All GTA Games in Order: The Complete List and Chronology of the Grand Theft Auto Series

Grand Theft Auto is one of those series known even by people who have never held a controller. Over nearly thirty years, it went from a clunky top-down arcade game to one of the biggest and most talked-about franchises in the industry. Figuring out what comes after what isn't trivial: the series has no single overarching story, but three separate universes, each with its own heroes, map, and even laws of physics.

This article lists all GTA games in order: from the very first one in 1997 to GTA 6, which launches on November 19, 2026. We'll lay the games out both by release date and by the internal chronology of each universe, cover the major expansions and remasters, and suggest where a newcomer should begin. You can even see how the series evolved visually through the evolution of GTA cover art — from a pixel silhouette to a glossy Vice City-style poster.

In short, by year, all the main games and major expansions came out like this:

Now let's walk through each era in detail — that makes it clearer why the games split into three universes and how they connect.

The first GTA games combined a top-down view and simple graphics with an impressive amount of freedom for the late 1990s. You could steal any car, cause chaos on the streets, and lead the police on chases across an entire city.

Grand Theft Auto set the formula for the whole series: an open city, stolen cars, jobs from crime bosses, and points for the mayhem you cause. There were three cities right away — the prototypes of the future Liberty City, San Andreas, and Vice City. The game landed in the middle of controversy over its violence, and that attention only helped it get noticed.

London 1969 is a paid expansion for the first game that moves the action to 1960s London, with its Mini Coopers and gangsters straight out of British cinema. The free London 1961 followed. These are the only GTA games set outside the United States.

Grand Theft Auto 2 stuck with the top-down view but added a gang reputation system: help one crew and you sour things with another. The action moved to the retro-futuristic Anywhere City, and the world grew livelier and meaner. It was the last big "old-school" GTA — next came the leap into three dimensions.

This is where GTA became the GTA everyone knows. The games of this era share one universe: a common world geography, recurring characters, and cross-references. For many players it all started right here — with sunny beaches and radio stations you cruise the city to.

Grand Theft Auto 3 turned the industry upside down. A 3D Liberty City, a silent hero named Claude, and total freedom of movement — the game set the mainstream standard for 3D open-world crime action. After it, dozens of studios rushed to make "their own GTA".

Vice City sent players to 1986 and a neon city modeled on Miami. Protagonist Tommy Vercetti, voiced by Ray Liotta, builds a criminal empire to a soundtrack of eighties hits. The Scarface vibe, the music, and the neon aesthetic made Vice City a cult classic — we called the modern port the best reason to return to it in our Vice City Nextgen Edition review.

San Andreas took on an entire state: three cities, a desert, and countryside in between. Playing as CJ, back home in 1992, you built up your character's skills, gained or lost weight, and took turf from rival gangs — the series' first serious flirtation with RPG mechanics. San Andreas became one of the best-selling PS2 games and still lives on in mods and player memory — we looked back at it in "20 years of GTA: San Andreas".

A story of its own — Grand Theft Auto Advance for the handheld Game Boy Advance. Because of the console's modest hardware the game returned to the top-down view, but its story stayed in the 3D universe: events unfold in Liberty City shortly before the third game. A small but full-fledged chapter for those who wanted GTA in their pocket.

Liberty City Stories originally launched on PSP and proved a full 3D GTA could fit on a handheld. It's set in the Liberty City of 1998, a couple of years before GTA 3, and centers on mobster Toni Cipriani. The game was later ported to PlayStation 2 as well.

Vice City Stories is the second "handheld" chapter, returning to Vice City but in 1984. Hero Vic Vance builds a criminal business almost from scratch, and the game added mechanics for capturing and developing your own "sites". Like Liberty City Stories, it later made it to PS2.

With the seventh console generation, Rockstar rebooted the universe from a clean slate. A new engine, new physics, a more grown-up and grounded tone — the heroes of this era are no longer superheroes but living people with their own debts and weaknesses. The cities are familiar by name, but reimagined from the ground up.

Grand Theft Auto 4 brought Eastern European immigrant Niko Bellic to a reimagined Liberty City — he came chasing the "American dream" and found debt, revenge, and the grime of a big city. The tone got harsher and more serious, and the Euphoria physics made crashes and shootouts unnervingly believable.

