Over the subsequent few months, I’m going to be looking again at every of the core Grand Theft Auto video games and replaying them within the lead-up to the arrival of Grand Theft Auto 6. What we’ll be placing collectively received’t be conventional re-reviews, they usually received’t include any new IGN rating, however they may re-examine what made every GTA exceptional upon the time of its launch. By the top of the challenge, utilizing GTA’s beforehand six-star wished degree, it is best to be capable to get an concept of the place every of those video games roughly rank in my long-term love for this sequence.
Right now, we return to the sport that modified this sequence ceaselessly: Grand Theft Auto III.
Enjoying Grand Theft Auto III in 2026 is just a little like watching a house film of Usain Bolt studying to stroll. It’s just a little wobbly, and it hasn’t fairly obtained the entire course of labored out but, however via a contemporary lens it comes with a captivating consciousness you’re seeing the primary steps of a field-defining juggernaut. Within the late ’90s, GTA video games had discovered success exhibiting us the distinctive model of freedom they supplied inside their sandbox-style cities – however the old-fashioned, top-down method was a dated aesthetic in distinction to the totally 3D worlds that have been first starting to emerge throughout this period. In 2001, GTA III arrived as a totally totally different proposition, immediately reinventing the sequence as the brand new chopping fringe of open-world motion video games.
It’s true that its already annoying concentrating on system is doubly irritating by fashionable requirements, and its time-consuming mission restarts do really feel significantly punitive 25 years on. Nonetheless, I’ve discovered it unimaginable to not admire how nicely it in any other case weaves collectively its driving, motion, story, and exploration inside a dynamic 3D world, contemplating it achieved this earlier than there was any form of correct blueprint for doing so. Certain, GTA III didn’t get every little thing proper instantly – however you’ve obtained to stroll earlier than you possibly can run.
Enjoying GTA III in such shut proximity to GTA 2, I’m really rapidly reminded of how instantly the previous appears like the sport that was really teased by the latter’s eye-catching, live-action intro. The gritty, New York-based brief promotional movie Rockstar produced for GTA 2 (and subsequently trimmed all the way down to function its intro) by no means felt remotely linked to the quasi-cyberpunk setting of that recreation – nevertheless it feels completely aligned to GTA III. The incontrovertible fact that GTA III made good on a cheque that GTA 2 bounced made it all of the extra particular upon its arrival. GTA 2 solely left me desperately wanting a recreation within the spirit of what I noticed in that promo movie. Two years later, GTA III delivered it.
GTA III saved a few noticeable components established by its predecessor – like its hilarious array of customized radio commercials, its random fascination with Elvis Presley, and even an elective top-down digicam – nevertheless it fully discarded its divisive time interval, indeterminable location, and retro-futuristic fleet of autos. As a substitute, it opted for one thing credible, up to date, and recognisable, and returned to the unique GTA’s New York homage: Liberty Metropolis.
It’s a Bent World
Whereas GTA III’s voice forged is a murderers’ row of iconic Hollywood crime fiction actors – together with Frank Vincent, Michael Madsen, Joe Pantoliano, Robert Loggia, Michael Rapaport, Kyle MacLachlan, and Debi Mazar – none gallops away because the star of the sport. In actual fact, with a silent protagonist and an in any other case quite simple story propped up by a supporting crew of broad and largely one-dimensional felony stereotypes, it’s Liberty Metropolis itself that maybe emerges as GTA III’s best character.
Liberty Metropolis is break up into three distinct boroughs which can be rationed out because the story unfolds. We start in Portland, an space outlined by its dirty industrial sector and seedy pink gentle district, earlier than scampering to the Manhattan-inspired Staunton Island when the scenario turns bitter. Staunton Island is a completely totally different backdrop; it’s extremely industrial and options towering skyscrapers and a lush and centrally situated park. The third space is Shoreside Vale, which is a leafy, suburban zone that’s in any other case dominated by a big airport and dam. Sadly, Shoreside Vale is definitely the least fascinating of the three boroughs, missing each the character of Portland and the density of Staunton Island. I’ll give it a nod for being the house of the infamously tough to fly Dodo, nevertheless it’s in any other case a little bit of a disappointing shift.
The dimensions of Liberty Metropolis are extraordinarily modest in comparison with its later reinvention in GTA IV – and it’s completely dwarfed by fashionable open-world requirements – however that was of no consequence again in 2001. At the moment, it was not like any recreation world we’d ever visited – and its nature as a spot the place day grew to become night time and clear climate turned to rain made it someplace that felt alive in a essentially new means. Stand nonetheless in GTA III’s Liberty Metropolis and life will merely go on round you. Site visitors flows, pedestrians cross, and the Earth spins. None of this could be significantly spectacular at this time, nevertheless it was again then. The feeling I obtained re-immersing myself in GTA III and being transported again to that second in my life has been a potent one.
You Higher Drive, Brother
The template DMA Design established for the top-down GTA video games unsurprisingly remained in place for GTA III. That’s, whether or not you’re behind the wheel or on foot, every little thing occurs in the identical house. There are not any “driving” ranges or “motion” ranges. There are not any ranges in any respect. There’s one map, and participant company is the primary precedence. Sure, there are a lot of situations the place the missions might compel you to make use of a selected car however, for probably the most half, you’re in full management of how you progress world wide. Seize no matter automotive you need, and head in any path you select.
25 years on, the novelty of this freedom has considerably expired – however in 2001 it was actually nothing wanting revolutionary. The highly effective may of the PlayStation 2 had given GTA III the flexibility to push far past what was potential on the unique PlayStation, remodeling its top-down chaos into one thing fashionable, fast, harmful, and cinematic. Very merely, you have been now in the world – not floating above it. It now not felt like taking part in cops and robbers with toy automobiles – it felt like holidaying in a Michael Mann motion sequence.
