Rockstar’s popular title Grand Theft Auto V is now available for free as a limited period offer on Epic Games Store. The offer rendered the store useless with slow loading times, “500 internal server error” messages & launcher crashes when the giveaway went live at 8:30 PM IST on the 14th of May and now, GTA V’s online play feature got affected for almost five hours.

“Due to extremely high player volumes, we are currently experiencing issues with access to Rockstar Games Services including the Rockstar Games Launcher and GTAV for PC. We are actively working to resolve the issue and will keep you updated of any changes.”, wrote Rockstar Support on Twitter.

Due to extremely high player volumes, we are currently experiencing issues with access to Rockstar Games Services including the Rockstar Games Launcher and GTAV for PC. We are actively working to resolve the issue and will keep you updated of any changes.

— Rockstar Support (@RockstarSupport) May 17, 2020

After a solid five hours of downtime, the company has finally resolved the issues and made GTA Online live for gamers to play.

The issue impacting service performance for the Rockstar Games Launcher and GTAV on PC is now resolved. Thank you for your patience.

— Rockstar Support (@RockstarSupport) May 17, 2020

GTA V is available on a variety of platforms such as PS3, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Windows. If you haven’t claimed the game already, here is your reminder to do so if you’re interested as the giveaway will end on the 21st of May, which is just a couple of days away from now. Do keep in mind that you’ll have to set up two-factor authentication on Epic Games Store to download the game.

It is quite fascinating to see a game that got released seven years back gain enough traction to crash Rockstar Games’ servers. However, it’s not surprising. Back in 2018, GTA V became the highest grossing entertainment product in the world. Rockstar must have scaled up its server infrastructure to meet the increased demand in light of this downtime and we will hopefully be not facing any further downtimes going forward.