The most effective Rockstar video games maintain a particular place in our hearts. Over the past 20 years, the developer has established a repute for bringing us a number of the greatest open world video games and the very best shooters in gaming historical past – and if you wish to get tremendous granular there’s even an argument to be made that Rockstar is behind a number of the greatest racing video games of the PS2 period, too, given how these high-speed chases might rival the likes of Forza Horizon 5 even right now.
In fact, Rockstar is greatest recognized for GTA 5 and the entire Grand Theft Auto collection. Gunslinging gangsters and flashy sportscars apart, although, the studio has a shocking vary of titles on supply when you’re on the lookout for one thing somewhat completely different.
With GTA 6 in improvement, there’s by no means been a greater time to leap again into a number of the greatest Rockstar video games of all-time. Whether or not you are seeking to replay a number of the greatest single-player video games and unravel the mysteries that underpin the very best online game tales, or seeking to discover a few of Rockstar’s oddities from the again catalog, there’s one thing for everyone right here. So preserve studying to search out our definitive rating of the 25 greatest Rockstar video games of all-time.
25. State of Emergency
Platform(s): PS2, Xbox
Launched: 2002
One in all a number of video games on this listing that doesn’t really feel all that very like a Rockstar recreation. Primarily as a result of it isn’t… nicely, not likely. Printed below the Rockstar label, however developed by VIS Leisure, this chaotic avenue brawler was tough across the edges in 2002, not to mention 2022. Nonetheless, there’s a brash appeal in regards to the sheer bedlam State of Emergency’s fixed on-screen riots fire up. In that sense, it’s principally ‘Black Friday: The Sport’, 15 years earlier than the anarchy of the festive season’s most frenzied buying day grew to become a factor.
24. Smuggler’s Run
Platform(s): PC, PS2
Launched: 2000
If nothing else, Trevor Phillips’ outrageous drug-peddling missions in GTA 5 could by no means have occurred with out Smuggler’s Run. Years earlier than everybody’s favourite Canadian sociopath was bombing by way of Sandy Shores in an ATV, this scrappy PS2 launch title made carrying illicit cargo by way of digital deserts cool. So why does hardly anybody keep in mind this deliciously down and soiled racer? Blame the sport launching inside a yr of the medium-changing GTA 3. Nonetheless, getting misplaced within the important shuffle might be factor whenever you’re a smuggler, proper?
23. The Warriors
Platform(s): PS2, PSP, Xbox
Launched: 2005
“Warriors… come out to play-ay!” We guess nobody informed the titular avenue gang of Walter Hill’s 1979 cult basic, as a result of someway, it took the long-lasting thugs 26 years to get from the multiplex to a house console. We’re simply grateful Rockstar’s keenly trustworthy, extremely tardy tie-in is a bit faster in ferrying the gang from the Bronx to their house turf in Coney Island. A trendy love letter to Streets of Rage that dances across the clunky melee fights of each GTA recreation, The Warriors was a ardour mission of a studio clearly besotted with cinema. At this price, perhaps we’ll get ‘Rockstar Video games Presents: Serpico’ a while in 2034.
22. Pink Lifeless Revolver
Platform(s): PS2, Xbox
Launched: 2004
In a parallel bizarro world, there’s a actuality the place Capcom printed this love letter to spaghetti westerns, not Rockstar. Mentioned actuality most likely entails Pink Lifeless Redemption or its equally sensational sequel by no means changing into a factor, so thank Clint Eastwood’s final fistful of {dollars} the troubled Capcom manufacturing was finally saved by Rockstar. Would John Marston and Arthur Morgan’s unimaginable Frontier epics gun down this barely awkward, largely linear outlaw in a second? Positive. However such is Rockstar’s affection for Westerns, Revolver’s legacy is that of a recreation that impressed two of the best open world video games of all time.
21. Manhunt 2
Platform(s): PC, PS2, PSP, Wii
Launched: 2007
Manhunt 2 would possibly simply be essentially the most unlikely Wii recreation of all time. Nintendo’s sensors was once notoriously ban-happy, so it’s some flip of occasions that this grizzly sequel hit the Large N’s family-friendly field. Sadly, this phoned-in follow-up lacks the sharpened satire of the unique. Whereas that recreation felt like a deliberate try to probe and level fingers at voyeuristic fetishes, this seems like a senseless straight-to-DVD snuff movie wannabe. However hey, no less than it let Little Jimmy shake his Wiimote forwards and backwards like he was attempting to garrotte somebody. That’s a again of the field promoting level proper there.
20. GTA: Liberty Metropolis Tales
Platform(s): PS2, PSP, iOS
Launched: 2006
It could be little greater than a barebones retread of GTA 3, however come on. It is a totally functioning 3D Grand Theft Auto on a PSP! All those self same seedy Liberty Metropolis corners can nonetheless be bombed round in automobiles – and even bikes this time round – as you go whacking wiseguy to wiseguy as GTA 3 quest-giver, Tony Cipriani. The actual fact Rockstar Leeds managed to squeeze Liberty Metropolis onto a shrunken down PS2 is a really gobsmacking technical achievement.
