The Most USELESS Features Ever Added in GTA Games

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Rockstar have always gone above and beyond when it comes to packing their worlds with things to do, mechanics to mess around with, and features to discover. But not everything they built actually gets used as the game might have originally intended. In fact, across the entire GTA series, there are features that the overwhelming majority of players have rarely or never once touched. And in some cases, probably didn't even know existed. So today, we're going through and breaking down the most useless features ever added in GTA [music] games. Let's get into it.

[00:00:29]Starting off with GTA 5. And first up, we have something that's been sitting in plain sight since 2013, the metro system. GTA 5 has a fully functioning metro train network called Los Santos Transit, with 11 stations running both above ground and underground, covering most of the major neighborhoods across the city. The stations have working PA announcements, NPCs going about their commute, and a great amount of architectural detail. But despite all that effort, the system is a ghost town amongst the player base. GTA 5 gives you so many faster, more fun ways to get around, but waiting on a platform for the next train never even crosses your mind. But let's say you do decide to hop on. Well, after the doors close, the game locks you into a cinematic view for the entire journey to the next stop. And the worst part is, you cannot skip it.

[00:01:13]Unlike the subway in GTA 4, which allowed you to skip the journey and fast travel to the next stop, Rockstar completely took that option away with the metro in GTA [music] 5. So you're forced to just sit there as the train crawls through the city at what feels like a snail's pace. And considering the taxi still offer a skip button, it just makes the metro system feel that much more redundant. So if you've played GTA 5 for hundreds of hours and never once rode the metro, don't worry. You're not missing anything. Even the in-game stock market description for Los Santos Transit literally reads, "Los Santos Transit owns and operates the public transit system that none of its cities' inhabitants actually use." Next up is a feature so futile that most players only ever trigger it by accident. In GTA 5, while inside a car, you can press X on PlayStation or A on Xbox to make your character duck down in their seat, which sounds like it could actually be useful in certain situations, like maybe losing the cops or ducking down to avoid gunfire, but in practice, it doesn't help you do any of these things, so it's basically pointless. It doesn't help you lose the cops, and you don't get low enough in the seat to actually protect yourself from bullets or headshots. The only thing it really achieves is making it significantly harder to drive, since you have to hold the button down the entire time, as it's not on a toggle.

[00:02:27]It's a stealth mechanic that doesn't actually hide you, and a defensive mechanic that doesn't really protect you. Every button on a controller is precious real estate, and dedicating one to a mechanic that does practically nothing feels like a bit of a waste.

[00:02:39]Next up for GTA 5, we have the car washes. As we all know, around Los Santos are several [music] working car washes that you can drive through and pay to use. The problem is, that's all they do. They clean your car's appearance, and nothing else. Nobody ever uses them, because why would you?

[00:02:54]When Los Santos Customs instantly cleans and repairs your car at the same time.

[00:02:59]Not only that, you get the options [music] to tune it further, et cetera.

[00:03:01]So, yeah, functioning car washes are something that are essentially useless [music] in GTA 5, which is why players never really bother with them. Next up, we have the yoga side activity. After completing Did Somebody Say Yoga, widely regarded as the worst mission in the entire [music] game, Michael unlocks the ability to do yoga at his house or up at Mount Gordo. Now, besides being the most boring side activity ever introduced in a GTA game, it serves almost no purpose outside of that one story mission. The only reward for sitting through 3 minutes of the most mind-numbing activity in the game is a little bump to Michael's special ability stat, along with a few others, such as his strength and lung capacity, stats that will level themselves up naturally by just playing through the game. Next up, we have the body armor tiers. In GTA 5, you can walk into any ammunition and choose from five different tiers of body armor. You've got super light, which grants you 20% light, which grants you 40% standard, which grants you 60% heavy, which grants you 80% and super-heavy, which grants you a full 100% ranging in price from $500 all the way up to $2,500.

