GTA 5: User Interface guide

Minimap – Displays the surroundings, including enemies, allies, objecrives that you need to reach and the available stores, activities and missions. You can zoom it out by pressing the down button on the D-pad.

Healthbar – Displays the current level of the character's health. Once it reaches zero, your character will wake up in the hospital where payment will be charged for the stay.

Armor bar – When you buy an armor at Ammu-Nation, you will receive protection from shots. Each shot takes some of the bar first, instead of the health bar. The length of the bar depends on the type of armor that you bought.

Special skill bar – Each one of the three protagonists has a special skill, which you can activate bby pressing L3 and R3 simultaneously. The bar determines how long this skill can be on. It regenerates by performing special activities e.g. driving without collisions in the case of Franklin.

Vehicle/location/character selection – Here, you will see the name of the vehicle and the name of the area that you currently are in, will be displayed. While on mission that includes more than one protagonist, the icons of the available protagonists will also be displayed.

Wanted Level – The stars inform you about whether you are currently chased by the police and what the strength of the police forces is.
While performing a transaction (e.g. while in a store) the current amount of available cash and losses, or gains, will be displayed here.

Ammunition – The amount of ammo for the currently used weapon. The first digit is a combined number and the gray one is the number of bullets in the clip.

Hints – The game will display here, sometimes, hints and tricks to the currently performed missions.