In the battle for the best open world game of all time, every other game is fighting for second place behind the Grand Theft Auto games. Ever since the third game took the series to 3D, each game has gotten bigger, better, and more popular. We wouldn’t be surprised if GTA 6 might be the biggest launch in all of media, not just in games. However, the time between releases has gotten longer and longer to the point where most gamers haven’t played any of the games before 3. Those who have played multiple games in the series know that Rockstar likes to bring us back to familiar settings in different time periods. There aren’t as many GTA games as Call of Duty games, but playing through them in any kind of order is hard. We cut our teeth on the very first GTA and have rampaged through the entire series so we can lay out how you can play the Grand Theft Auto games in release or chronological order.
All Grand Theft Auto games in release order
Release order is the way we recommend playing through the GTA franchise. Starting back in 1997, this series has evolved from fun but humble roots into some of the biggest, most detailed sandboxes ever created. Seeing that progression is a delight and really shows how Rockstar paved the way for the entire open world genre to become what we know it as today. But if you wanted to play the games in release order and just went from 1 through 6, you’d miss out on half the games. Even if you are aware of the non-numbered entries, remembering which came out when is a puzzle itself that we’ve gone ahead and solved for you.
A lot of the older games have been rereleased or remastered so we are going to list the franchise (excluding DLCs) based on their original release to make things easier.
- Grand Theft Auto (1997)
- Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 (1999)
- Grand Theft Auto: London 1961 (1999)
- Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999)
- Grand Theft Auto 3 (2000)
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)
- Grand Theft Auto Advance (2004)
- Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (2005)
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (2006)
- Grand Theft Auto 4 (2008)
- Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (2009)
- Grand Theft Auto 5 (2013)
- Grand Theft Auto 6 (2026)
All Grand Theft Auto games in chronological order
A casual GTA player might not think there’s any timeline in this series, which is understandable. Each new game has a new cast and plot, but there are more than a few things tying the games together. The locations, such as Vice City and Los Santos, have appeared in multiple games, as have a few characters. Since each game is set in a version of our own world, we are able to get the year each game is set fairly easily, though there is one exception we will note in the list.
The process of playing the Grand Theft Auto series in chronological order doesn’t add a ton to the experience since the games are largely disconnected. That said, it could be a fun trip through history to relive various time periods through GTA. If you want to play the games in chronological order, here’s how it’s done:
- Grand Theft Auto: London 1961 (1961)
- Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 (1969)
- Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (1984)
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (1986)
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (1992)
- Grand Theft Auto (1997)
- Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (1998)
- Grand Theft Auto 2* (1999 or 2013)
- Grand Theft Auto Advance (2000)
- Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001)
- Grand Theft Auto 4 (2008)
- Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (2009)
- Grand Theft Auto 5 (2013)
- Grand Theft Auto 6 (TBD but expected to be 2026)