[00:04:06]The idea sounds reasonable enough, but the reality is nobody buys anything other than the super-heavy. I mean, why pay $500 for a measly 20% armor when $2,500 gets you the full bar? Everything in between super-light and super-heavy is even more pointless since the price gap is smaller. And in a game where you're pulling off million-dollar heists, $2,500 is pocket change anyway.

[00:04:29]And lastly, for GTA V, we have the hunting side activity. Exclusive to Trevor, hunting is unlocked after completing a couple of missions for Cletus, a hunting fanatic Trevor crosses paths with early in the game. Once unlocked, you can head out to the one single designated hunting area in Chiliad Mountain State Wilderness, but only between sunrise and sunset. Once you're there, the game hands you a sniper rifle with unlimited ammo, an animal call to lure wildlife, and sends you out in the wilderness to track and kill elk, coyotes, boars, and mountain lions. The problem is everything feels very half-baked. For a start, the payouts are abysmal. A coyote earns you $10, a bird earns you $10 also, and even a perfect heart shot on an elk gets you $100. So, in an average session of hunting, you'll earn a maximum of a few thousand bucks, only to get one shot by a mountain lion while you're trying to take a photo to send to Cletus and spend five thousand dollars on hospital fees, losing everything you've just earned and then some. The gameplay loop gets repetitive fast as well. It's just shoot, take a photo, send to Cletus, repeat. [music] Rockstar already built one of the greatest hunting systems ever with Red Dead Redemption with skinning, crafting, realistic animal behavior, having the ability to sling a carcass over your shoulder and onto your horse, and all the rest of it. So, by comparison, hunting in GTA V just feels that much more pointless [music] when Red Dead Redemption exists and does everything a hundred times better.

[00:05:49]Moving on to GTA 4 and first up we have the ATMs. Scattered around Liberty City are a number of interactive ATM machines that Nico can walk up to and use. When you first discover one, you'd be forgiven for thinking you could do something useful with it. Except all they actually do is display how much money you currently have. That's literally it. There's no sort of depth to them whatsoever. Your balance is already permanently displayed in the corner of the screen when you press down on the D-pad and in the pause menu. So the ATMs are showing you information you already have access to at all times through a method that requires you to physically walk up to a machine on the street. It's world building for the sake of world building and probably the single most pointless interactive feature in the entire game. Next up we have the coin operated binoculars.

[00:06:32]Spread across various spots around Algonquin and South Broker are these fixed coin operated [music] binoculars that cost $1 to use. All they do is give you a pretty limited view of whatever happens to be in front of them. The zoom on it is underwhelming and because they're fixed in place, you can barely turn with them. The views you get from them just aren't that great either.

[00:07:02]The ones at the top of the Rotterdam Tower are the only ones with a view worth the dollar, but because the zoom on it is so bad, you're honestly better off using Nico's eyesight to soak in the views.

[00:07:15]Next up we have the Sky Car, GTA 4's cable car, running along the Algonquin bridge connecting Lancet in Algonquin to Colony Island. The Sky Car is one of those features that seems like it would be a decent addition on paper, but in the actual game most players never even use it. Once you board it, you get locked into a cinematic camera until the ride completes and it won't operate if the player has a wanted level. So the one scenario where the cable car could have actually been interesting, using it to escape the police, is blocked off entirely. So yeah, the cable car is definitely one of the most useless features inside of Grand Theft Auto 4.

[00:07:47]Be honest, how many times have you actually used it in your playthroughs of the game? Next up, we have the fire department. In GTA 4, you can call the emergency services. And for the most part, they do what you'd expect. The police show up looking to eliminate any threats, the ambulance service will treat you back to full health. But, the fire department is a different story entirely. You can call them, they'll show up, but then they'll just leave without even attempting to put out any flames in the area.

