Perhaps GTA 5 will actually confirm its March 2022 release date as March 1, with that making it clearly a PS Plus game.
If PS Plus had a normal month in November, as well as a free-for-all release of GTA Online, that would have been a big statement from both companies.
Even if it wasn’t, PS Plus is required to play online games like GTA 5, so the two went hand in hand regardless. It could have been that GTA Online was going to be released early ahead of GTA 5 itself, which isn’t necessarily unheard of, and it could have been a PS Plus game. The wording around the announcement was unclear, and a release of November 11 wouldn’t fit into normal PS Plus parameters. The standalone version of the game is releasing around the same time as the base GTA 5 Enhanced and Expanded edition, and it seems PS Plus may not have been necessary to claim it, just to play it. But, come November, the original plan would have seen PS5 owners get the standalone version of GTA Online for free. Sony and Rockstar Games’ agreement still stands in the lead-up to GTA 5’s Expanded and Enhanced edition, with players getting a free GTA $1 million every month until then.
