Sure, GTA 6 should be some time away, however that offers us loads of time to return and replay all of these Rockstar video games we’ve cherished from the previous, and even take a look at some that we might have missed. However which elements of the famed Grand Theft Auto builders’ library must you prioritise first?
Properly, we’ve gone forward and ranked our favorite Rockstar video games. From school-yard antics to tragic tales on the American frontier, listed here are the ten greatest Rockstar video games.
10. Manhunt
For a studio that’s no stranger to inflicting controversy because of the contents of its video games, arguably none of Rockstar’s damaging press surrounding GTA has come near the furore that adopted Manhunt. A stealth-action horror sport by which you play as a demise row inmate compelled into partaking in a collection of snuff movies for the disembodied voice of a pre-Succession Brian Cox, it possibly shouldn’t have been a shock that it garnered horrified reactions from the mainstream media, leading to it being banned in a number of nations.
However the controversy solely tells half of the story, as a result of Manhunt is an effective sport, and a singular one in Rockstar’s library (though we don’t discuss its inferior sequel). A disturbing satire of the USA’s fascination with violence, it is undeniably gnarly, however neatly psychological in its strategy. Linear hallways create a really particular type of stress that so lots of the studio’s different works merely can’t as a result of their open-world nature. The result’s tight, centered, and brutal motion that works to horrifying impact. Properly over 20 years previous now, Manhunt has caught lengthy within the reminiscence… though possibly that’s largely as a result of how its stark field artwork staring out from retailer cabinets scared absolutely the crap out of me as a toddler.
9. GTA 3
Only a few video games have charted the way forward for sport improvement fairly like Grand Theft Auto 3. The open world of Liberty Metropolis performs host to a twisting story of gang warfare, drug operating, and betrayal within the collection’ first 3D entry. To say it broke new floor is an understatement, and the extra dimension and shift to a street-level digicam is simply the beginning of it. The PlayStation 2 had seen nothing of the like when it comes to an immersive metropolis sandbox filled with alternative. Its bounty of facet missions and minigames blended with a foremost story that allowed for Rockstar to flex its storytelling chops like by no means earlier than, telling the story of Claude’s seek for the reality by means of a cinematic lens and an all-star solid to match the story’s mob movie-inspired ambition (The Sopranos alumni Frank Vincent and Joe Pantoliano included).
GTA 3’s slice of fictional New York might appear to be a small map to wander round in lately, however steadily unlocking its three islands, every with its personal East Coast flavouring, felt like a miracle on the time. Sure, the repetitive, simplistic mission design and less-than-desirable car dealing with might not have aged something near gracefully since its 2001 launch, however an attractive story and compelling (if archetypal) characters are nonetheless there to be seen. It’s nonetheless price enjoying at this time to see the place the roots of what GTA (and a dozen different open-world video games) sprouted from.
8. Bully
Bully has usually been described as “GTA, however in a faculty”, and to an extent, that’s precisely what it’s. By substituting shotguns for slingshots and muscle vehicles for go-karts, it hits the best spot for anybody trying to wreak havoc at a personal New England boarding faculty as an alternative of operating medication throughout a fictional Miami or Los Angeles. The supply of that havoc is Jimmy Hopkins, a troubled 15-year-old with a historical past of instructional expulsions. Tasked with navigating a 12 months at Bullworth Academy, quite a lot of classroom minigames, numerous clique quests, and hallway politics all serve to inform Bully’s story – one filled with teenage attraction and typical Rockstar social commentary.
Skating or biking across the academy and its suburban environment is a delight, with memorable landmarks like a vibrant funfair or the looming Glad Volts Asylum filling a large map that adjustments temper with the seasons because the story unfolds. This world is the results of Rockstar adapting the GTA system for an unfamiliar, unconventional setting – look somewhat nearer, and also you’ll see well-worn mechanics twisted to suit faculty life (for instance, attending classes late dangers the fury of lecturers and prefects, which is Bully’s model of the Needed system).
Bully is admittedly somewhat janky to play at this time, due to a less-than-robust digicam and over-reliance on quicktime occasions, but it surely’s nonetheless a really enjoyable time. And possibly if we’re actually fortunate, when Rockstar is finished with GTA 6, we’ll get that sequel we’ve all needed for nearly 20 years now.
