Can GTA 5 be played without updating in Steam?

It's quite obvious that you cannot play online without the latest updates but if you're only interested in story mode, you might get lucky and the game will launch without updating.

You could try some of the following but it's hit or miss with how Rockstar verifies the game (for which an internet connection is required).

• Start Steam in Offline mode (either set it to offline from the menu or disconnect your network)
• Disable automatic updates for this game on Steam
• Go to your Steam library, right-click the game's name, choose Properties, click the Updates tab, and change the Automatic Updates drop-down to "Do not automatically update this game."
• Try to launch the game, try both being connected to the internet and by pulling your network cable out.

If that doesn't work, I have found this workaround online. Perhaps it will work for you:

It works only in story mode on pc. Open the command console as admin and type first this:

cd c:\Program Files\Rockstar Games\Grand Theft Auto V

Then click enter after that you type this text in:

GTAVLauncher.exe -scOfflineOnly

Then click enter again and your game will run on pc in story mode

You can easily do this without using the command console by creating a shortcut for GTAVLauncher.exe and adding the above parameter in the path.

Here's a question on Windows SE on how to do that.