Grand Theft Auto gives a lot to its players when it comes to the free roamer's needs. You can drive through the cluttered streets of Liberty City in Grand Theft Auto IV, or dive into the depths of the surrounding oceans of Grand Theft Auto V... every time you boot up a Rockstar game, you can always find something new to interact with, or new locations to uncover. Every game from the Grand Theft Auto series has a massive amount of the map that is never used as part of the respective story, giving you incentive to ignore the plot from time to time in exchange for creating your own experiences.
Many of the best locations throughout the entirety of the GTA series come in a multitude of ways. It may be running down the street and passing by a restaurant or store that pokes fun at its real life version. You may even find yourself breaking the game and finding intentionally hidden Easter Eggs and nuances that you couldn't normally spot. I don't have to continue to explain the scope of things to do in a Grand Theft Auto game if you'd played any of them, because you know what I'm talking about already.
These are thirty awesome areas you had NO idea about in Grand Theft Auto.
30 This Used To be His House
If you're thinking that the home balcony you pulled down with Trevor and Michael after Mike finds out his wife's getting more than just "tennis lessons" from her coach is the one I've just shown, guess again. Even though the newly reunited duo find themselves causing millions of dollars of property damage to stumble down a massive hill, it's not the tennis coach's place (doubtful that tennis lessons could pay for those mortgage payments). If you return to the location later on and head to the house across the street, you'll find a couple of tennis racquets and tennis balls laying around in the backyard. This house is much smaller in comparison to the now-destroyed hillside balcony home, so to say this home could belong to the tennis coach isn't much of a stretch.
29 Fixin' Cars And Stuff
Early on in Grand Theft Auto III, your character is assigned to help out a known associate, Joey Leone, with his own side missions for you to complete. In order to start any of his errands, you'll have to meet with him at his mechanic shop. Normally, the inside of the building is reserved for mission intros and outros, and can't be accessed naturally in the game. However, a few tricks with some tightly parked vehicles (and an ambulance), you should be able to glitch through the main garage door and get Claude inside the garage to explore. The thrill of the discovery admittedly is a bit short lived, as Claude just runs through everything, and you can't walk up the stairs to get to the second floor. It's a sour end to a neat little trick.
28 We Feel A Little Lost
If you travel along the underwater floor of the eastern shore of San Andreas, you may run into a submerged hatch along its bottom. You can't approach it by submarine or scuba gear, as the water pressure renders them useless. Thinking about using the invincibility cheat? Doesn't work. If you find your way over to the hatch though, you'll notice that there's an audible tapping sound to be heard. Many people have made the reference that the hatch is similar to the one found in the TV Show Lost. After a number of theories, people have said the tapping/morse code deciphering comes out as a line of dialog between Niko Bellic and his cousin Roman from Grand Theft Auto IV.
27 Take The First flight Out Of Here
Los Santos International Airport is one of the most used areas in Grand Theft Auto V's single player and online modes. You can purchase your own hanger with your own private jet, or maybe ram through the front gate and steal one for yourself. Even though the runway and hanger areas are going to be the focal point whenever you're inside the airport, looking around enough gives you some pathways to actually get inside the building. Roaming around the back end of the building portion of the airport does leave a number of stairways to the inside. There's not too much to gloat about with concern to what's actually in the LS Airport, but with how much incentive there is to race around and take off with your favorite jet, it's cool to have a little extra to explore in the area.
26 America's Greatest Sport
The Liberty City Cocks serve as the city's parody football team in Grand Theft Auto III. As cool as the stadium may be, nowhere in any forum or community post is there any way to legitimately get inside the stadium without either a hack or mod. There are a number of player's suggestions that have flown around these sites, with players recommending that you use the Dodo helicopter to fly into the stadium within a given time window. Other hacks or mods simply make the player able to walk through solid walls and doors to allow you to enter into the stadium. What's most notable is the actual effort put into the field's detail (maybe it was intended to be usable at first), given that there's no honest way to actually access the area.
