GTA Online: where a new player should start

14 August 2026 · 4 min read

GameMapa editorial · how we check facts
Checked: Claude (AI) — fact-checked against the Ukrainian original; not proofread by a native speaker

Your first session in GTA Online can easily get lost among menus, phone calls, and notifications. Rockstar published a dedicated set of tips for new players on its official site — below is the core of it, retold in our own words, without padding or invented details that aren’t in the source.

The iFruit phone is your main tool

Practically every basic action in GTA Online runs through your character’s phone.

• How to open it. On consoles, press up on the D-pad. On PC, press T or Backspace.
• What it’s for. Calls from story characters come through the phone, missions launch from it, businesses are managed through it, and it holds apps like your character’s own web browser.

Getting into the habit of checking the phone regularly is one of the first habits worth building: most invitations and tasks in GTA Online don’t pop up on screen by themselves — you find them there.

GTA$ and RP are two separate resources

Rockstar’s article specifically calls out the difference between the game’s two main progress counters.

• GTA$ (in-game money). Spent on property, vehicles, weapons, clothing, and upgrades. It’s a resource you spend down.
• RP (Reputation Points). Accumulated separately, and it raises your character’s level. Leveling up unlocks new content, but RP itself isn’t something you spend.

This means spending all your GTA$ on one thing doesn’t touch your character level, and the reverse is also true — a high level doesn’t mean a full bank account.

The Player Interaction Menu and Passive Mode

This menu is the control center for your character’s social and combat settings within a session.

• How to open it. The M key on PC, holding the touchpad on PS4, or holding the View button on Xbox One.
• Passive Mode. Toggled right inside this menu. It’s a mode that reduces how vulnerable your character is to attacks from other players in the open world.
• Other functions in the menu include settings for interacting with other players in the session and quick access to part of the character’s system menus.

Registering as VIP, CEO, or club president

Further down the Player Interaction Menu is the SecuroServ section, which is where a character registers for one of the leadership roles:

• VIP — the base role for a solo player.
• CEO — head of a registered organization/company.
• MC President — a separate role tied specifically to the motorcycle club structure of the campaign.

The path to registering is always the same: Player Interaction Menu → SecuroServ → Register. Exactly which mechanics and jobs each of these roles unlocks isn’t spelled out in Rockstar’s starter-tips article in any detail — that’s territory covered by dedicated earning guides.

Setting a spawn location

The article also describes being able to manually choose where your character spawns after loading into a session, instead of a random default point. This setting is useful when you regularly return to the same location — your office or business, for example.

What is officially not stated

• A step-by-step in-game tutorial. Rockstar’s article is a list of tips, not a step-by-step interactive tutorial with tasks in a set order.
• A recommended order of actions for a beginner (what to do first, second, third) — the source lists the mechanics but doesn’t sequence them.
• Specific GTA$ amounts needed to get started — that’s only covered in the context of specific bonus programs like Career Builder or starter packs; the beginner guide itself doesn’t give figures.

For ways to get your first money at the start, including official bonus programs, see our piece on earning money in GTA Online. For how the choice of starting career on newer platforms works, see our overview of Career Builder.