The worlds of gaming and music come together in the official music video for “Leave” by San Diego-based rock band Wavves.
Shot entirely inside the open-world action game Grand Theft Auto V — which has sold around 52 million copies worldwide — the video by German YouTuber YeahMAP came top in a recent contest organized by developer Rockstar Games. YeahMAP created the video — which portrays an epic multivehicle jailbreak — using GTA V’s in-game video editor on PC, and it took him four weeks to put together. As a reward for his win, his work is now the official video for “Leave” and he’s received a bundle of gaming tech and GTA V gear from Rockstar.
With GTA V’s diverse musical soundtrack so integral to the game, it’s unsurprising that recording artists are keen to draw inspiration — and publicity — from one of gaming’s big success stories.
Wavves actually created “Leave” based on incidental music from GTA V, and it featured — alongside several other contemporary artists’ takes on the GTA V score — on the compilation album Welcome to Los Santos. Rockstar then included these tracks in the current generation release of GTA V, taking the whole project full circle.