Very few developers could do what Rockstar did in the early 2000s, and while we strongly considered giving 'Vice City' and 'San Andreas' their own articles, the punk energy of 'Grand Theft Auto III' and its subsequent influence on video game history as a whole makes it worthy of its own article.Įvery tree grows from humble roots, and today 'Grand Theft Auto' is the biggest franchise in all of gaming. In the music sphere, Limp Bizkit and Korn were among the biggest acts in the world, 'Jackass' was about to make its debut on MTV, 'Fight Club' had grown from a modest box office hit to cultural sensation, and Roy Keane was the sports star everyone wanted to emulate.Ģ001 was a year with attitude, and 'Grand Theft Auto III' captured that mood in a bottle.Īfter 'Grand Theft Auto III', it wasn't merely enough for a game to offer you a linear experience, players wanted total freedom and control. Rockstar's sense of humour horrified parents and delighted players, and in the context of culture in 2001, it was exactly what the market craved.Ĭulture in 2001 was in a decidedly different place compared to 2022. Players were given the tools to wreak havoc in Liberty City The next time you play a cookie-cutter sandbox game, keep in mind that the developers are sub-consciously trying to evoke and attempting to emulate the primal sense of freedom and joy that 'Grand Theft Auto III' gave players in 2001.Īs stated 'Grand Theft Auto III' wasn't the first game that let players exit a vehicle and walk around a city, but it was the manner in which it went about it that made it explode.
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Picking a 'Grand Theft Auto' game to cover for this particular series was no easy task, as we could have picked 2002's 'Vice City', 2004's 'San Andreas' or 2013's 'Grand Theft Auto V', but those games built upon one of the most foundational games in video game history.
The actual gameplay of 'Grand Theft Auto III' is actually fairly shoddy and weak by modern standards, and it's certainly not even the best 'Grand Theft Auto' game. It is said that members of Joy Division, The Fall and The Smiths were at the first Sex Pistols concert in June 1976 and helped birth what is now known by the masses as punk rock, and for gamers of a certain age, that chaotic liberty birthed by 'Grand Theft Auto III' served as a digital analogue. The utter liberation and freedom associated with terrorising Liberty City in a tank is one of those moments that create a defining life moment.Īfter playing 'Grand Theft Auto III' this writer unsuccessfully tried to talk their parents into buying the game for them, so playing 'Grand Theft Auto III' became an illicit thrill that was substituted to birthday parties or hazy summer evenings. My neighbour had the cheat codes learned off by heart and he spawned a tank for me to mess around in. Tank Goodness: 'GTA III' let players raise hell in a tankĮven in this writers experience, playing 'Grand Theft Auto III' at a neighbours house was akin to experiencing what the moon landing must have been like for my parent's generation. In the 2001 climate, the idea of driving down a crowded pavement was beyond compare and yes, shocking. To bring back the punk metaphor, 'Grand Theft Auto III' was a revolution in terms of what was acceptable to a mass market. Players who picked up the game as the botched HD remaster last year may struggle to see what the fuss was about, but context is important: no game let you do what 'Grand Theft Auto III' could. It is one of the worst-kept secrets in gaming that Rockstar hired disgraced PR guru Max Clifford to help make 'Grand Theft Auto' the target of parents and tabloids everywhere, but simply playing 'Grand Theft Auto III' was scandalous enough in itself.
The top-down 'Grand Theft Auto' games already occupied column inches for their violence, but adding the choice for players to go on-foot and carry out the violence added an extra layer of controversy. 'Grand Theft Auto' was an established franchise before the third entry, but it was the success of this game that firmly put Rockstar Games on the map as the developer for Generation X. In essence, these two games represented the next leap forward for gaming, and in the context of 2001, it was the dawn of a new millennium where anything was possible on the technology front.
Despite being a silent protagonist, Claude became a fan favourite among 'Grand Theft Auto' fansĢ001 also saw the release of 'Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty' which subverted players expectations with its exploration of meme culture (seriously!) and famous protagonist switchout. The sky was the limit in terms of what you could do with 'Grand Theft Auto III', and over 20 years later, it's easy to take for granted how extraordinary this was for the time.
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