Gadget · —
Worn as a backpack and deployed in free-fall, the parachute is unlocked during "Verdant Meadows" and changes traversal completely — it's a core tool for skydiving missions and Mount Chiliad descents.
The Parachute is an item that appears in , , and . In The Ballad of Gay Tony, it is manufactured by ProLaps.
The Parachute is designed for only one purpose in the games it appears in: to safely return the player to ground level after falling from a significant height.
In Grand Theft Auto games prior to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, death by falling occurs less frequently, resulting in the lack of need for parachutes. While considerable damage may occur as a result of falling in and , the top-down environment resulted in restricted height of buildings, lowering the possibility of such fatalities; with full health, the player may fall roughly four times from a moderately high ramp before dying.
In most games including and , the player is allowed to access rooftops of multistory buildings and skyscrapers, but the player's resilience to damage by falling in both games is increased to a level where it is possible to unrealistically survive jumps off from a substantial height (i.e. a moderately tall skyscraper), although death may still be achieved by jumping off the rooftops of the tallest skyscrapers via extraordinary means (such as a third party teleporter). A lack of aircraft and ability to eject from moving vehicles or technical limitations in early GTA games are also factors for the late adoption of the parachute.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas introduced a more realistic range of damage incurred to the player when falling, where the severity of damage is amplified; jumps from moderate heights will deduct substantial amounts of the player's health, while jumps from extreme heights may result in certain death (unless the player's health is full with the statistic at 100%, where falling from even the highest place will only result in approximately 95% of health loss). The parachute was introduced as a life-saving option, available in various high elevations throughout the state of San Andreas, including building rooftops, or after bailing out of any flying vehicles (an exception being the Andromada in the Stowaway mission) after obtaining a pilot's license by completing the Learning to Fly strand.
Utilizing the parachute is done by pressing the "fire" key, as with weapons. However, there are a few seconds of delay after leaping from an elevation before deployment is possible. Once the parachute is deployed, the player may control their descent by rotating left and right, and by pushing forward or pulling back on the main control to speed up and slow their rate of descent. Pulling back on the parachute also allows the player to land running, instead of falling prone, as occurs when not pulling back. Parachutes also introduce the concept of "freefalling" as the player is capable of entering a controlled diving position after jumping from a high altitude whenever they are wearing a parachute, rather than flailing whenever they fall from a height without one. The parachute can only be used once. After landing, the parachute is removed from the player's inventory.
While introduced in GTA San Andreas, GTA games released prior to The Ballad of Gay Tony have not resumed the adoption of the parachute and retain the pre-GTA San Andreas fall damage, albeit being slightly more realistic.
Parachutes are reintroduced in The Ballad of Gay Tony with a vastly improved design, flapping realistically with the wind when deployed. Parachutes are first used in the mission High Dive and then adopted for a number of missions in the game, and serve as an integral component for the game's interpretation of base jumps, which are available in single player mode, as well as the multiplayer "Free Mode" (using the parachute in Team Deathmatch could allow for an entire team to paradrop into a combat zone). Base jumping in the game involves the player jumping off a number of skyscrapers in Liberty City onto moving trucks.
