This year will mark the 20th anniversary of one of the most iconic video game franchises in history; Grand Theft Auto. It's a title that has seen its fair share of scrutiny, mainly because of its themes, but from a gameplay and story standpoint, it's perhaps one of the best franchises in all of gaming. Controversy aside, almost every single Grand Theft Auto adventure that has released has been an absolute home run. Rockstar has cracked the open-world formula and they continue to impress with each subsequent release.

Over the past couple of decades, Grand Theft Auto has evolved from mindless steal and shoot missions to having you be a runner, a crime lord, and even the head of an organization. They’ve implemented swearing, over-the-top visuals, and incredibly gritty details as technology has advanced along with the aging of the franchise. GTA has even inspired copycats and A-list celebrities begging to voice one of their many shady characters. It’s no secret this series has some pretty inappropriate themes, but the real question is, “what is the worst of the worst?”

12 One Of The First Missions Is Pretty Brutal

Vice City is a fun little romp in 1980s “Miami.” It was fun listening to A Flock of Seagulls and Billy Idol as we raced vehicles on the palm tree-lined streets. After seven missions of basic tutorials, you are given a chainsaw and ordered to eliminate a rather bad person. Now, you don’t have to use the chainsaw as the game gives you the freedom to switch to a gun if you so desire, but how could you resist? It's not a difficult mission by any means but it's one of the first that truly introduces you to the over-the-top intensity that GTA has become known for.

11 Getting A Five Star Wanted Rating

One of the most unique aspects of the Grand Theft Auto series are the consequences for doing the wrong thing. In most other video games of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, you weren’t punished for eliminating NPCs and stealing because that was the whole point of the adventure, but in GTA you are required to break the law and get away with it. There are different degrees of bad, just like in real life.

For example, stealing a car in front of a cop isn’t nearly as bad as slaying someone in broad daylight and you are punished accordingly with stars. When this happens during a mission, you find yourself frantically fleeing the scene. But when some players are between missions, they see it as a challenge to see how much mayhem they can cause before the police completely overwhelm them.

10 When Michael Pulled Down An Entire House

In the most recent and most beautiful installment of the game, you find yourself controlling three separate characters during the course of the game. One of these character’s names is Michael, an aging criminal under witness protection with a less-than-healthy family. After getting to know this conman for a while, you take a trip with him and his new thuggish friend Franklin to seek revenge on his wife’s lover.

In the mission, you drive up to the stranger's supposed house. Most players were in awe of what unfolded next, as Michael connected a cable to the house that balconied along the mountainside. He floored the truck and down came the fancy home. It's a crazy moment that outlines just how far Michael is willing to go to defend himself or others.

9 Robbing A Veteran

One of the best installments of Grand Theft Auto is San Andreas and it takes place in their own little version of Los Angeles. You portray a young man fresh out of jail that makes the unwise decision to reconnect with his old gang and start breaking the law again. Upon completion of the ninth mission, your next task is to rob a war veteran of his guns without waking him and before the sun rises (in 8 minutes).

This added a bit of nervousness to the mission and Carl aka “CJ” just looks rather intimidating in a ski mask. There you are, taking box by box as the old man lie snoring in the background and feeling a bit guilty, but you eventually get over it when you are rewarded with spoils.

8 Hijacking An Ambulance

One thing Grand Theft Auto is known for is stealing cars; it is its namesake after all. Since the beginning of GTA (1997), you have been able to steal just about anything with wheels, from cars and trucks to government vehicles and bicycles, then eventually flying aircrafts. One of the great things about this franchise is stealing the rare vehicles just to see what they can do. Some players may remember just doing donuts in a cement truck or spending hours picking up fares in a taxi.

But sometimes, stealing an ambulance is required for a mission or just to blend in and escape from the cops. A great way to escape the cops is to steal an ambulance and just hit the siren; as long as the cops don’t see you or you’re in even bigger trouble. But when the game forces you to steal an ambulance for ill gotten gains, that truly is inappropriate.

7 Setting Fire To An Entire Farm

Deep in the empty hills of San Andreas, lies the "green" farm of The Truth; a character that crossed the spiteful CJ. For this mission, you are asked to simply burn down all the crop that lies on a farm in the middle of nowhere. The good news is that the cops are miles away, giving you plenty of time to burn. The better news is that now you have a flamethrower and this is the perfect excuse to experiment with it.

