GTA Online patch hits Xbox 360, Rockstar investigating lost progress, characters, items

Rockstar this morning pushed out a patch for the Xbox 360 version of GTA Online in order to help fix the login and gameplay issues that have been plaguing the online portion of the title since it launched earlier this week.

A patch for the PlayStation 3 version of the game hit yesterday.

Officials at Rockstar also said that they are still investigating reports about loss of characters, rank, items, apartments and in-game money.

"We have received reports from some players who experienced losing characters, progress, items, and/or in-game cash during the first few days after release," according to a separate report item. "We understand how frustrating it is to lose gameplay progress and are working diligently to identify and correct the causes for these losses, as well as to establish how best to restore any lost progress and value. If you would like to receive an automatic email notification as soon as there is more information about this, please log into the Support Site and click Subscribe at the top of this page. You do not need to do anything else, and you can continue playing in the meantime."

Both platforms experienced problems preventing some players from completing the first tutorial mission. Some have completed it after repeatedly retrying. Users have also experienced instability in content past the tutorial missions. Rockstar is currently working to fix these issues for all users.

Rockstar disabled the ability to purchase GTA cash packs earlier this week due to instability. The company made the decision to cease the game's microtransactions on Wednesday. However, players can still earn money by completing Jobs and other activities within the open-world service.

Grand Theft Auto Online launched on Tuesday to server issues, freezing and a handful of bugs that prevented many players from accessing the service. Rockstar has been working to solve these issues throughout the week.