It’s been over a decade. Most games from 2013 have faded into nostalgic obscurity, but people still can't stop talking about By the Book, better known to most players as the torture mission GTA 5 forced everyone to play. If you played it back then, you probably remember the pit in your stomach. It wasn't just another shootout or a high-speed chase through Los Santos. It was different. It was slow. It was interactive in a way that felt deeply, intentionally gross.
Rockstar Games has always been the king of "poking the bear," but this particular mission went further than almost anything else in their catalog. You’re Trevor Philips. You’re in a warehouse. You have a table full of tools: a wrench, some pliers, a car battery with jumper cables, and a jug of water. Your job? Extract information from an innocent man named Mr. K while Michael De Santa acts as the sniper at a different location. It’s a sequence that makes the "No Russian" mission from Call of Duty look like a Saturday morning cartoon.
The mechanics of the torture mission GTA 5 players hated
The game doesn't just let you watch. That would be too easy. Instead, the torture mission GTA 5 demands that you participate. You have to physically rotate the analog stick to yank out a tooth. You have to tap buttons to deliver electric shocks. If the victim's heart stops, you have to hit him with an adrenaline shot just so you can keep going. It’s relentless.
Dan Houser, one of the primary writers for Rockstar at the time, mentioned in various interviews that the scene was meant to be a satire of the post-9/11 "enhanced interrogation" era. But satire is a tricky beast. When you’re the one holding the pliers, the social commentary feels secondary to the visceral discomfort of the act. Many critics at the time, including those from The Guardian and IGN, pointed out that while the game tries to criticize the efficacy of torture, it still makes the player the perpetrator.
The victim, Ferdinand Kerimov, is actually willing to talk from the start. That’s the most cynical part. He tells Trevor everything he knows immediately, but the FIB (the game's parody of the FBI) insists the torture continues anyway. It highlights a bleak truth: the people in charge weren't looking for the truth; they were looking for the power trip.
Why the outrage was different this time
Rockstar is used to being sued. They’ve dealt with Jack Thompson, "Hot Coffee," and endless Congressional hearings about video game violence. However, the torture mission GTA 5 introduced a different kind of pushback. It wasn't just the usual moral guardians complaining; it was the players themselves.
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On forums like Reddit and the old Rockstar Social Club, fans debated whether the scene was even necessary for Trevor’s character development. We already knew Trevor was a psychopath. Did we need to pull a tooth to prove it?
- The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and the ESRB both gave the game their highest age ratings, but they didn't censor the scene.
- In some territories, like Japan, the scene was slightly edited to be less graphic, but the core interactivity remained.
- Charities like Freedom from Torture released statements calling the mission "vile" and accusing Rockstar of "crossing a line" by turning human suffering into entertainment.
Honestly, the most interesting perspective comes from the voice actors themselves. Steven Ogg, who played Trevor, has often defended the scene as a piece of art that reflects the ugliness of the world. He’s right, in a way. If a game is going to explore the dark underbelly of American intelligence and crime, it shouldn't always be "fun." Sometimes it should be revolting.
The satirical bite most people missed
If you can stomach the gameplay, the dialogue during the drive to the airport afterward is where the real "point" of the torture mission GTA 5 lives. Trevor gives a long, rambling monologue to Mr. K about how torture is useless. He basically says that people will say anything to make the pain stop, so the information you get is usually garbage.
"Torture's for the torturer. Or the guy giving the orders to the torturer. You torture for the good times – we should admit that."
That line is Trevor (and Rockstar) breaking the fourth wall. It’s an indictment of the player for continuing to play and the government for using these methods in the real world. By making the mission interactive, Rockstar forces you to acknowledge that you are "following orders" just as much as the characters on screen. It’s a meta-commentary on agency in video games. You could turn the console off. But you don't. You finish the mission because you want to see what happens next.
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Technical details and "Gold Medal" requirements
For the completionists out there, getting a Gold Medal on this mission is a weirdly macabre task. To get the 100% rating for the torture mission GTA 5 provides, you have to use every tool once without Kerimov’s heart stopping.
- The Pliers: Used for the tooth extraction.
- The Wrench: Used for breaking a kneecap.
- The Battery: Used for electrocution.
- The Water: Used for waterboarding.
It feels wrong to even write a "guide" for it, but that's the nature of the beast. The game tracks your "efficiency." It’s a cold, calculated way of looking at a horrific act, which fits perfectly with the FIB characters like Steve Haines who are supervising the whole mess.
Legacy of the mission in 2026
Looking back at it now, in 2026, the torture mission GTA 5 feels like a turning point. It was one of the last times a triple-A studio took a massive, unmitigated risk that they knew would result in a PR nightmare. Today’s gaming landscape is a bit more sterilized. Big publishers are terrified of "cancel culture" or losing ESG scores, so you don't see this level of raw, uncomfortable content often.
Even Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar’s follow-up masterpiece, didn't have anything quite this provocative. It had violence, sure, but it didn't force the player into a corner quite like "By the Book."
Does the mission hold up? Visually, Los Santos still looks incredible, especially with the various "Expanded and Enhanced" updates. The scene is still hard to watch. It hasn't lost its edge. If anything, as graphics get more realistic, the scene gets harder to stomach.
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Actionable insights for players and parents
If you are revisiting the game or playing it for the first time, keep these things in mind:
- You can't skip it: Unlike the "No Russian" mission in Modern Warfare 2, there is no prompt to skip this scene. You have to complete it to progress the story.
- Context matters: Listen to Trevor’s dialogue at the end. If you skip the cutscenes, you miss the entire point of why the scene exists, and it just becomes mindless cruelty.
- Age ratings are there for a reason: This isn't a "kids' game" that happens to have some bad words. This is a hard-R experience meant for adults who can process the themes being presented.
- Watch the heart monitor: If you're struggling to finish the mission because Kerimov keeps dying, watch the EKG on the table. When it goes flat, stop immediately and use the adrenaline.
The torture mission GTA 5 remains a landmark in digital storytelling, for better or worse. It showed that games could make us feel more than just "powerful"—they could make us feel complicit. Whether you think it's brilliant satire or just "torture porn" for the sake of it, you can't deny that it left a permanent mark on the industry. It’s the mission that defined a generation of gaming controversy, and we’re likely never going to see anything quite like it again in a mainstream title.
If you're looking to understand the full narrative weight of the game, pay attention to how Trevor treats Mr. K after the ordeal is over. He doesn't kill him. He drives him to the airport and tells him to run. It’s the only moment of genuine "mercy" Trevor shows in the entire game, and it’s directed toward a man he just mutilated. That complexity is why GTA 5 stays relevant while other games are forgotten.
To fully grasp the impact of this mission, compare the character arcs of Michael and Trevor immediately following this event. Michael is disgusted but continues to work for the FIB to save his own skin, while Trevor, the "monster," is the only one who recognizes the victim as a human being by the end. This irony is the core of Rockstar’s writing philosophy.