As promised, Rockstar have today opened up the Crews section of the all-new Social Club. Being part of a crew will allow you to reap various XP benefits when playing Max Payne 3 multiplayer, and the good news is crews will carry on through to GTA V.

You can now create or join your own rough and tumble CREW in preparation for slaughter in Max Payne 3 Multiplayer. Hit the CREW UP button on your profile page and you can browse Featured Crews looking for recruits or invite your mates to join your ranks to blast through Gang Wars and Team Deathmatch together, racking up XP and starting online Feud beefs come next week. Every Social Club member can belong to up to 5 Crews, so form your allegiances wisely.

The CREWS page also contains info on the in-game benefits Crew members get in online Multiplayer. You'll receive an XP boost whenever you fight as part of a Crew or battle against rival Crews and their members online. This means you'll effectively unlock bigger and better weapons more quickly than if you're flying solo. And because this feature is linked through the Social Club, you can represent your Crew across PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

Also featuring as part of the crews section is a "robust" emblem editor which you can use to create a unique avatar for your members to wear:

The Emblem Editor is packed with thousands of shapes, colors and icons and tools to create limitless possibilities to properly represent your squad and to intimidate, psyche out or stupefy the competition.

As mentioned above, you can be a member of up to 5 crews at any time, any crews made between now and next Tuesday (May 15th) will receive the distinction of "Founder Crew", giving you a special two-stripe designation on your in-game crew tag, as well as a number of other special benefits and perks which Rockstar have not yet announced.

Feel free to join our official The GTA Place crew, we're open to anyone who wants to join. Yeah, go ahead and laugh at our pathetic use of the emblem editor, we'll improve it soon! If you've requested to join and I haven't accepted you yet then reply to this news post and I'll add you in to the crew.

Finally, keep an eye on our forums. In preparation for GTA V we'll be modifying our multiplayer subforums a little, including those for past GTA IV and games previous to that.