Grand Theft Auto: Loose ends

With Grand Theft Auto IV taking a new, more realistic direction in a radically different vision of Liberty City, it seems more and more as though the series - like its new protagonist, Niko Bellic - is angling for a fresh start. The cartoonish mayhem of previous GTAs seems out of place in this bleak new vision of Liberty, and according to ourUK counterparts, virtually no familiar faces will appear in GTA IV. But that doesn't necessarily mean we've seen the last of them. Rockstar's left a lot of plot threads dangling, and whether it's in a shiny new sequel, a downloadable episode or another PSP game, it'd be all too easy for the series to go back and mine its past for new stories.

To find out where the series might be going, then, let's take a look at where it's been:

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
2006 | PSP, PS2

The last Grand Theft Auto game is also the first chronologically; Vice City Stories tells the tale of 28-year old ex-soldier Vic Vance, brother of Vice City antagonist Lance Vance. We enter the Vance residence just as it reaches its lowest ebb; Vic has received a dishonorable discharge for prostitute-related buffoonery and Lance is trying to kick a cocaine habit. The brothers dig themselves out of this hole the only way they know how: by climbing the ranks of Vice City’s crime syndicates and engaging in a number of third-person adventures for assorted criminal overlords.

Latest in Grand Theft Auto
GTA 6 trailer screenshots showing lucia in an interview room
"GTA 6 is basically a huge meteor, and we will just stay clear of the blast zone": Publishers are in a frenzy over when to release their games to avoid Rockstar
GTA 6 trailer screenshots
Weeks after modding GTA 6's map to GTA 5, modder pre-emptively pulls all their work offline after a single YouTube strike from Rockstar's owner
GTA 3
If these flying cars are anything to go by, development on the GTA 3 Dreamcast port is well on its way to becoming GTA Online
A screenshot of protagonist Lucia from GTA 6
GTA 6 is "definitely gonna be a big economic boost for the games industry" that'll help "bring a lot more people back into the ecosystem," says Day of the Devs' lead curator
GTA 6
Sick of waiting for GTA 6, one modder has put its map into GTA 5, and you can try it out right now
How to enter GTA 5 cheats
Despite its history of taking action against GTA mods, a Rockstar-approved GTA 5 modding tool is on the way to "assist the modding community" in the wake of the recent PC upgrade
Latest in Features
Yasuke and Naoe ready to fight on the Assassin's Creed Shadows On The Radar thumbnail
On The Radar: Assassin's Creed Shadows coverage hub
Captain Planet #1
Captain Planet is back after 33 years with a "sexy" makeover and a message that's as important as ever: "Reality has gotten a lot less subtle"
Assassin's Creed 3 screenshot of Desmond hilding a circular Isu artifact
Assassin's Creed Shadows' modern storyline is kind of non-existent and I couldn't be happier about it
An Assassin's Creed Shadows On The Radar thumbnail showing Yasuke and Oda Nobunaga armored up and on horseback, ready to ride to battle
"We really wanted you to live this history": Assassin's Creed Shadows is all about "perspective", says the game's cinematic director
A screenshot of a pink-haired protagonist in Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, surrounded by other BLADE soldiers and a Skell.
I spent 10 years waiting for the answers to Xenoblade Chronicles X's haunting cliffhanger ending, and it was worth the wait
Assassin's Creed Shadows screenshot of an enemy falling backwards through the air away from Yasuke who's just performed a War Kick
Forget the hidden blade: if you're not yeeting enemies in Assassin's Creed Shadows, you're missing out