Grand Theft Auto games in order

Key Takeaways

GTA set the standard for open-world sandbox games, with vast freedom and sporadic releases.
Each GTA game has a unique protagonist and crime-filled adventure, tying loosely to a shared world.
Play GTA games in chronological order to experience the evolution from 2D to 3D gameplay across diverse settings.

When it comes to open-world sandbox games, nothing comes close to touching the size, scope, and pure chaotic fun of Grand Theft Auto. Few other games even attempt to offer as much freedom in their world, let alone actually pull it off with as much polish as Rockstar. This one game is single handedly responsible for the boom of open-world games, with copycats still trying to sell even a fraction of what GTA does. Unlike other juggernaut franchises like Call of Duty, GTA releases are years apart and all the more special for it.

Set in a parody of our own world, each GTA game so far has featured a new protagonist (or protagonists) wrapped up in their own crime-filled adventure. Even though there isn’t one overarching plot like there is in Metroid, these games all do take place in the same world and there are some crossovers that tie things together. If you’re looking to live out your wildest crime fantasies in the safety of a digital world, here’s how to play all the GTA games in order, chronologically and by release.

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1 Grand Theft Auto: London 1961

1961

Going all the way back to when GTA was a 2D, top-down game, GTA: London 1961 is an expansion for the first game in the series. Not many people ever experienced this since it was a PC-exclusive addition, so PlayStation players never had access to it. There’s little to say about the short story here except you do various jobs to rise through the ranks of a London mob.

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2 Grand Theft Auto: London 1968

1968

Don’t expect this timeline to keep being as simple as reading the year at the end of the titles. This is yet another expansion for the first GTA and has some small ties to characters from 1961, but otherwise is not connected to the main series at all.

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3 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

1984

Originally a PSP game that later got a PS2 port, Vice City Stories is a prequel to Vice City with a new protagonist named Victor Vance. He and his brother Lance are on a quest to start their own criminal operation after he was dishonorably discharged from the military. Many side characters from Vice City show up, and the game ends right as that one begins.

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4 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

1986

In large part due to the setting and vibes of Vice City in the mid-80s, this entry has become many people’s top GTA game of all time. Set in the titular Vice City, you play as Tony Vercetti fresh out of jail and assigned by his boss in Liberty City to establish the drug trade, Things go sideways fast, as they always do, and he must navigate the underworld and take on the current gang bosses to survive.

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5 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

1992

Taking a different approach to the crime series, San Andreas is more focused on street-level gang warfare. You take control of CJ who is just coming back to town after his mother had been murdered by a rival gang. Joining up with his local gang, he swears revenge on those who killed her but ends up getting wrapped up in a much bigger conspiracy.

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6 Grand Theft Auto

1997

The very first GTA game takes place in three cities that would go on to become staples of the franchise: Liberty City, San Andreas, and Vice City. You play a nameless criminal pulling off various heists, jobs, and hits for various gang leaders.

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7 Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

1998

Another PSP prequel game, but also thankfully ported to the PS2 as well, Liberty City Stories features yet another protagonist with the most Italian-inspired name, Toni Cipriani who is a secondary character in GTA 3. Here, he has just rejoined the life of crime with the Leone family after murdering a made man.

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8 Grand Theft Auto Advance

2000

GTA Advance is as loosely tied to the series as possible. We’re back in Liberty City as a man named Mike seeking revenge for the murder of his partner Vinnie. It’s very basic like the original 2D games, but neat to have a portable GTA.

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9 Grand Theft Auto 3

2001

GTA 3 is where the series truly begins for most people. This was the first 3D entry in the series and gave us a fully realized Liberty City to explore as Claude. We pick up with the robber after a 10-year prison sentence as he starts his new life with the mafia.

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10 Grand Theft Auto 4

2008

GTA 4 was the biggest thing in the world when it came out. After three amazing games on the PS2 generation, GTA 4 blew all expectations for gameplay and storytelling out of the water using the power of the PS3 and 360 hardware. It’s still an impressive achievement today to explore Liberty City and well worth experiencing if you can.

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11 Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars

2009

Unlike the past portable titles, Chinatown Wars is still stuck on PSP, DS, and mobile platforms. We get a unique perspective of being a member of the Triad named Huang Lee on a quest to recover his family’s ancestral sword he was meant to deliver.

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12 Grand Theft Auto 2

1999/2013?

GTA 2 is the black sheep of the entire franchise. It is still a 2D game that plays nearly identically to the first but opted to be set in the far future of 2013 in a new location called Anywhere City. This is the first time we get a named protagonist, Claude Speed (no, this is a different Claude from GTA 3), who follows the same formula of doing jobs to build up his reputation with the crime bosses. We’re slotting it here in the timeline because the year actually isn’t clear. It references both 1999 and 2013, but considering the futuristic look of everything, we’re playing it safe and putting it at the furthest date possible.

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13 Grand Theft Auto 5

2013

The current latest game in the timeline is the massive GTA 5. We finally get a break from Liberty City and head over to Los Santos where we see the plot unfold through three perspectives. We have Franklin, Michael, and Trevor who all have vastly different personalities, but a common goal that brings the unlikely crew together.

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14 Grand Theft Auto in release order

Not a straight path

Thanks to all the spinoffs and subtitled entries between numbered ones, there’s no way to know the correct release order for GTA just by looking at the names. Here’s a quick list of what order they came out in.

Grand Theft Auto (and expansions)
Grand Theft Auto 2
Grand Theft Auto 3
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Grand Theft Auto: Advance
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
Grand Theft Auto 4
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Grand Theft Auto 5