19. Pink Lifeless On-line
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One
Launched: 2019
Pink Lifeless On-line is a terrific multiplayer expertise, however it additionally reeks of unfulfilled potential. Regardless of wriggling freed from Arthur Morgan’s lasso and changing into a standalone recreation in 2020, new updates have dried up. Being a Wild West bounty hunter used to swallow our evenings entire, however these prairies have since gone somewhat quiet. In a world the place GTA On-line updates are consistently churned out, it appears to be like this outlaw got here off second greatest subsequent to its Blaine County cousin.
18. GTA: Vice Metropolis Tales
Platform(s): PS2, PSP
Launched: 2006
Rockstar Leeds managed to squeeze one other mini marvel out of the PSP with this sun-dappled sequel. Bettering Liberty Metropolis Tales concentrating on system, and introducing a likeable new lead within the type of Vic Vance – sure, that might be the brother of Lance – that is one other successful tackle transportable GTA. The sport’s greatest legacy is introducing a characteristic the collection would revisit with huge success in GTA 5. That might be its ‘‘empire-building’ property system: a mechanic that allow you to fatten Lance’s pockets as you got and fought to maintain native companies working.
17. GTA: Chinatown Wars
Platform(s): DS, PSP, iOS
Launched: 2009
Who stated top-down GTA was previous hat? If you happen to informed a child taking part in Pokémon Yellow on their GBA that just a few years later, they’d be gunning down felons in a GTA that had been bespokely designed for a Nintendo handheld, they’d have gotten dizzier than Pikachu mid-Volt Sort out. Not solely was Chinatown Wars well designed, it made canny use of the DS’ distinctive options – like utilizing the second display screen as a map or blowing into the hand held’s mic to hail a taxi. Huang Lee’s pocket-fitting hit is a cruelly missed GTA gem.
16. L.A. Noire
Platform(s): Multi
Launched: 2011
By 2022 requirements, the gurning, try-hard movement seize performances on this evocatively moody detective recreation haven’t aged nicely. Like watching Bert and Ernie try to wrap their Muppet lips round Hamlet, there’s one thing deeply unusual about watching L.A. Noire’s very specific model of overacting.
In a recreation the place the circumstances are already virtually unattainable to not clear up, having photo-realistic TV and stage actors doing ALL OF THE EMOTIONS on their faces kinda offers the gig up. Did Group Bondi’s MotionScan tech revolutionize the trade in the best way Rockstar could have hoped? Nope. But although L.A. Noire isn’t the pioneer it got down to be, its pitch good Forties Los Angeles feels grown-up and genuine in a method so few trendy AAA video games ever are.
15. Grand Theft Auto
Platform(s): PC, PS1
Launched: 1887
It won’t technically be a Rockstar recreation, however there’s zero likelihood we might do that listing with out the unique GTA. Developed by Scottish outfit DMA Design – whose key members would go on to kind Rockstar Video games – Grand Theft Auto is a residing, respiratory, car-jacking historical past lesson.
The highest-down viewpoint is likely to be quaint, however 1997’s GTA represents the collection at its core. Brutal carnage delivered with a understanding slice of slapstick? That’s a Rockstar open world. Enjoyable truth: aside from this recreation’s London set of facet missions, the primary Grand Theft Auto launched (and options) each GTA metropolis that has appeared within the collection since.
14. GTA: The Ballad of Homosexual Tony
Platform(s): PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Launched: 2009
Alright, alright! So it is a piece of DLC, not its personal full-blown recreation. However when Tony Prince and Luis Lopez’s antics are this outrageously entertaining, exceptions on the very best Rockstar video games listing should be made, dammit! That is essentially the most enjoyable GTA has ever been. Taking GTA 4’s splendidly detailed Liberty Metropolis and shunting apart all that lowkey distress for outright absurdity, Homosexual Tony’s marketing campaign entails violent golf buggy chases, parachute shootouts, and essentially the most wonderful computerized shotgun in all of video games. We like it.
13. Midnight Membership: Los Angeles
Platform(s): PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Launched: 2008
Nobody actually talks about Midnight Membership, however they need to. GTA has at all times led the sandbox pack in terms of responsive driving fashions, so it must be no shock the one devoted racing collection Rockstar did make feels pretty to regulate. The final mainline entry within the collection, and with over a decade with out point out of a follow-up, it appears to be like like Midnight Membership’s race is run. Nonetheless, we’ll keep in mind the ultimate recreation fondly for its tight steering and thrilling cop chases by way of a lovingly rendered Metropolis of Angels.
