10 Best Rockstar Games Protagonists - Ranked

While Trevor is by far the more popular of these two characters, Michael is much better developed, and much more relatable.

As we touched upon previously, Michael represents the middle-ground between the mundane Franklin Clinton and the bat$hit Trevor Phillips. He's a guy who made money doing bad things, screwed over his friends, married someone he didn't love, and tried to get out of the criminal life.

Of course, as we've seen repeatedly, he gets dragged back in kicking and screaming, but that's what makes him the most compelling character in GTA V.

While Trevor is entirely irredeemable and Franklin is rather boring in his non-committal attitude, Michael has his foot firmly planted in both ways of life. He can seem like an ass but once you meet his ungrateful, annoying family members, you start to see why he's as bitter as he is. He isn't very loyal though, and that's perhaps a surprising spin on he and Trevor (who is more loyal). But that's what makes the story of GTA V so great, it's not predictable and the characters are grey as opposed to black and white.

Michael is a run-of-the-mill Rockstar Games protagonist, but he also shows how much the studio has developed at writing characters and giving them more layers.