25 Where's Scarface?
We're all familiar with Rockstar's efforts to pay homage and references different forms of entertainment in their games. With a franchise as brutal as Grand Theft Auto's, would it surprise you have a Scarface reference in one of their games? Not only will it probably not surprise you, but it is expected to a certain degree. With Apartment 3C, the name alone will already spark a sense of familiarity to fans of the movie series, as it's depicted in a memorable scene from the franchise. Along with a couple of massive blood stains in the bathroom and hallway of the hotel room, there's a chainsaw to be found next to the bath tub, referencing what happens to Angel (thanks to Tony Montoya). Go on and take the chainsaw; I'm willing to bet it's not clean.
24 More Than Just A Rock
Why would Rockstar stop at movie references when they can just reference themselves in their games? Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas continues that trend in the silliest and mundane ways. Located with the Red Country district of San Andreas is a mount called Northstar Rock. Sound familiar? Well, considering the Grand Theft Auto games are produced by Rockstar North, the name swapping here is obvious. Rockstar's always been one to tip their hat to themselves in their games, with Northstar Rock being one of the easiest to spot due to the obvious branding.
23 There Be Ghosts Here!
Most of the locations you'll find on this list are associated with some sort of idea aside from just finding them. Some of them are rewards from breaking the game, others are designed as reference points to outside elements such as movies or developers. For the Ghost Town hidden within the desert of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, there's an in-game myth surrounding Las Brujas in Bone County, San Andreas. During specific times of the day, it's said that the town cemetery will display a ghostly figure hovering around the area. If you're asking me, I'm staying as far away from this as possible.
22 Stop In And Check Your Emails
The TW@ ("Twat") Internet Cafe makes an appearance in a number of Grand Theft Auto games, such as IV and Liberty City Stories. In its first appearance, though, in Grand Theft Auto III, the cafe is not intended to be entered. But even though the doors are locked to the place, Claude can still take out the front windows of the building and get inside. There's not much to see in the earliest rendition of the place, to the point where even the pedestrians that stroll the halls do so without purpose, much like the random NPCs you'd encounter walking down the street at any given time. The cafe has a legacy in the streets of Liberty City, though its origins didn't give us much to cheer for.
21 Guiding The Ships
Just as you'd seen with the TW@ Internet Cafe, the Lighthouse on Portland Rock in Liberty City makes an appearance in multiple games. Even though it's used as the final mission in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, players aren't supposed to be able to get on the island in Grand Theft Auto III. Getting onto the rock is a tough ask in the vanilla game, forcing you to jump through some hoops in order to actually get on the rock. Even if you manage to get near the Lighthouse, you're bound to slide down and into the water if you take one wrong step. Players have found ways to get to the base of the Lighthouse on the PC version, but the console adopters are out of luck for this one.
20 Another Day, Another Ghost Town
Another San Andreas location, another desert Ghost Town. Though it's portrayed as an old Ghost Town much like Las Brujas in another area of the game, Aldea Malvada's solid building structures don't look anything like the previously mentioned village's wooden infrastructure. Located in the Tierra Robada region of the game, Aldea Malvada serves a part of one of the main missions in San Andreas. You'd know pretty quickly, given there's a rocket launcher hidden behind one of the town's handful of homes. The deserts of San Andreas sure hold a lot of untold mysteries, spooky or not.
19 This Is Actually Functional
The metro railway in Grand Theft Auto IV is used in one of the game's craziest missions, Three Leaf Clover. After robbing a major bank in Liberty City, Niko and his friends are forced to flee from police cars, helicopters, and a slew of officers within the underground railway system in an all-out shootout. But enough about the mission in discussion. The metro system in Grand Theft Auto IV is fairly complex, stretching across two of the city's districts and utilizing twenty-six total stations to ride the train to and from. Yeah, it's easier to chase somebody down in their car and use it at your own leisure, but sometimes it's better to just kick back, relax, and let the metro do the work for ya.
18 Stop In And Have A Cold One
The Russian-owned bar of Grand Theft Auto IV serves as the base for beginning many of your missions in the early stages of the game. Due to your cousin Roman's lack of interest of wanting to venture into the bar, it stay off-limits to him for the most part. However at one point you will be able to access the inside of the bar, during the Uncle Vlad mission. If you wish to explore around the bar, you can find references to characters previously mentioned in past Grand Theft Auto games, such as OG Loc and Madd Dogg (San Andreas). Make sure you take advantage of being able to check out the rest of the bar when you have the chance, because you don't have much time to actually do it.