12. Rockstar Video games Presents: Desk Tennis
Platform(s): Xbox 360, Wii
Launched: 2006
Accessible on: Xbox 360, Wii
How the hell did this occur? The one rationalization for this completely odd however equally superior ardour mission is somebody at Rockstar will need to have watched that scene from Forrest Gump 173 instances. Casually dropping the GOAT of all ping pong video games on the Xbox 360, Desk Tennis is a splendidly mild, ferociously targeted recreation. With zero bloat on its rangy body, this stealth automobile for GTA 4’s RAGE physics engine serves up hyper-elastic thrills for a sport that, looking back, deserves extra online game love.
11. Bully
Platform(s): PS2
Launched: 2006
Or ‘Canis Canem Edit’ to our UK readers. A newspaper-riling phenomen when it hit retailer cabinets a few years faraway from GTA: San Andreas, few latest AAA video games have courted controversy fairly like Bully. A digital playground sim that permits you to dish out wedgies quicker than the varsity canteen can plate lunch, the story of juvenile delinquent Jimmy Hopkins is GTA… with pimples.
The stripclubs and headshots may need been given detention till the top of time, however Bully’s slingshot-firing, kiss-stealing, chaos-causing motion delivers the wickedly playful sandbox components you’d count on from Rockstar. Looking back, we do really feel a teensy bit responsible about shoving that child who helped us with Jimmy’s homework right into a bin 17 instances in a single faculty week.
10. Manhunt
Platform(s): PC, PS2, Xbox
Launched: 2003
Would Manhunt be made right now? In all probability not. Taking a perverse however understanding glee within the on-screen carnage it forces you to unleash as an escaped Carcer Metropolis inmate, Manhunt is actually repellent. Oh, and completely, completely compelling. That is online game violence that really has one thing fascinating to say. A pre-Succession Brian Cox coaxes you at each juncture, in a chillingly lowkey efficiency. In comparison with the Scottish actor’s famously chilly ‘f*ck offs’ in Succession, the snuff movie director he performs in Manhunt makes Logan Roy appear like Santa Claus. Disgusting, but at all times must-play, they actually don’t make ‘em like this anymore. And perhaps that’s for the very best.
9. Max Payne 3
Platform(s): PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Launched: 2012
This isn’t Treatment’s Max Payne. Ditching the machete-sharp cheekbones of collection creator Sam Lake, the burned out ex-op we meet slumming it on the streets of Rio is as relatable as this iconic character has ever been. Rockstar lastly (and properly) bases Max’s look on longtime voice actor James McCaffery, with the newly bloated former regulation enforcer proving he can nonetheless go toe to toe with Neo in terms of gravity-defying shootouts. Payne’s motion could also be one be aware, however when stated be aware is as spectacularly excessive because the gleefully cinematic Bullet Time gun battles on supply right here, we are saying: “Play it once more, Max.”
8. GTA On-line
Platform(s): Multi
Launched: 2013
C’mon, it’s completely its personal recreation at this level. There should be hundreds of thousands of gamers on the market who can barely recall the horrible trio of Michael, Franklin, and Trevor, however who play GTA On-line each single rattling day of their lives. With univiting menus and fixed, barely onerous to maintain observe of updates, GTA On-line has at all times been a little bit of a sizzling mess.
But it’s additionally actually essentially the most profitable sizzling mess of all time. Stack each bodily copy of GTA 5 that’s ever been bought, and that pile would most likely stretch to the Moon. Thrown on the numerous wads Rockstar has made by way of GTAO Shark Playing cards, and stated stack would attain to Mars and again. {That a} recreation of such stratospheric gross sales success stays a completely pleasant on-line open world is testomony to the superb driving and taking pictures mechanics Rockstar cooked up again in 2013.
7. GTA 3
Platform(s): Multi
Launched: 2002
Folks wax on in regards to the significance of Pong and Pac-Man, however there’s likelihood Grand Theft Auto 3 is essentially the most influential online game of all time. Did 3D worlds exist earlier than Rockstar’s breakout smash? In fact. However did a single certainly one of them – with the attainable exception of 1996’s Tomb Raider – get inside 100 nation miles of its cultural affect? Not even shut. Basically creating the fashionable 3D open world template as we all know it, if it wasn’t for GTA 3’s transformative, if janky cop chases and shootouts, would Ubisoft because the sandbox-obsessed entity it’s even exist right now? A very powerful recreation on this listing… and it ain’t shut.
6. GTA: San Andreas
Platform(s): Multi
Launched: 2005
Contemplating it launched in 2004, GTA: San Andreas is a recreation of virtually obscene scale. Vastly larger than each GTA 3 and Vice Metropolis mixed, Rockstar managed to cram a whole US State onto PS2. A twisted tackle California, that includes Rockstar’s down and soiled representations of L.A., San Francisco, and Las Vegas, it’s absurd a recreation of this dimension and ambition was ever squeezed onto a PS2 disc.
