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Over the next few months, I’m going to be taking a look back at each of the core Grand Theft Auto games and replaying them in the lead-up to the arrival of Grand Theft Auto 6. What we’ll be putting together won’t be traditional re-reviews, and they won’t come with any new IGN score, but they will re-examine what made each GTA remarkable upon the time of its release. By the end of the project, using GTA’s previously six-star wanted level, you should be able to get an idea of where each of these games roughly rank in my long-term love for this series.
Today, we go back to the game that changed this series forever: Grand Theft Auto III.
Playing Grand Theft Auto III in 2026 is a little like watching a home movie of Usain Bolt learning to walk. It’s a little wobbly, and it hasn’t quite got the whole process worked out yet, but through a modern lens it comes with a fascinating awareness you’re seeing the first steps of a field-defining juggernaut. In the late ’90s, GTA games had found success showing us the unique brand of freedom they offered within their sandbox-style cities – but the old school, top-down approach was a dated aesthetic in contrast to the fully 3D worlds that were first beginning to emerge during this era. In 2001, GTA III arrived as a completely different proposition, instantly reinventing the series as the new cutting edge of open-world action games.
In 2001, GTA III arrived as a completely different proposition, instantly reinventing the series as the new cutting edge of open-world action games. It’s true that its already annoying targeting system is doubly frustrating by modern standards, and its time-consuming mission restarts do feel particularly punitive 25 years on. However, I’ve found it impossible not to admire how well it otherwise weaves together its driving, action, story, and exploration within a dynamic 3D world, considering it accomplished this before there was any sort of proper blueprint for doing so. Sure, GTA III didn’t get everything right immediately – but you’ve got to walk before you can run.
Playing GTA III in such close proximity to GTA 2, I’m actually quickly reminded of how immediately the former feels like the game that was actually teased by the latter’s eye-catching, live-action intro. The gritty, New York-based short promotional film Rockstar produced for GTA 2 (and subsequently trimmed down to serve as its intro) never felt remotely connected to the quasi-cyberpunk setting of that game – but it feels perfectly aligned to GTA III. The fact that GTA III made good on a cheque that GTA 2 bounced made it all the more special upon its arrival. GTA 2 only left me desperately wanting a game in the spirit of what I saw in that promo film. Two years later, GTA III delivered it.
GTA III kept a couple of noticeable elements established by its predecessor – like its hilarious array of custom radio commercials, its random fascination with Elvis Presley, and even an optional top-down camera – but it completely discarded its divisive time period, indeterminable location, and retro-futuristic fleet of vehicles. Instead, it opted for something credible, contemporary, and recognisable, and returned to the original GTA’s New York homage: Liberty City.
It’s a Bent World
While GTA III’s voice cast is a murderers’ row of iconic Hollywood crime fiction actors – including Frank Vincent, Michael Madsen, Joe Pantoliano, Robert Loggia, Michael Rapaport, Kyle MacLachlan, and Debi Mazar – none gallops away as the star of the game. In fact, with a silent protagonist and an otherwise very simple story propped up by a supporting crew of broad and largely one-dimensional criminal stereotypes, it’s Liberty City itself that perhaps emerges as GTA III’s greatest character.
Liberty City is split into three distinct boroughs that are rationed out as the story unfolds. We begin in Portland, an area defined by its grimy industrial sector and seedy red light district, before scampering to the Manhattan-inspired Staunton Island when the situation turns sour. Staunton Island is a wholly different backdrop; it’s highly commercial and features towering skyscrapers and a lush and centrally located park. The third area is Shoreside Vale, which is a leafy, suburban zone that’s otherwise dominated by a large airport and dam. Unfortunately, Shoreside Vale is actually the least interesting of the three boroughs, lacking both the personality of Portland and the density of Staunton Island. I’ll give it a nod for being the home of the infamously tricky to fly Dodo, but it’s otherwise a bit of a disappointing shift.
The dimensions of Liberty City are extremely modest compared to its later reinvention in GTA IV – and it’s absolutely dwarfed by modern open-world standards – but that was of no consequence back in 2001. At that time, it was unlike any game world we’d ever visited – and its nature as a place where day became night and clear weather turned to rain made it somewhere that felt alive in a fundamentally new way. Stand still in GTA III’s Liberty City and life will simply go on around you. Traffic flows, pedestrians pass, and the Earth spins. None of this would be particularly impressive today, but it was back then. The feeling I got re-immersing myself in GTA III and being transported back to that moment in my life has been a potent one.
You Better Drive, Brother
The template DMA Design established for the top-down GTA games unsurprisingly remained in place for GTA III. That is, whether you’re behind the wheel or on foot, everything happens in the same space. There are no “driving” levels or “action” levels. There are no levels at all. There’s one map, and player agency is the number one priority. Yes, there are many instances where the missions may compel you to use a particular vehicle but, for the most part, you’re in complete control of how you move around the world. Grab whatever car you want, and head in any direction you choose.
ReplayingGTAOverI’mGrand Theft AutoIGNGTA’sTodayGrand Theft Auto IIIPlaying Grand Theft Auto IIIUsain BoltIt’s
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