Since its founding in 1998, Rockstar Games has steadily grown to become one of the most successful and important companies in the medium of video games, introducing millions of fans to the Grand Theft Auto series and shepherding it to become one of the most successful IP of all-time. Outside of Grand Theft Auto, though, Rockstar has also helped bring dozens of popular and entertaining titles that embrace the studio's penchant for immersion, irreverent humor, and cinematic flair through its publishing arm, with many of these games' developers eventually joining as Rockstar subsidiaries. To date, there are more than 40 games that are either developed or published by Rockstar Games, with several of them landing on "best of all-time" lists.
Throughout the company's history, it and its games have been used as the proverbial whipping boy by media pundits and lawmakers to point the finger at interactive media for the perceived downfall of Western society, all of which has had the cumulative effect of only increasing Rockstar's popularity and helping its games sell. The recent announcement of Grand Theft Auto 6 proved to be just as monumental as many imagined it would be, with its trailer breaking single-day viewership records on YouTube. Both the trailer for GTA6 and the reception to it indicate that the game will sit comfortably alongside Rockstar's incredible library of past games when it launches in 2025.
Every Animal Confirmed for Grand Theft Auto 6 So Far
Based on GTA 6's trailer, the game is set to hold a diverse amount of wildlife that gives fans a glimpse into its immersive environment.
S Tier
Red Dead Redemption 2: Red Dead Redemption 2 is the latest game from Rockstar, standing as the studio's Wild West magnum opus and also the final game Rockstar would put out before co-founder Sam Houser left the company to his brother Dan in 2020. Rather than move forward in time, the game takes players back to the heyday of the Van Der Linde gang, and in doing so crafts one of the best narratives that the studio has produced yet.
Grand Theft Auto 5: The continued success of Grand Theft Auto 5 is a testament to how expertly crafted its open-world sandbox is, as well as the continuing appeal of the incredible Grand Theft Auto Online mode that makes millions of dollars per month for Rockstar. The single-player campaign is also arguably the best in the series, giving players access to not one but three playable protagonists whose stories intertwine in compelling (and oftentimes hilarious) fashion.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: Taking the success of Grand Theft Auto 3 and running with it, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is one of the greatest sequels in the history of video games. Transporting players to the neon-soaked streets of an analogue of 1980s Miami, Vice City uses the foundation of its predecessor to build a bigger and better open-world sandbox that introduces future staples such as buying up properties and changing the main character's appearance.
Red Dead Redemption: Right up there with the incredible Red Dead Redemption 2 is the game's predecessor, Red Dead Redemption. Following the success of Grand Theft Auto 4 and Rockstar's smooth transition into 7th generation hardware, Red Dead Redemption translates the company's knack for developing compelling open worlds to be much more than "Grand Theft Horse". John Marston is one of the best protagonists of any Rockstar title and his journey is full of the highs and lows of some of the best films in the Western genre.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: The final game to release in Rockstar's ps2-era Grand Theft Auto trilogy, San Andreas is a love-letter to the early 90s much in the same way that Vice City is for the 1980s. The Houser brothers are able to finally put their love for American hip-hop and crime cinema on full display in one of the most bombastic and feature-rich open worlds that the studio had created to-date. And, much like Vice City, the perfectly curated soundtrack spares no expense to transport players right into the heart of the era.
Grand Theft Auto 4: The tale of immigrant Niko Bellic and his desire to achieve the "American Dream" is one of the most mature and grounded narratives to feature in any Rockstar game, helping it to land right alongside the greatest of the studio's games in a ranking despite its gameplay having some rough edges that Grand Theft Auto 5 would smooth out. That said, being back in a newly envisioned recreation of Liberty City was like a dream come true for longtime fans.
Bully: One of Rockstar's more controversial games, Bully would end up delivering so much more than the "Grand Theft Auto in school" violence-simulator that the media accused it of being. Truthfully, the social systems and "slice-of-life" gameplay of Bully help it to be one of the developer's more charming titles, and it's interesting to see how much of its DNA is present in hugely popular games like Persona 5 or Hogwarts Legacy.
A Tier
Max Payne 3: After simply publishing and working on the console ports for the first two Max Payne titles, Max Payne 3 would be the first game in the series that Rockstar would handle development duties for. It stands as maybe the best game in the trilogy, taking the grizzled former cop all the way to the favelas of Brazil for yet another blood-soaked crime caper with excellent bullet-time gunplay.
