the damage. To pay, Michael goes back to work. With the planner Lester Crest and Franklin, he robs the Vangelico jewelry store. This is the first of the game’s big heists.

Act two: Trevor returns

Trevor sees the robbery on the news and recognises one of Michael’s old lines. Realising his partner is alive, he drives to Los Santos and walks back into Michael’s life. The three start working together, with Trevor’s suspicion about North Yankton never far away.

Two outside forces now take control of the crew:

• The FIB. Dave Norton’s superior, Steve Haines, forces the three to do his dirty work against the rival agency, the IAA. That includes pulling a man out of IAA custody, hitting an armored car, robbing the bank in Paleto Bay to fund the next job, and raiding a research lab.
• Devin Weston. A billionaire investor has the crew steal a set of rare cars, which Franklin, Trevor and Lamar deliver, then refuses to pay. He later tries to shut down the film Michael is producing.

Trevor adds trouble of his own. He leads a raid on the private army Merryweather that Lester forces them to undo. Then, after an argument with Madrazo over payment for a job, Trevor kidnaps Madrazo’s wife, and he and Michael have to hide out in Sandy Shores.

Act three: the truth about North Yankton

Trevor finally flies to Ludendorff and digs up Michael’s grave. Brad is in it. Michael follows him, the two face off in the cemetery, and Trevor leaves Michael to the Triad gunmen who have tracked them there. Franklin rescues Michael back in Los Santos.

The crew is now barely holding together. Michael’s family, who had left him, return home. Meanwhile the government agents are turning on each other. A meeting at the Kortz Center ends in a shootout between the FIB, the IAA and Merryweather, and Trevor comes back to get Michael out alive. Weston then sends Merryweather after Michael’s family, and Michael fights them off.

The Big Score

With every side closing in, the three pull the job Michael and Trevor had talked about for years: the gold reserves in the Union Depository. It works. Each of them walks away rich.

The three endings

After the heist, Franklin is given two orders. Steve Haines and Dave Norton want Trevor dead. Devin Weston wants Michael dead. The game gives Franklin three choices.

Choice	Mission	What happens
A: Kill Trevor	Something Sensible	Franklin lures Trevor to a meeting and chases him down with Michael’s help. Trevor dies in a fire at an oil field. Michael keeps his distance from Franklin afterwards.
B: Kill Michael	The Time’s Come	Franklin chases Michael up a power station chimney, where Michael falls to his death. Trevor cuts Franklin off for good.
C: Deathwish	The Third Way	Franklin refuses both orders. The three ambush the FIB and Merryweather forces sent after them, then kill Haines and their other enemies and push Devin Weston off a cliff in the trunk of a car. All three survive.

In endings A and B, the dead character is no longer playable in the open world afterwards. In ending C, all three remain playable.

Which ending is canon?

Rockstar has not formally named a canon ending. The evidence from its later GTA Online updates points to C.

Franklin returns in The Contract, a GTA Online update from December 2021 that Rockstar set years after the story. Kotaku reported that during a chase through a movie studio, Franklin says he knows “one of the producers around here.” Michael becomes a producer at that studio late in the story, so the line only makes sense if he is alive, which rules out ending B. Kotaku also points to the 2019 Diamond Casino update, where Tao Cheng recalls nearly dying at the Los Santos country club. That attack only happens in ending C.

Does any of this matter for GTA 6?

Rockstar has not said that GTA 6 continues this story. GTA 6 has new leads, Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, and a new setting in Leonida. None of the characters Rockstar has profiled for it appear in GTA 5.

You can start GTA 6 without knowing any of the above. If you want the details:

• Is GTA 6 connected to GTA 5? covers the universe question and returning characters.
• GTA 6 vs GTA 5 compares settings, leads and platforms.
• All GTA games in order places GTA 5 in the series.
• GTA 5 Enhanced vs Legacy explains which version to play if you want to see the story yourself.

Sources

The plot summary above describes the events of GTA 5’s Story Mode.

• Rockstar: Grand Theft Auto V
• Kotaku: GTA Online’s new update finally confirms what happened to Michael after GTA V
• Rockstar: Grand Theft Auto VI