7. GTA 4
There’s a powerful argument for Niko Bellic being the strongest of all of the GTA protagonists – one thing I’d possible agree with. Whether or not all of GTA 4 stands as tall round him is up for additional debate. 2008’s return to Liberty Metropolis took on the surprisingly bleak problems with the American Dream and what it means to be an immigrant within the trendy Western world. It’s a narrative that delivers for essentially the most half, offering a stunning quantity of mature depth for a studio whose tales have traditionally been approached from a extra pulpy angle. The town itself was a revelation for the time, packing a diverse quantity of detailed sights and sounds, even when in hindsight its visuals replicate the brown-grey blur that so many video games from the Xbox 360 period undergo from.
It’s in goal design and basic gameplay that GTA 4 is let down, although, which, for essentially the most half, is a number of driving individuals from A to B and assassinating single targets. Properly, other than the incredible Three Leaf Clover financial institution heist mission, that’s, which might go on to encourage the central hook of GTA 5. There’s no denying the longevity of Niko as a personality, although, and the very actual, grounded struggles he battles all through his story. We definitely perceive why he’d actually moderately go bowling together with his cousin…
6. GTA Vice Metropolis
There are few online game places as iconic as Vice Metropolis. Its neon-drenched roads, soundtracked by an all-timer assortment of ‘80s hits, served because the setting for many individuals’s core reminiscences of the PS2. Rockstar’s time-traveling journey again to the Eighties is anchored by protagonist Tommy Vercetti, performed fantastically by Goodfellas’ Ray Liotta. Launched solely a 12 months after the game-changing GTA 3, it’s exceptional how a lot of a step up Vice Metropolis achieved in simply 12 months, not simply in its star-studded solid and characterful storytelling, but additionally in the way in which its design injected life into each nook of its proxy Miami.
A fascinating story crammed with Scarface parallels introduced with it a brand new sense of extra, which lent a blockbuster fashion to a collection that was, in some ways, nonetheless discovering its ft. These early days are evident within the comparatively shonky controls and dated mission design – throughout the marketing campaign’s twilight hours, your makes an attempt to wrestle management of companies and steadiness money-making plates throughout the town don’t fairly assist the extra ballistic ambition of the story. That doesn’t take away from Vice Metropolis’s total attraction, although; it stays a landmark piece of Rockstar historical past. And we are able to’t wait to return to these seashores and golf equipment subsequent 12 months in GTA 6.
5. Max Payne 3
Rockstar determined to take Max Payne in-house for its third entry, having revealed the primary two Treatment-developed video games. Maybe unsurprisingly, leaving Max’s Finnish creatives behind resulted in a completely totally different tone, however one that’s equally as thrilling. Gone are the pulpy comedian guide panels, melodramatic monologues, and moonlit greys of neo-noir New York, changed by sensory overload due to blinding daylight, dancefloor bullet ballets, and a now-synonymous soundtrack composed by Well being. Constructing on the bullet-time foundations that propelled the collection to success in a post-Matrix world, Max Payne 3 transports the tortured ex-NYPD officer to Brazil within the midst of a gritty gang struggle that results in a bigger conspiracy that’s bleaker than something Sam Lake would have cooked up.
The choice to focus on societal ills displays the distinction between Rockstar and Treatment as builders – the previous is all the time prepared to take swipes at nations and their ingrained home issues, whereas the latter seems to be inwards for extra cerebral tales of particular person battle. Each are legitimate, and each work on the planet of Max Payne, which suggests all three entries are incredible in their very own method. All of them share one factor in frequent, nevertheless: that unrivalled energy journey of triggering that bullet time, leaping backwards by means of the air, and raining twin Uzi hearth down on anybody standing in your method. Scrumptious.
4. GTA San Andreas
If the soar between GTA 3 and Vice Metropolis was huge, then the chasm between Vice Metropolis and San Andreas requires industrial equipment to measure. In simply two years, Rockstar had taken all of its earlier Grand Theft Auto learnings, plus a number of large swings, and blended all of them collectively to concoct its first model of California. This huge (at the very least by PS2 requirements) state is house to a number of cities that steadily unlock as you progress by means of its story. The street journey between them conveys an awesome sense of scale, as does the extremely diverse mission design and intensive solid of characters you meet throughout your tenures in every metropolis.
It isn’t simply the sheer measurement that’s spectacular, but additionally the gambles Rockstar took when it got here to gameplay. San Andreas options components pilfered from the RPG and life-sim genres, permitting you to sculpt your character and customise their look, adjusting their physique relying on what number of weights you carry or Cluckin’ Bell buckets you feast on.