[00:08:19]>> [screaming] >> They arrive at the scene, take one look around, decide it was a prank call, and drive off, even if there's a fire burning right in front of them. In the previous games, the fire department actually worked. They'd respond to fires without even having to call them and do their job putting them out. So, yeah, the fire department in this game exists, but that's genuinely all you can really say about them. Moving on to GTA San Andreas. Now, the most useless thing in this game is obviously Sweet, but we're going to put him to the side and start with the luck stat. If you've ever browsed the stats menu in San Andreas, you'll have noticed a stat called luck, which you can level up by collecting the 50 horseshoes scattered around Las Venturas, maxing out at 1,000. However, it turns out that it's completely non-functional and has absolutely no effect on gameplay. No improved casino odds, no better money drop rates, nothing actually changes. This was even confirmed by Obbe Vermeij, a former technical director at Rockstar North, who confirmed in 2024 that the luck stat was originally intended to affect [music] the casino games in Las Venturas, but was never finished before the game shipped. Next up, we have the police impound feature.

[00:09:29]In San Andreas, if you get busted by the police, any car you were driving at the time gets towed and taken to the impound lot. It's actually a really cool and surprisingly realistic detail. The problem is almost nobody knows it exists and the reason for that is a cut mission called impounded, which was supposed to be given by Cesar Vialpando after completing high stakes lowrider. So, CJ, let's see your wheels. Ain't nothing special. Just, you know, Jale, let's see Cesar work his magic. I'll make it special.

[00:09:59]Hey, where is it? What the I thought you said your ride WAS HERE.

[00:10:03]OH, [ __ ] IT'S BEEN TOWED. WHAT? OH MY GOD.

[00:10:06]>> NO. DAMN, WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH THIS CITY? THEY ALWAYS TOW PEOPLE'S [ __ ] IN the mission, CJ and Cesar would head outside to check out CJ's lowrider only to find it had been towed. Cesar would then direct CJ to the impound lot to get it back, essentially introducing the player to the mechanic through gameplay.

[00:10:23]But, the mission got cut before the game shipped and with it went the only moment the game ever planned to actually teach you the feature existed. So, it just sat there in the final game semi-functional with the vast majority of players having no idea their car was even being impounded when they got busted. Next up, we have the unfinished bus driver activity. Spread across Las Venturas is a whole network of bus stops and if you pay close attention, you'll sometimes spot NPCs actually standing at them like they're waiting for something. But, even if nobody is waiting, if you pull up in a coach, random pedestrians passing by will still board it anyway. And there doesn't even seem to be a limit on how many passengers you can pick up. They just keep piling on, seemingly vanishing into the back of the bus since the game doesn't show you the passenger section.

[00:11:06]But, once they're on, you can't drop them off anywhere. There's no destination, no prompt, or no sort of objective at all. This is clearly a beta leftover. In Vice City, the exact same feature was actually functional where stopping at bus stops would earn you $5 per passenger. It wasn't exactly a great money maker, but at least it worked. In San Andreas, it looks like Rockstar intended to bring it back, but never finished it before the game launched.

[00:11:28]Even after exiting the bus, passengers still keep boarding, showing just how incomplete this feature really is. And if we take the camera inside the bus, we can see that the NPCs do in fact just straight up vanish as soon as they enter.

[00:11:43]Next up, we have the gang war system in the early part of San Andreas. After completing the mission Doberman, CJ unlocks the ability to take over enemy territory in Los Santos, attacking Ballas and Vagos turf and winning it back for Grove Street, building up the family's presence across the city. It's one of the most satisfying mechanics in the game. However, the issue is that the moment you complete the Green Sabre, every single territory you've just fought for and taken over gets wiped. CJ gets exiled from Los Santos and gang wars are locked until you return much later in the story during homecoming after you pick up Sweet from jail. And then to trigger the final mission End of the Line, you have to reclaim it all over again. So, any time you spent taking over territory before the Green Sabre mission was completely wasted. A lot of players would spend hours grinding through gang wars, taking over 80, 90% of the map, constantly defending their turf from counterattacks, only for all the progress to be reset after the Green Sabre. Now onto GTA Vice City. And first, we're starting with the keepy-uppy beach ball mini-game. In Vice City, there are a handful of red, white, and blue beach balls that randomly spawn in various locations, but they're mainly found in the mansion swimming pools on Starfish Island. If you walk into one, it launches into the air and the mini-game begins where you have to keep the ball off the ground by positioning Tommy underneath it to bounce it back up with his head. There's no reward for doing it. It's not required for 100% and the game never once tells you it exists.

