Rockstar has released a trailer for the highly anticipated heist missions in ‘Grand Theft Auto Online’.

The trailer below gives a glimpse of the story-based heist missions that will be added into the mode for free. Funnily enough, Lester from the story mode of ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ gives a snarky little bit of dialogue in the beginning of the video that looks to serve as a bit of commentary by Rockstar to the fans who have been eagerly waiting for the missions.

In an IGN interview with Imran Sarwar, the producer ‘Grand Theft Auto Online’, explained in detail what would be required of players to access heists:

“Each heist requires 4 players all at rank 12 or above, with one player as the designated heist leader,” Sarwar said. “Leading a heist requires owning a high-end apartment so that you have a room available to set up the planning board. From there you’ll be able to launch missions as the leader, starting with the prep work and building up to the score itself.”

Sarwar then explained that players can play heist missions either as the leader or a crew member, and that each position has their own unique advantages and disadvantages.  For instance, crew members get cash payouts for each individual prep mission conducted for a heist, while heist leaders only get their cash payout once the finale heist mission is completed. However, heist leaders get the benefit of being able to invite players into the crew, assign positions, pick outfits and allocate how much money a crew member receives from a mission, albeit having to front all set-up costs in return.

According to Sarwar, five heists are planned for the initial launch composing of over a total of 20 missions that will add up to approximately 20 hours of gameplay.

The heist missions in ‘Grand Theft Auto Online’ have been in the pipeline for the ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ mode for quite some time. They were originally announced back in April for a spring release in the mode’s “High Life” update. However, spring came and went with no heist missions to be found. According to a statement by Rockstar during the mode’s “I’m Not A Hipster” update, the missions were simply “taking more time to create than originally anticipated.”

The heist missions in ‘Grand Theft Auto Online’ will be available for free sometime in 2015 for PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360. They will also be made available for the PC version of ‘Grand Theft Auto Online’ when it releases on PC in January 27, 2015.  

Source: IGN, Rockstar Newswire