Manhunt: Another incredibly controversial title from Rockstar, Manhunt perhaps deserves some of the concern over its content given just how bleak and violent it is. Still, Rockstar's ability to craft an excellent stealth game is on full display in this deadly game of "hide-and-seek", all narrated by the antagonist voiced by talented veteran actor Brian Cox (of Succession fame).
The Warriors: The Warriors does something few licensed games are able to do, which is actually add something of value to enhance their source material. Taking its name from and based off of Walter Hill's classic 1979 film, The Warriors was proof positive that there was still life left in the beat 'em up genre at a time when it was in decline.
Max Payne: Even though the original Max Payne is technically a Remedy game, Rockstar would help with both its publishing and its porting to 6th generation consoles such as the PS2. An excellent third-person shooter that introduced the bullet-time mechanic and over-the-top action from films such as The Matrix and John Woo's Hard Boiled, Max Payne is a gritty noir classic absolutely bursting with style.
LA Noire: Speaking of noir fiction, Rockstar and Team Bondi's LA Noire is one of the closest approximations to actual detective work ever seen in a video game, complete with its revolutionary facial capture system allowing players to look for tells when interrogating subjects. The open-world gameplay falls a little flat, but LA Noire's story and investigations are top-notch.
Grand Theft Auto 6's Trailer Upholds a Beloved Rockstar Games Tradition
The Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer is out, and it delivers exactly what fans wanted it to, with it upholding one particular Rockstar tradition very well.
B Tier
Grand Theft Auto 3: In terms of its overall importance to the medium of video games, Grand Theft Auto 3 would undoubtedly rank somewhere near the top. However, Rockstar's continual evolution of its skill at crafting engaging open-world sandboxes now means there are several other games that do what Grand Theft Auto 3 introduced back in 2001, but better. Still, none of the company's current success would be possible without this revolutionary PS2 game.
Max Payne 2: Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is a great continuation of everything that the first game did so well, though it tends to suffer from some pacing issues and its narrative falls a bit short of the original's.
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories: As the first game to translate the core gameplay of Grand Theft Auto 3 successfully onto a handheld, Liberty City Stories is an important game to showcase how far handheld consoles had come in such a short time. Not only that, the game also lets players experience Liberty City through the eyes of a younger Toni Cipriani.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories: Like Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories is an excellent side adventure taking place in one of the best settings that Rockstar has ever produced, giving fans more of the same glitz and glam of its 1980s masterpiece.
C Tier
Red Dead Revolver: The predecessor to the excellent Red Dead Redemption series, Red Dead Revolver is much more straightforward and more of an arcade-style third-person shooter rather than an open-world adventure.
Midnight Club: Los Angeles: While the third Midnight Club game is undeniably the best one in the series, it's still not quite up to par with most of its arcade-style racing contemporaries. It makes sense that fans haven't seen a new entry in over 15 years.
Manhunt 2: Manhunt 2 ditches the evocative mood and atmosphere of its predecessor for a garish sequel that seems to want to shock just for shock's sake. A sequel that misunderstood what fans appreciated about the first game and put the nail in the coffin for the fledgling series.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars: The first GTA game to land on a Nintendo platform since the ill-fated GBA Grand Theft Auto, Chinatown Wars is a great DS game but an otherwise average game within the context of the entire Grand Theft Auto franchise.
Grand Theft Auto: Though it was revolutionary for its time (and would be the pillar on which Rockstar Games was built), going back now and playing the original Grand Theft Auto illustrates just how far the series has come in the intervening years.
D Tier
Grand Theft Auto 2: Even though Grand Theft Auto 2 adds in plenty of new cars, weapons, and factions for players to pit against one another, it lacks a lot of the charm of the original game in the series.
Midnight Club 2: Midnight Club 2 is a minimal improvement over the original game in the series and is an arcade-style racing game that lacks a lot of the polish of its contemporaries.
Midnight Club: Street Racing: Though the driving mechanics in the Grand Theft Auto games are fun, they're not enough to sustain their own arcade racing title, making Midnight Club not hold a candle to other similar series like Need for Speed or Burnout.
Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis: More of a tech demo than anything else, Table Tennis is a game that wears out its thin premise rather quickly, but it was at least something to hold fans over until the hyped release of Grand Theft Auto 4.