There is something really fulfilling about burning down millions of dollars in substances with such ease. The icing on the cake is that there’s a combine nearby that can also be used as a weapon for anyone wandering around.

6 Interrupting A Funeral And Stealing A Hearse

In movies and television, there are just a few things that you aren’t supposed to do. One of those things is interrupting a funeral, and that’s just what Tommy Vercetti did in Vice City. After a meeting with an oil tycoon in the back of limo, you are instructed to dress like a gang member and eliminate several people.

At one point during the mission, you end up stealing a hearse that may or may not contain a body. A chase ensues as bullets are shot into the back of the vehicle. We are all supposed to let this roll off our backs because it is for the greater good, but nobody can not admit that this is inappropriate.

5 Grand Theft Auto

Let's be honest, stealing cars is a blast in GTA; the story was merely an afterthought. What truly makes Grand Theft Auto an open-world sandbox-style game is that you can jump in just about vehicle and go anywhere you want: the middle of the ocean in a boat, the mountains in a dirt bike, and even just fly around for awhile. For us, the motorcycles were our favorite to an almost obsessive degree where we'd abandoned our mission-required van to jump a bike over a bridge.

Later on in the series, they began implementing driving skills, adding to the precision of your driving which was then followed by races and stunts. Then, we were treated with planes and helicopters with controls so concise that piloting them became more difficult than some of the later missions.

4 The Interrogation Scene In Grand Theft Auto 5

There is no surprise that in today’s technology-driven world, you really need to push the envelope and get bigger and better before people expect it. Sometimes becoming more cringeworthy is what it takes to be considered the best for your time and that is what Grand Theft Auto does best. In the bustling city of Los Santos, you find yourself torn between morality and success as you control a deranged individual by the name of Trevor Philips.

Trevor makes his long-awaited intro by attempting to eliminate an entire family at a farm, then bombing a trailer park so you know it’s only going to get worse. At a later point in the game, Lester is in a dark abandoned warehouse with a tied up goon and several instruments of pain. This mission really lets you fly off the handle.

3 Becoming A Hitman

Eliminating people for money has always been a terrifying prospect and reality, so it naturally has a place within the GTA franchise. It has a place in the series as missions and as side quests, just to make money for buying expensive houses as well as bigger and better guns. It has become such a normal occurrence that on several occasions you’ll find yourself sniping one man, then running to another location to off another, before finally blowing another building to finish the job.

If you customize your character just right, you can even impersonate the infamous Agent 47 from Hitman. The most gratifying part of being a hitman are the trademark first-person crosshairs as you peer through your scope and narrow your eyes at your target; whether you zoom in on them or try to pick them off from afar is up to you.

2 Driving A Car That Was Rigged To Explode

Liberty City is a city that never sleeps because it is their version of The Big Apple. You control a bank robber named Claude, who has been shot and betrayed by his girlfriend Catalina. Near the end of the adventure, in the mission entitled “Rigged to Blow,” Claude is given the task of driving an explosive car to its destination before it blows up. This mission really tested your driving ability since too much damage would blow up the car for you, well before you reached your destination.

The trip is long and arduous as you drive down narrow one-lane streets, rainy intersections, and the expressway. Finally, you can get it removed at a mechanic, but by then your hands are still shaking as you could've eliminated plenty of innocent people. This mission is rather simple but quite exciting given the sense of danger.

1 A Mission Where You Eliminate Everyone

What do you do when someone has ratted you out, but you have no idea who did it? This is your dilemma in Liberty City Stories, your second adventure in the big city, but with a whole new scenario and characters. “Was it the Sindaccos or the Forellis?” asks Salvatore Leone before deciding that both mobs need to suffer.

At first, this mission sounds complicated until you discover the real mission; eliminate everything. The protagonist, Toni, finds himself driving from place to place, slaying a dozen mobsters at a time. This is the true epitome of Grand Theft Auto and if GTA was in the dictionary, there’d be a picture of this mission. When it’s all said and done, you’re basically eliminating hordes of people for $2,500 and are much happier for it.