Nevertheless it’s not simply the dimensions of San Andreas that made it particular. Correctly settling for an additional interval piece after the success of Vice Metropolis, this early ‘90s journey faucets into the spirit of classics like Boyz within the Hood, because it tells the story of CJ, a gang member with a coronary heart and a facet serving of self-deprecation.
5. GTA 4
Platform(s): Multi
Launched: 2008
Even when the collection reaches GTA 54, we doubt Rockstar will ever nail its tackle New York fairly like this once more. In Niko Bellic’s dry-witted, downbeat Liberty Metropolis, the studio has its final Rotten Apple. Utterly remodeling the unique trilogy’s automotive dealing with and shootouts to really feel weighty and genuine for the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, GTA 4 focuses on scintillating element in its recreation of essentially the most well-known metropolis on the planet. San Andreas has its spellbinding scale, little doubt. However each time Bellic unintentionally ragdolls a pedestrian with a passive-aggressive shove on a Dealer sidewalk because of that electrifying RAGE engine, you possibly can really feel town’s sardonic soul. A really superb (if barely depressing) Grand Theft Auto.
4. GTA: Vice Metropolis
Platform(s): Multi
Launched: 2002
If there’s ever to be one final time capsule to embody all that humanity ever was, we actually hope E.T. and fam discover Vice Metropolis buried below the soil. The final word mix of fashion and substance, GTA won’t ever land on a extra good setting. The Miami of Tubbs and Crockett-style sleeves and limitless sunshine, Vice Metropolis is as welcoming and heat as it’s depraved. That is GTA at its most glamorous and gauche. With the very best soundtrack in historical past and Ray Liotta delivering a killer, Goodfellas-aping flip as Tommy Verecetti, there’s a purpose Vice Metropolis stays the timeless standout in final yr’s in any other case shaky GTA Trilogy remaster.
3. Pink Lifeless Redemption
Platform(s): PS3, Xbox 360
Launched: 20110
There’s an argument to be made that Pink Lifeless Redemption is the very best story Rockstar has ever informed. Lastly unshackled from the relentless cynicism and satire of GTA, Rockstar was daring sufficient to inform an emotionally grounded story of a good however flawed man on the lookout for a second likelihood within the dying days of the Outdated West.
It is a phenomenal, fabulously realised model of Sergio Leone’s Wild West – one that you may recognize in 4K on Xbox One X or Sequence X/S because of the sterling work of Microsoft’s again compat group. Huge, humorous, whereas typically unhappy, this cowboy sandbox produces shootouts sharper than any GTA, whereas the story is way extra refined and heartfelt. In John Marston’s astonishingly daring three-hour epilogue, Rockstar delivers what many would argue to be the boldest and greatest ever ending to a AAA online game. John, you’re (very virtually) the very best within the West.
2. Pink Lifeless Redemption 2
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One
Launched: 2018
Maybe the prettiest AAA recreation of all time can also be certainly one of the all-time nice open worlds. In a dimension the place the sport beneath and The Witcher 3 don’t exist, that is the GOAT of GOATs. Telling an affecting story of servitude, misplaced loyalty, and fittingly, of a redemptive arch that takes just a bit too lengthy, that is hands-down the very best yarn Rockstar has ever spun.
It’s additionally an immaculate online game. Pink Lifeless Redemption 2 is just not solely good at, however nice at every thing it tries its hand to. The texture of your horse because it trots throughout the huge prairies? Finest in school. The six-barrel, extremely impactful shootouts? By no means bettered. The wealth of element throughout a gargantuan world that wouldn’t be misplaced in a much more targeted Naughty Canine recreation? That’s Pink Lifeless Redemption 2 for you. West is greatest. Effectively…
1. GTA 5
Platform(s): Multi
Launched: 2013
Accessible on: PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Sequence X, PS5
In an extremely subjective medium, there are so few video games that should be thought-about the best of all time. While you consider gross sales and demanding success, two excellent contenders normally stand tall. And seeing this isn’t a greatest listing of Mojang video games/or Minecraft expansions, it’s fairly clear what the GOAT of this listing is.
GTA 5 is a wide ranging online game. An ingenious, devilish and superior open world that performs out like a tongue-in-cheek model of Michael Mann’s Warmth, that is arguably the very best recreation ever made. Whether or not finishing the extremely paced Jewel Retailer job on a 720p, 32-inch display screen on Xbox 360 again within the day, or being privileged sufficient to play Franklin and co’s prison hijinx at 4K/120fps on a colossal OLED TV courtesy of a high-end PC, that is most likely the very best open world recreation of all time. Until you’re an enormous Geralt fan…
Cannot watch for GTA 6? Listed here are some video games like GTA to get you thru it.