17 Welcome To The Rooftop Garden
Even though the site of the Yakuza-controlled Casino in Grand Theft Auto III's Torrington District is eye-grabbing enough, the rooftop garden of Kenji's Casino isn't too shabby to look at either. Now it has been proven that although the garden can only be seen during the story while in pre-mission cutscenes, correctly maneuvering the Dodo airplane can get you onto the rooftop. In turns out, though, that while you can run around the rooftop to your heart's content, there is a small section of the floor where the player can still fall through. So tread carefully, friends!
16 When Games Imitate Life
Given the time period and then-current events, Rockstar decided to take a jab at the troubles of the real world in quite the fashion. With Grand Theft Auto: Vice City taking place during the time of the Cold War, there's an Ammu-Nation in the city that holds a daring secret based off the respective leaders of the United States and then-Soviet Russia, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. But of course, there's a bit of a Photoshop with the two pictures, with Reagan's showing him holding a pistol in one hand, and Gorbachev's picture with numerous bullet holes in it. How this discovery didn't spark even more controversy is beyond me. Turns out the secret was held pretty well, I guess!
15 You Probably Shouldn't Have Tried
Some of the best kept secrets in games are the ones that acknowledge the player directly for their discovery. The southwestern corner of Grand Theft Auto III's Staunton Island holds a nice secret for any player who can work their way across the block's car garage and roof that leads into the far alleyway. At the end of an alley is a sign (pictured above), celebrating your discovery. It's always nice to see a developer give direct credit for a player's accomplishments, even to the point where the alleyway houses a ramp that you can use to get back into the actual game.
14 Take A Break, Have A Swim
Now, does The Gentry Manor Hotel have any significance in the lore of Grand Theft Auto V? No. But it does have the largest swimming pool in the game, so there's something to be excited for! Placed with the hills of Los Santos, the hotel's pool isn't blocked off by any walls or security, so there's nothing to worry about when it comes to actually getting in. If you don't fancy diving hundreds of feet into the ocean looking for nuclear waste or finding sharks to eat you, then why not take a drive over to the hotel and check it out. Honestly, other than the thought of uncovering it for yourself, this pool has no practical meaning other than to grab our attention. Congrats, Rockstar, you've got us.
13 A Good Place To Come When There's No Action
The sheer size of this warehouse in Grand Theft Auto IV is one that caught my eye for one reason: the game's story keeps players from getting to explore it. The warehouse is the stage for a massive shootout in the game's Hostile Negotiation mission, where you have to save Niko's cousin. With the amount of enemies trying to take you out, there's no way you're exploring any part of this area for leisure, because a dozen bullets would impale you instantly. But the warehouse is worth backtracking to after the mission is over (or maybe check it out beforehand). You can spend a good chunk of time exploring it, even if there's nothing to really get out of the time investment.
12 We've All Dreamed About Driving A Tank
Just by looking at the size of the base from the image above, there's little chance for escape if you dare to enter Fort Zancudo, which borders Los Santos and The Alamo Sea of the state of San Andreas. There're dozen of guards that will chase you instantly, along with a handful of tanks ordered to kill on sight. The best part is there's a ton of stuff to look around for in the Fort. Grab a tank, fly away with one of the jet fighters. Hell, climb to the top of one of the main towers or enter the underground portion of the base. If you've played Grand Theft Auto V, then I'm guessing you have taken a chance (or five) to try and steal a military grade vehicle from this Fort. I'm also guessing your survival ratio is fairly low as well.
11 Dead Men Tell No Tales
The abandoned mineshaft is one of the new areas accessible in the upgraded next-gen versions of Grand Theft Auto V for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. When the game first launched, the mineshaft entrance was blocked off by a solid wall, unable to be removed by the player. The remastered version of the game saw the entrance now as destructible, letting players blow a hole in the side of the mountain and allowing them to venture into the unknown. Within the mineshaft is a dead man in 1940s attire with a film reel placed next to him. Some say that the dead man is considered an Easter Egg to another Rockstar game L.A. Noire, believing the deceased victim is the game's lead protagonist, Cole Phelps. Whether or not this was intended, the audible footsteps after you've passed by the body shouldn't be ignored. Looks like the state of San Andreas has another myth on their hands.