After which, after all, there’s CJ himself, a protagonist who lives on past the meme that follows him like a shadow. Authentically dropped at life by rapper Younger Maylay, his story is one in every of redemption and survival that pits him towards a few of the collection’ most memorable adversaries, chief amongst them being Samuel L. Jackson’s despicable Officer Tenpenny. All of it comes collectively to make one in every of Rockstar’s biggest video games, and the perfect GTA of the PS2 period.
3. Pink Lifeless Redemption
Rockstar had been displaying cinematic ambitions for a few years earlier than Pink Lifeless Redemption’s arrival in 2010, so it was solely pure that it could in the future deal with one of the crucial essentially filmic of genres: the western. Taking heavy affect from the likes of The Wild Bunch, Pink Lifeless’s cross-continent story of an outlaw coming to phrases with being the final of his sort takes fan-favourite John Marston to Mexico and again as he hunts down his former mentor, Dutch Van Der Linde. It’s a extra rural setting than we’d beforehand come to anticipate from a Rockstar open-world, permitting for these cinematic prospers to take maintain and current a formidable inventive achievement. Bustling metropolis streets made method for dusty canyons, and a shocking Woody Jackson rating crammed the area as soon as dominated by fixed radio chatter.
Pink Lifeless Redemption’s slower tempo permits for the story to play out elegantly, with Marston’s near-invisible foe hanging menacingly within the background, patiently awaiting their memorable snow-covered face-off. Then there’s the ending, which I’d by no means spoil right here for individuals who’ve by no means had an opportunity to witness it, however secure to say it is lived lengthy within the reminiscence as one in every of video video games’ most impactful finales within the 15 years since.
The street to that time is paved by some admittedly pretty routine mission design and a number of horse using, however there’s nonetheless sufficient persona in its dead-eye capturing system and endlessly enjoyable minigames (liar’s cube, right here’s you) to permit for Pink Lifeless Redemption to age very gracefully. It lives on as one in every of Rockstar’s three best achievements.
2. GTA 5
Grand Theft Auto 5 is a blockbuster in each sense of the phrase. Not simply due to the colossal variety of copies it’s offered, nor the sum of money it value to make, however due to each side of its design. It wears extra proudly on its sleeve, mirrored within the drive for cash displayed by every of its three protagonists. This greed – itself Rockstar’s clearest criticism of capitalism and the obnoxious characters it produces – involves a head in GTA 5’s signature heist missions, every a collection of audacious motion set items battling to upstage each other. These marketing campaign highpoints mix in seamlessly with a Los Santos map bustling with life and teeming with attraction – Rockstar’s signature humour oozes out of each sight and sound, from road nook billboards to radio station ramblings.
This sandbox has saved followers entertained ever since its building in 2013, and due to the addition of GTA On-line, it has expanded and improved constantly to today. It’s created an entire new ecosystem for gamers to reside in, tackle more and more complicated heists, and even construct race tracks that stretch and loop into the sky. It really is its personal ridiculous beast. However whereas it might be that expansive multiplayer mode that led to GTA 5’s huge success, it’s Michael, Franklin, and Trevor’s story that has confirmed to have essentially the most endurance, at the very least for us. It’s the perfect {that a} Grand Theft Auto marketing campaign has ever been, and that has us excited to see how Rockstar will attempt to prime it with GTA 6.
1. Pink Lifeless Redemption 2
The fruits of all Rockstar’s work thus far, Pink Lifeless Redemption 2 took dwelling, respiratory online game worlds to the subsequent degree when it was launched in 2018. The extent of element in its sprawling frontier is extraordinary, with each creature, each animal and human, reacting authentically to your each motion. This makes every interplay with these digital personalities really feel astonishingly lifelike. This expertly crafted, turn-of-the-century western America is the stage for an entire host of memorable characters, each quirky and harmful, however none stick within the thoughts as firmly as protagonist Arthur Morgan.
His journey represents the height of Rockstar storytelling, displaying a degree of complexity and nuance merely not current in any of the studio’s different video games. The Van Der Linde gang’s trials and tribulations result in a memorable set of harmful missions due to the growing desperation of its chief, Dutch. It’s a story laden with standout chapters – a turf struggle between the Grey and Braithwaite households leads as much as a manor home siege, a blockbuster financial institution heist within the main metropolis of Saint Denis results in an surprising sojourn to the island of Guarma, and tensions between the native Wapiti Indians and American Military result in flame-soaked shootouts. It could be onerous to choose a single favorite from that record. Pink Lifeless Redemption 2 is an enormous, epic tapestry steeped in cinematic fashion, and the perfect sport Rockstar has given us but.
Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can primarily be discovered skulking round open world video games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing on the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Comply with him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.