When the first Grand Theft Auto arrived in 1997, there was little indication that the top-down driving game would evolve into one of the defining series in entertainment.
Developed in Dundee by DMA Design, the studio that would later become Rockstar North, the game offered something unusually permissive. Players could steal cars, work for criminals and abandon their objectives to simply cause havoc around the city.
That freedom became the foundation of GTA. Grand Theft Auto 3 transformed it into a three-dimensional open world; Vice City and San Andreas demonstrated how distinctive those worlds could become; GTA 4 pursued greater realism; and GTA 5, supported by more than a decade of GTA Online, grew into one of the most successful games ever made.
Ahead of GTA 6, here is how the series reached that point.
Grand Theft Auto (1997)
Before GTA became the gaming behemoth it is today, it was a project called Race 'n’ Chase. DMA Design initially imagined a game in which players could take the role of criminals or police officers, before discovering that playing the criminals was considerably more entertaining.
The finished game contained three locations that would become central to the series: Liberty City, San Andreas and Vice City. Missions were collected from ringing telephone boxes and the action was viewed from above, but GTA's essential formula was already there: provide players with a city, vehicles and objectives, then give them considerable freedom in how they approached them.
The controversy surrounding its violence also established another recurring part of GTA's history. Criticism from politicians before its release helped draw attention to a game whose provocative premise was already part of its identity.
Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 and London 1961 (1999)
GTA briefly left America with London 1969, an expansion that transplanted the original game's top-down formula to a caricature of 1960s Britain, complete with period cars, music and local slang.
A smaller follow-up, London 1961, was released as a free PC download later that year. Together, they remain anomalies in GTA history. No subsequent instalment has been set primarily outside the US, while their period detail anticipated the way games such as Vice City would later use music and culture to define an era.
Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999)
Grand Theft Auto 2 refined, rather than reinvented, its predecessor. It retained the overhead viewpoint but introduced a more developed gang system, with completing jobs for one faction potentially damaging the player's standing with another.
Its industrial setting, Anywhere City, also stood apart from GTA's later reliance on fictional versions of recognisable American locations. It was the final main instalment built around the original top-down format.
Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001)
This was the game that changed everything.
Released for PlayStation 2 in October 2001, Grand Theft Auto 3 transformed the series into a fully three-dimensional open world.
Players controlled the largely silent Claude as he moved through Liberty City's criminal underworld, but the plot was almost secondary to the novelty of inhabiting the city. Cars could be stolen almost anywhere; police responses escalated with the player's wanted level, and missions could be interrupted simply because something more interesting was happening nearby.
Radio became equally important. Licensed songs sat alongside talk shows, fictional advertisements and satire, helping turn time spent driving between missions into part of the experience.
Its influence reached far beyond GTA. Large 3D worlds built around missions, exploration and emergent chaos became one of the dominant structures of 21st-century gaming, with GTA 3 providing an early blueprint.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)
Only a year later, Rockstar showed that an open world could have a personality as distinctive as its characters.
Set in 1986 and influenced by Miami Vice, Scarface and the excesses associated with Florida in the 1980s, Vice City replaced Liberty City's greys with neon, beaches and an expansive licensed soundtrack.
That soundtrack became one of the game's defining features. Songs from artists including Michael Jackson, Iron Maiden, Blondie and A Flock of Seagulls played across its radio stations, helping reinforce the period setting and making simply driving around Vice City feel more immersive.
It also introduced GTA's first fully voiced protagonist, Tommy Vercetti, played by Ray Liotta. His rise from recently released prisoner to criminal kingpin gave the story a more cinematic structure.
Motorcycles, purchasable properties and revenue-generating businesses expanded the formula further.
The results were enormous. Vice City sold 1.4 million copies within two days and became the best-selling game in the US in 2002. It ultimately sold more than 17 million copies across platforms.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)
If Vice City gave GTA personality, San Andreas gave it scale.
Carl “CJ” Johnson returns to Los Santos in the early 1990s after his mother's murder, but the game soon expands far beyond one city. Rockstar created an entire fictional state encompassing Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas, inspired by Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas.
Its ambition grew with the map. CJ could eat, exercise, gain or lose weight, improve weapon skills and customise his appearance. Players could gamble, modify cars, take over gang territory and explore the countryside between cities.
San Andreas also became one of the defining games of the PlayStation 2 era. Its size, freedom and sheer range of activities encapsulated what made the console's library feel so ambitious at the time, helping cement the PS2 as a must-own system. The console would eventually sell more than 160 million units worldwide, making it the best-selling games console of all time.
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (2005)
Liberty City Stories was an ambitious attempt at a portable GTA.
Released initially for the PSP, it returned to the three-dimensional Liberty City of GTA III and followed Leone crime family member Toni Cipriani in 1998.
Rather than substantially redesigning GTA for hand-held play, Rockstar attempted to reproduce much of the console experience on a portable device. A PlayStation 2 version followed the next year.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (2006)
Rockstar repeated the idea with Vice City Stories, a prequel set in 1984.
Protagonist Victor Vance begins as a soldier before becoming drawn into the city's criminal economy, while an empire-building system allows players to establish and manage illegal businesses.
It was the final original GTA built around the technology and design foundations established by GTA 3, closing a remarkably prolific period for the series.
Grand Theft Auto 4 (2008)
Seven years after GTA 3, Rockstar reinvented Liberty City again.
GTA 4 launched in April 2008 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, beginning GTA's HD era. Liberty City was denser and more closely modelled on New York, while new physics and animation gave vehicles and characters considerably more weight.
The story also became more grounded. Niko Bellic, an Eastern European immigrant arriving in the US looking for opportunity and answers about his past, gave Rockstar a way to examine immigration, capitalism and the gap between the American dream and reality.
About 3.6 million copies were sold on its first day, generating approximately $310 million. Within a week, sales had reached about six million copies and more than $500 million.
Rockstar then used the same city for two substantial expansions. The Lost and Damned followed biker Johnny Klebitz, while The Ballad of Gay Tony centred on Luis Lopez and nightclub owner Tony Prince.
Grand Theft Auto 5 (2013)
GTA 5's defining structural change was to divide its story among three playable protagonists.
Michael De Santa is a retired career criminal living unhappily in luxury; Franklin Clinton is a younger hustler looking for greater opportunities; Trevor Philips is a volatile criminal living outside Los Santos. Players can switch between them, sometimes during missions, giving the game a variety of perspectives, personalities and styles of play that previous GTA stories could not offer.
That structure also helped to keep the experience feeling fresh long after release. Moving between Michael's family problems, Franklin's ambitions and Trevor's unpredictable criminal life allowed Rockstar to tell different kinds of stories within the same world, while character-specific missions and abilities gave each protagonist a distinct feel.
Los Santos also returned on a far larger scale, surrounded by mountains, desert, small towns and coastline.
Released on September 17, 2013, GTA 5 generated about $800 million on its first day and passed $1 billion after only three days, making it the fastest any entertainment product had reached that figure.
Its extraordinary longevity owes much to Grand Theft Auto Online. What began as its multiplayer mode grew into a vast live-service game built around property, businesses, vehicles and co-operative heists.
Rockstar continued expanding it for more than a decade, carrying Los Santos across three console generations and adding new missions, businesses, locations and storylines.
By August 2026, GTA 5 had sold more than 230 million copies worldwide. The continued success of the game and GTA Online helped to create a 13-year gap between numbered instalments, by far the longest in the series' history.