GTA III’s driving physics are just a little slippier and floatier than they’re within the extra fashionable installments of the sequence, however they’re nonetheless fairly straightforward to come back to phrases with in 2026. They don’t fairly have the load and inertia wanted to have the ability to persistently flick them into extravagant J-turns and the like, however they really feel in any other case sufficient. There are a lot of open-world motion/driving video games launched during the last 25 years that I’ve discovered twitchier, sloppier, or extra superficial than GTA III, that a lot I can guarantee you. At any price, being behind the wheel can also be the one solution to hear all of the wacky radio commercials, which as soon as once more had me grinning – or the cavalcade of insane callers on Chatterbox FM.
What has aged fairly horribly, nonetheless, is the third-person capturing – which was arguably already the weakest pillar of GTA III again in 2001 (a minimum of on PS2, which didn’t take pleasure in the 2002 PC model’s mouse performance). The important subject is that not the entire weapons help free purpose. Solely the M16-style assault rifle, rocket launcher, and sniper rifle may be manually aimed; every little thing else should depend on the auto-lock concentrating on system. This doesn’t sound like an enormous sacrifice, till you end up in a major firefight on the streets of Liberty Metropolis, and you find yourself inadvertently biking your reticule onto close by grandmas, allies, or overzealous paramedics as a result of the system doesn’t prioritise the armed assailants blasting at you.
The full lack of mission checkpoints wouldn’t actually cross muster at this time, both. It definitely reduces the quantity of chaos I’m keen to get into, contemplating it’s a extra environment friendly use of time to attempt to decide off enemies from as far-off as potential and lean on any tacky technique that works. The must repeatedly drive all the way in which again to mission begin bubbles after failing an goal was already a reasonably aggravating chore in 2001, nevertheless it was softened by the actual fact I used to be only a college pupil dwelling at house, with a part-time job and oodles of free time. In 2026, I’m all out of oodles.
I Need Compensation for this Insult!
Regardless of producing widespread controversy (and, fairly probably, due to it) GTA III was monumentally profitable, significantly exceeding gross sales expectations. It in the end offered greater than 14.5 million copies, 11.6 million of which have been on PS2 – the place it might turn out to be the fifth highest-selling recreation on the system. Nonetheless, whereas its industrial impression is one factor, its cultural impression is one thing else altogether.
Maybe the simplest solution to perceive the immense legacy of GTA III is to have a look at every little thing that got here after it. That’s, every little thing that in the end paraphrased the trendy open-world philosophy that GTA III basically established – a big, explorable surroundings with missions distributed all through it, elective aspect actions, a assorted fleet of autos, limitless NPCs, plausible radio stations and music, and the liberty to poke the world and see how onerous it pokes again. Sure, GTA III owes its personal reverence to the initiatives that impressed it within the first place, with Rockstar’s Sam Houser memorably explaining it as Zelda meets Goodfellas on the time, however there isn’t any denying the affect of the template it established. True Crime, Saints Row, Watch Canines, Sleeping Canines; every of them borrowed or riffed on ideas GTA III created.
It’s onerous to say what the open-world motion/driving style appears to be like like have been it not for GTA III. Does it nonetheless evolve in any respect? Completely. As I mentioned in our GTA 2 Legacy Review, the daybreak of 3D driving video games was already upon us at the moment – and a number of other had already begun to mix third-person motion into them. The style was already right here, albeit in its infancy. Driver 3 was at all times going to be an evolution of the formidable Driver 2. Mafia had been in growth since late 1998. The Getaway had been in growth for the unique PlayStation earlier than turning into a PS2 challenge. We definitely can’t fake issues weren’t occurring on this house.
Nonetheless, we can also’t fake that any of those early examples achieved what GTA III did with practically the identical aplomb. We will’t fake they contained the identical unhinged power, or the identical revolutionary mix of driving, motion, story, and exploration. There, GTA III stands alone. Its immense success didn’t occur by chance; it occurred as a result of it uncovered and established a components that avid gamers discovered irresistible – and the sequence has been the yardstick for the style for 25 years due to it.
Verdict
Grand Theft Auto III, in its unique type, is a irritating and usually cumbersome recreation to play in 2026. Its unforgiving must manually return to mission markers and begin from scratch encourages a really cautious and conservative form of playstyle that clashes with the chaotic degree of freedom its world and programs in any other case encourage. On high of this, its capturing is admittedly fussy and irritating, and its forged of shallow and simplistic characters are amongst the least memorable of the sequence. Inside that preliminary salvo of 3D GTA video games, Vice Metropolis oozed dramatically extra fashion and swagger, and San Andreas supplied astonishingly elevated measurement and scope. Nonetheless, neither of those legendary video games can lay declare to being GTA III – simply improved variations of it.
It occupies a singular place within the sequence’ storied historical past. Whereas it didn’t pioneer each a part of the trendy components for open-world video games, it introduced driving, motion, story, and exploration collectively in a radically new means. It didn’t simply change the trajectory of the GTA sequence ceaselessly – it modified the enterprise. There are few video games that may declare to be as revolutionary as GTA III, and fewer nonetheless as completely trendsetting. GTA III didn’t simply present us what an open world recreation was. It confirmed us what an open world recreation could possibly be.
For extra reflections on the unbelievable Grand Theft Auto sequence, you possibly can learn our new Legacy Evaluations of Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto 2, with extra to observe over the approaching months.
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN opinions crew. You possibly can monitor him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him issues about stuff.