GTA 4 got two major story expansions, bundled together as Episodes from Liberty City. The Lost and Damned follows biker Johnny Klebitz and his club, while The Ballad of Gay Tony is about bodyguard Luis Lopez and a world of nightclubs, glamour, and excess. You don't even need the original game to play the bundle.

Chinatown Wars is the most unusual entry of the HD era. It launched on the handheld Nintendo DS and PSP, and later on smartphones, and brought back the top-down view — but now in 3D and with a hand-drawn, almost comic-book look. The story of Huang Lee and his fight for a place in the Triads unfolds in the same Liberty City as GTA 4.

GTA 5 gave players three playable heroes at once for the first time: family-man robber Michael, street kid Franklin, and the utterly unhinged Trevor, with a story built around daring heists in Los Santos. Two weeks after GTA 5 launched, GTA Online went live, and it has kept living and gaining updates for more than ten years, while Rockstar re-released the game on every new console generation. Why it's one of the decade's defining games — we broke that down in our GTA 5 review.

Separate from the main lineup are the re-releases of the classics — a way to get to know the older games on modern platforms.

GTA: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition gathered remasters of the three pillars of the 3D universe under one cover: GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas. The games were moved to a modern engine with reworked controls and lighting, but at launch the collection met a wave of criticism over bugs and the questionable look of its character models. Patches followed later. It's the easiest way to start with the classics today.

GTA 6 brings the series back to Vice City and the state of Leonida, and for the first time puts a duo at its center — Lucia and Jason, in the spirit of a Bonnie and Clyde story. Everything known about the new game so far we've gathered in our "GTA 6 — Everything We Know" hub.

The main thing that confuses newcomers: does playing "in order" mean by release date or by the years the events take place? The answer is simpler than it looks. GTA's three universes aren't connected story-wise — they're like separate reboots of one idea. You don't need to move from one to another, and there's no single "correct" order across the whole series.

Within the 3D universe, though, the chronology of events doesn't match the release order. Line its games up by their in-game years and you get this:

The HD universe is simpler: GTA 4, its expansions, and Chinatown Wars take place around the late 2000s, and GTA 5's events are set in 2013. There's no point playing them in story order on purpose — each story stands on its own.

If you're only just approaching GTA, there's no need to chase the full list. The easiest place to start is GTA 5 — it's modern, huge, and still alive thanks to its online mode, so the barrier to entry is the lowest. Want a more grown-up, dramatic story? Go for GTA 4.

For those who care more about feeling where the legend began, it's worth stepping into San Andreas or Vice City — most conveniently through The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition. From there you can move in any direction: there's no rigid "right" route through the series, and that's part of its charm. And everyone waiting for what's next just has to count down the days to GTA 6.

Short answers to the questions people ask most about the series.

There are eight main games: Grand Theft Auto, GTA 2, GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas, GTA 4, GTA 5, and GTA 6. Add the major expansions, the handheld entries (Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories, Advance, Chinatown Wars), and the re-releases, and you get well over fifteen games.

There's no single order across the series: the three universes (2D, 3D, and HD) aren't connected story-wise. The simplest approach is to play by release date within the era that interests you. Internal chronology only matters inside the 3D universe, and even there you don't have to follow it.

Directly, no. Within one universe the games share characters, places, and individual events, and some entries are even prequels to others, while each campaign still stands on its own. Between the three universes there are no story bridges at all.

Yes. GTA 4, its expansions, Chinatown Wars, and GTA 5 all belong to the so-called HD universe — with a shared style, physics, and reimagined cities.

With GTA 5 — it's the most accessible and modern. To get to know the classics, San Andreas from The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition is a great choice.

Grand Theft Auto 6 launches on November 19, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. More details are in our "GTA 6 — Everything We Know" hub.

Which GTA was your first? Share in the comments — and feel free to argue about which era was the best.

Waiting for the new game is easier with something to play. If it's the criminal romance of GTA that hooks you, check out our The Best Crime Games About the Mafia and Gangsters. If it's the sheer scale of an open world you're after, our Best Open World Games has you covered. And if you want something GTA-like right on your phone, we've got Best Mobile Games Like GTA for Android and iOS.