When it launched in the fall of 2001, Grand Theft Auto 3 single-handedly redefined an entire industry. Rockstar North's tabloid-bothering crime epic wasn't just a blockbuster game that sold millions of copies—it also invented a language for open-world games that echoes through even the most recent examples of the genre. It was a boundary-pushing technical marvel, with a simulated, physics-driven city whose scale and fidelity was unmatched. It offered players an exhilarating, hitherto unknown level of freedom that almost instantly sent linear, scripted games out of fashion. If Grand Theft Auto 3 never existed, video games as we know them today would be very different. Here are just a few of the ways this story of a silent ex-con climbing the criminal ladder changed video games forever.

At the most basic level, the way Grand Theft Auto 3 let you transition from walking on foot to driving a car was a true game changer. This freedom of movement in a 3D world was a revelation in the early 2000s, and set the standard for hundreds of open-world games to come—from Arkham Knight to Cyberpunk 2077. Early 3D games like Activision's Hunter and Bethesda deep cut The Terminator, both released in 1991, featured explorable worlds with drivable cars. But the implementation was primitive compared to GTA 3. You couldn't get in and out of them seamlessly, and there was no complexity to how they drove. Rockstar's game, on the other hand, featured a vast array of cars, vans, and trucks, each with their own distinctive handling and physics—and you could grab them off the street whenever you liked, tossing the unlucky owner to the curb, and immediately start driving.

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Grand Theft Auto 3 also raised the bar for game worlds as simulated places, rather than just static cardboard backdrops. It's rudimentary stuff by modern standards, but details like chatty pedestrians wandering the streets, drivers obeying traffic lights, the real-time day/night cycle, randomised rainstorms that made the road wet and shiny, and people reacting to the mayhem you caused (usually by shrieking and running away) made Liberty City feel alive in a way no other open-world game had managed up until that point. The game was also underpinned by a robust physics engine, which made the place joyously destructive. Rolling a grenade into a busy intersection and watching the ensuing fountain of exploding, burning cars was a guilty thrill. This all combined to make Liberty City feel like a real, functioning place—and a world that actually reacted to your presence, often in surprising or amusing ways.

The game's sense of freedom was hugely influential too. The idea of moving freely around an open world, following icons on a map, and picking up missions at your leisure from different characters is now a standard part of the language of video games—so much so that it's easy to forget Rockstar essentially invented it in GTA 3. Suddenly, linear video games felt incredibly old-fashioned. After getting a taste of this freedom, players and critics alike would actively rail against games that didn't offer a similar level of agency. I was a critic in those days, and I remember the word 'linear' becoming one of the worst things you could say about a game. This pushed publishers to bankroll their own open-world games, and the era of the 'GTA clone' was born. Some of these quickly faded into oblivion (Mercenaries deserved better), while others (notably the Saints Row series) still exist today.

Grand Theft Auto 3

GTA 3 also arrived at a time when people were desperate for video games to be legitimised as a medium equal to film or TV. Games are fairly well respected these days, but in the early 2000s they were still considered the sole preserve of nerds and social misfits. The game made more of an impact in the papers, with controversy-hungry tabloid reporters declaring it a menace to society. But the adult tone, controversial content, and cast of respected Hollywood actors gave it a credibility video games had previously lacked. Talented character actors such as Robert Loggia, Frank Vincent, Kyle MacLachlan, Debi Mazar, and Michael Madsen brought the game's cast to life, and were a massive step-up from the mostly amateurish voice acting found in video games at the time. Established actors making appearances in video games is nothing special now, but it was huge in 2001.

Grand Theft Auto 3 was a critical and sales success, and its world-conquering popularity ultimately led to Grand Theft Auto 5 becoming the single fastest-selling piece of entertainment in the history of mankind. That alone is an impressive legacy—but it's the influence it had on the evolution of the medium itself that will hopefully take up more pages in the gaming history books. GTA 3 is being re-released next month as part of GTA: The Trilogy, with updated visuals, improved controls, and other modern enhancements. It'll be interesting to see how it holds up all these years later. Even if it doesn't prove to be as fun as it used to be, it's still an important historical artifact and a blueprint for an entire genre.

Next: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Is Still Rockstar's Most Ambitious Game