Driver: San Francisco is an and the fifth installment in the series. Developed by and published by , it was released in September 2011 for the , , and , with an edition for in March 2012. The game sees players traversing a fictional version of and the Bay area conducting missions through the use of licensed real-world cars, with the ability to shift into any car in the game's setting in most platform editions. The game's main story sees players controlling John Tanner, a police detective, who falls into a coma pursuing his nemesis Charles Jericho following a prison breakout after the events of (Driv3r), and finds himself piecing together his plan in a dream world while it is happening in real life.
The game received favorable reviews upon its release, with the exception of the Wii edition which received mixed reviews. A mini-comic series was released which provides plot details of the events between Driv3r and San Francisco, with the game receiving a collector's edition that includes additional multiplayer vehicles and single-player events.A new feature is Shift, which allows Tanner to teleport from one car to another without discontinuing the mission. One of the inspirations for Shift comes from .The game was also described as a "return to the roots" of the series as the ability to get out of the car, which was introduced in , was removed and replaced with the ability to Shift (teleport) into other cars, as the developers felt that too many games had this kind of feature already and "it wasn't desirable [for us] to just copy that exact mechanic". With Shift, the player can also start missions. As well as the ability to use Shift, all cars are equipped with a 'boost' feature, requiring the player to push up on the left thumbstick to use it. Players can also push L1 on the PlayStation 3 or the left shoulder button on the Xbox 360 version of the game to perform a special 'ram' attack on cars. The film director mode, which was absent from , also returns, and players can share their videos on the Driver Club website. The game runs at 60
