After dozens of hours in Los Santos, Grand Theft Auto V doesn’t wrap up on a scripted cutscene: it lets you make the call. Franklin gets one last phone call and has to choose between killing Trevor, killing Michael, or turning down both and going all in. Short answer for those in a hurry: take the Deathwish option, the only one where the whole crew survives and the story’s real ending. Here’s why, and what the other two are worth.
One last choice forced on Franklin
Released on September 17, 2013, GTA V was the first game in the series to hand the player three playable protagonists: Michael, Franklin, and Trevor. Everything comes down to the moment right after the big Union Depository heist (the mission The Big Score). Two men corner Franklin. Steve Haines, the corrupt FIB agent, demands the death of Trevor, deemed too much of a loose cannon. Billionaire Devin Weston, meanwhile, wants Michael gone for sabotaging his business. Franklin, and therefore you, has to pick a side, in the form of a simple three-branch menu: A, B, or C.
Ending A, kill Trevor: Something Sensible
Picking option A launches the mission Something Sensible. Franklin sets up a meeting with Trevor and pulls a gun on him, calling him out as the crew’s dangerous weak link. Trevor takes off in his pickup, Michael swoops in to help, and rams him into a fuel tanker. Doused in gasoline, a furious Trevor brands his two “Judases” cowards before Franklin sets the fuel alight. Trevor burns alive (and if you drag your feet, Michael pulls the trigger for you).
After the credits, only Michael and Franklin stay playable, and Trevor’s cut of the take is split between them. But their hearts aren’t in it anymore: Michael, scarred by that death, keeps his distance. The crew is well and truly finished.
Ending B, kill Michael: The Time’s Come
Option B triggers The Time’s Come. This time, when Franklin calls Trevor for backup, he flatly refuses, saying he’s “done with traitors.” Franklin catches up with Michael, who quickly senses the trap and flees to the Palmer-Taylor Power Station. At the top of a tower, Franklin has him cornered. The game gives you the choice to pull him up or let him drop, but Michael’s fate is sealed: if spared, he headbutts Franklin, loses his grip, and falls to his death.
The price is steep. Franklin and Trevor become the only playable characters, Michael’s share goes to his family, and everyone around Franklin turns on him: Amanda and Jimmy unload their hatred on him, and Trevor cuts him out of his life, declaring him “dead” to him. The chilliest of the three endings.
Ending C, Deathwish: The Third Way, the real ending
Choose “Deathwish” and you launch The Third Way. Franklin refuses to sacrifice anyone and heads over to see Lester. Together, they cook up a plan: lure the FIB and Merryweather’s mercenaries into a trap at the foundry, under the pretext of melting down the heist’s gold there. Franklin, Michael, Trevor, and Lamar tear both squads apart, then the crew goes off to settle its scores. Trevor kills Steve Haines, Michael takes out Stretch, and Franklin handles Wei Cheng.
That leaves the worst of them: Devin Weston. Trevor kidnaps him from his mansion, stuffs him in a car trunk, and the three men push it off a cliff on Mount Chiliad, the car crashing into the ocean in a ball of fire. That’s the end of their criminal careers: they each head home, all three alive, “mismatched friends” but alive, with their cuts wired over by Lester.
Why Deathwish is the canon ending
Rockstar never put out an official statement naming “the right” ending, but the studio made its call in its own way, through GTA Online. Across updates, the online game references Michael as a working movie producer and Trevor as a retired criminal, situations that would be impossible if either one were dead. In other words, the saga’s continuity assumes that nobody in the crew was killed: it’s The Third Way, ending C, that holds true.
It’s no accident that it’s also the most polished one: it closes out every arc, punishes all the story’s real scumbags, and honors the bond between the three men. Endings A and B are fascinating experiments in loyalty, absolutely worth seeing, but they “never happened.” A game still taking the time to fine-tune its alternate endings is also one of the reasons GTA 5 has held up since 2013.
And in GTA VI?
There’s no way to know yet whether GTA VI will offer multiple endings of its own. Rockstar has long loved branching finales, but this time the studio is telling the story of a duo, Jason and Lucia, in the vein of a modern Bonnie and Clyde. We break down what we know about their relationship in our piece on the Jason and Lucia duo, and you can revisit our GTA 4 vs GTA 5 comparison or our profile of the actors behind Michael, Franklin, and Trevor. For what’s next, head to the GTA 6 release date.
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