Rockstar have announced GTA Online will receive the long anticipated Heist gamemode. This new co-op mode will allow four players to plan, prepare and execute Heists across Los Santos and Blaine County within GTA Online, and will be available early in 2015.

In an interview with IGN, GTA Online producer Imran Sarwar explained that Heists have taken so long to be introduced because “they just turned out to be a lot more difficult than we originally thought.” He also explains exactly what Heists are, detailing “Each heist requires 4 players all at rank 12 or above, with one player as the designated heist leader. Leading a heist requires owning a high-end apartment so that you have a room available to set up the planning board. From there you’ll be able to launch missions as the leader, starting with the prep work and building up to the score itself.”

Upon launch, there will be five unique Heist strands within GTA Online that involve over 20 missions – totalling around 20 hours of gameplay. For other details and more information, the full IGN interview is available here.