GTA III

Grand Theft Auto III is the 2001 action-adventure that took the series into 3D. It was developed by DMA Design and published by Rockstar Games, and it reached the PlayStation 2 in North America on 23 October 2001. Rockstar describes it with the line "Welcome to Liberty City. Where it all began."

Twenty-three people in Edinburgh, a Dreamcast demo and a move to PS2

The core team was about 23 people at DMA Design in Edinburgh, working closely with Rockstar Games in New York. Named among the key creators are:

• Leslie Benzies: producer
• Aaron Garbut: art director
• Sam Houser: executive producer
• Dan Houser: writer
• James Worrall: writer

The first tech demo was built on Sega's Dreamcast in 1999, before the project moved to the PlayStation 2. The game runs on Criterion Games' RenderWare engine. Eurogamer has reported that Rockstar offered the game to Microsoft as an Xbox exclusive and Microsoft turned it down, and it became a timed PlayStation 2 exclusive.

Garbut said that the team wanted a world that felt like it was happening around the player, not for them.

A silent hero, a betrayal and a revenge run for Liberty City's gangs

The protagonist is Claude, who never speaks. During a bank heist his girlfriend Catalina betrays him and shoots him, and the story is his revenge, carried out while he works for Liberty City's gangs.

Claude is never named in the game. His name was first officially revealed in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in 2004. For the game's tenth anniversary, Rockstar answered fan questions about Claude and about Darkel, a cut character, in a Newswire feature.

The voice cast included Frank Vincent, Debi Mazar, Kyle MacLachlan, Robert Loggia and Guru.

Three islands that open up as the story moves on

Liberty City first appeared in the 1997 original. Here it was rebuilt, loosely based on New York City, as three islands that open up as the story progresses. Portland stands in for industrial Brooklyn and Queens, Staunton Island resembles Manhattan, and Shoreside Vale resembles the New Jersey suburbs.

Three weeks' delay, a new police livery and a redesigned cover

After the attacks of 11 September 2001 the game was delayed by three weeks. Eurogamer reports that Rockstar changed the police car livery, a plane's flight path, a terrorist-themed mission and some dialogue. The US box cover was also redesigned.

The new cover, inspired by 1960s film posters, became the series' signature grid style.

Three and a half hours of radio, and one station that only talks

The game has about three and a half hours of radio, according to IGN. One station, Chatterbox FM, is all talk and hosted by Lazlow.

A 97 Metascore and 14.5 million copies

Metacritic lists a Metascore of 97 from 56 critic reviews, which makes it one of the highest-rated PlayStation 2 games. It won Game of the Year at the 2nd Game Developers Choice Awards and from both GameSpot and GameSpy.

It was the best-selling game of 2001 in the United States and had sold 14.5 million copies by March 2008. In the United Kingdom it was the first game to receive a Diamond award, for over one million sales.

Banned in Australia, criticised for its violence

Australia's classification board banned the original release over sexual content involving prostitutes. A modified version came out there in January 2002.

The game also drew criticism for its violence. GameSpy gave it its Most Offensive Game of the Year award, and a lawsuit seeking 246 million dollars was filed over a 2003 shooting.

From Windows in 2002 to the Definitive Edition in 2021

• Windows: 21 May 2002.
• Xbox: 4 November 2003, bundled with Vice City in the Double Pack.
• Mac: November 2010, with the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy.
• iOS and Android: the 10 Year Anniversary Edition launched on 15 December 2011.
• PlayStation 3: the PS2 game was re-released through the PlayStation Store in September 2012.
• Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy, The Definitive Edition: a remaster of GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas with enhanced visuals and gameplay, launched on 11 November 2021.

A Hall of Fame entry and a "clone" label for everyone who copied it

In 2016, GTA III was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame at The Strong National Museum of Play. It is credited with popularising 3D open-world games, and "Grand Theft Auto clone" became the label for games that followed its formula.

Its Liberty City came back in Grand Theft Auto Advance in 2004 and Liberty City Stories in 2005. The latter is set three years before GTA III.