Set in the 1960s, during a freezing Christmas night in the snow-covered town of Ludendorff, North Yankton, three criminals — Michael De Santa, Trevor Philips, and their partner Brad — carry out a dangerous bank robbery. The heist goes violently wrong. During the escape, both Brad and Michael are shot. Brad is left behind and presumed dead, while Michael secretly survives and vanishes from the criminal world.
Years later in 1960s Los Santos, Michael lives under a false identity, far removed from his past life of crime. He resides in a luxury villa, drives expensive cars, and appears successful, yet his family life is slowly falling apart. Trapped in a hollow existence, Michael tries to stay out of the underworld — until he crosses paths with a young street hustler and car thief. Their meeting pulls Michael back into crime, and together they carry out a bold jewelry store robbery.
The robbery makes the news and reaches the outskirts of Los Santos, where Michael’s former partner Trevor Philips lives in poverty and chaos. Now a psychotic drug dealer and arms trafficker running Trevor Philips Enterprises, Trevor survives on violence, paranoia, and pure madness. When he realizes that Michael is still alive, Trevor returns to Los Santos, dragging the past back with him and setting off a chain of betrayal, violence, and destruction that defines the brutal criminal underworld of the 1960s.