[00:13:08]The only acknowledgement that it's even there is a high score counter in the very long stats menu. Even if you do stumble across it, it's one of those things you mess around with for a couple of minutes tops and never think about again. Still, it's better than yoga.

[00:13:20]Next up, we have Eight-Ball's Autoshop.

[00:13:22]Located in Vice Port, Eight-Ball's is is car bomb shop where for $500, you can have your vehicle fitted with a remote detonated [music] explosive. And unlike in GTA 3, where the bomb shop was actually used in story missions, in Vice City, there are no missions that ever require you to use it. It's entirely optional. And the problem is that Vice City gives you so many other ways to blow things up.

[00:13:43]Rocket launchers, grenades, Molotovs, a flamethrower. So, paying $500 to rig your own car with a bomb you then have to get out of before detonating is never really the most practical option. On top of that, the shop itself is in a location that's completely out the way from everything and has no marker on the map. So, unless you know it's already there, you're unlikely to come across it anyway. And lastly, for GTA Vice City, we have Ocean Beach itself. Now, the beach is obviously a big part of what makes Vice City feel like Vice City. And of course, you need a beach for that Miami vibe. But when you look at how much land mass it takes up compared to the rest of the island, it starts to feel like a lot of wasted [music] space.

[00:14:19]As you can see, Ocean Beach is roughly as wide as the whole city sitting next to it, some parts even wider. In real life, South Beach, which is what Ocean Beach is based off of, is a much thinner strip running alongside the city, nowhere near this girthy. So, in game scale, it feels like less of a beach at that point and more of a desert. Also, the further north you go, the emptier it gets until you reach the very top of Vice Point, where it's almost completely dead. Vice City is technically a bigger map than GTA 3, but so much of it is sand and water, it ends up feeling smaller than it should. And finally, moving on to GTA 3, up first, we have the car dodge mechanic. By pressing button right as a vehicle is about to hit you, Claude will dive flat onto the ground to avoid it. While it looks like a cool cinematic stunt, actually trying to implement this into your gameplay is completely ineffective. Once you hit the ground, it takes nearly 5 seconds to get back up, leaving you completely immobile and wide open to other traffic, [music] enemies, or anything else going on around you. The timing window to trigger it is also so precise that most attempts just end [music] in getting hit by the car anyway. A single jump or sprint in any direction does the job far easier.

[00:15:24]It's never mentioned in the manual or taught to the player at any point, and the vast majority of people who played GTA 3 went through the entire game without ever knowing it existed. And honestly, they were better off for it.

[00:15:35]Next up for GTA 3, and you already knew this one was coming if you've played it, the Dodo plane. After completing the mission Grand Theft Aero, the Dodo becomes available at Francis International Airport, and it's the game's one and only flyable aircraft.

[00:15:49]plane with its wings almost entirely clipped. Rockstar actually confirmed that the Dodo was never really meant to be flown at all. It was just a funny Easter egg that players went crazy with when they figured out how to get it airborne. And getting it airborne is an ordeal in itself. To get at least a few seconds of flight time with this thing, you have to accelerate down the runway until you reach a certain speed to where you'll see sparks coming from underneath the plane, or until you hear the propeller scraping along the ground, at which point you release and hope for the best. Once you're up, the slightest overcorrection sends it into a stall and straight back down. The Dodo became infamous because of how brutally difficult it is, as players were essentially trying to master a plane that was designed to fail. And that's going to bring us to the end of the video. If you learned something new, drop a like, and don't forget to subscribe, so you never miss out on any more GTA videos like this one. Until next time, peace.