TheGrand Theft Autoseries started back in 1997. The earlier entries in the series were top-down, open-world, crime shooters. Then, in 2001,Grand Theft Auto IIIwas launched and revolutionized the open world genre of video games, presenting a 3D playground for players to explore, destroy, and inhabit.
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Each title since then has changed location, time period, aesthetics, characters, and stories. The missions and activities you partake in range from assassinations, races, chaotic gunfights, destructive rampages, big-scale heists, small-scale story segments, and plenty more. Some of the missions are standouts, with sequential games trying to mimic and emulate their success ever since. As well as some originality and attempts at something new.
11Friend Request - Grand Theft Auto V
InGTA V, when Michael wants to recruit the aid of his old friend, Lester, he must first infiltrate the offices of thefictional social media website, Lifeinvader.Once inside, he is tasked with hacking a prototype phone, so it explodes when a certain number is dialed.
Friend Request is a fairly simple and straightforward mission. Go there, do that, go back. What makes it special is its humorous satire and its on-point cultural references. It lacks subtlety, but seeing Michael trying to blend in with techies half his age is fun to see.
10Publicity Tour - Grand Theft Auto Vice City
The 80s were rife with sex, drugs, rock and roll, and car bombs. In theGTA Vice Citymission, Publicity Tour, Tommy must drive the fictional rock band, Love Fist, around only to discover that the vehicle has been rigged with a car bomb. What follows is a relatively straightforward mission, all you have to do is not slow down.
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What makes Publicity Tour good are the hilarious conversations between everyone in the vehicle, the stakes, and the surprising challenge of maintaining a certain speed. This mission would somewhat be replicated in other GTA games, with the same fictional band sometimes being the target of such attacks.
After GTA IV returned the core GTA experience back to something resembling reality, its second expansion decided to revert to the escapades seen in San Andreas. In Dropping In, Luis Lopez must soar through the skies in a parachute, land atop a skyscraper, and then sneak his way through the building to find his target.
This mission has everything. High octane, exciting sequences, stealth, action, assassination, and thrilling escapes. To escape, you return to the roof, parachute off and then land on a moving vehicle, leaving in style.
8Keep Your Friends Close - Grand Theft Auto Vice City
In the final mission of Vice City, an all-out assault must be conducted on the centerpiece of the whole game, the mansion. Your friend and ally throughout the story, Lance Vance, betrays you, joining your one-time boss, Sonny Forelli. You must chase down Lance until you reach the roof for a final, dramatic confrontation.
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After that, Tommy returns to the mansion proper and confronts Sonny. More dramatics ensue, and another battle before you finally complete the game, your mansion in tatters, your friend dead, and your enemies no more.
7The Job - Grand Theft Auto Vice City
The Grand Theft Auto series loves a good heist mission. The Malibu Club series of missions has Tommy Vercetti planning, recruiting for, and then executing a bank heist. The job stands out because it strays away from the usual fetch quest-style missions of the game.
It’s a mission that feels like a culmination of activities and tasks that then unfolds linearly but still makes you feel in control. You have to secure the bank, rob it, then escape the scene in a getaway car. Recruiting for the mission is retrospectively pointless because you do everything yourself. But this mission is the foundation of what would eventually become GTA’s bread and butter.
6Freefall - Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
San Andreasis the Grand Theft Auto game that took things further than ever before. In this mission CJ ascends to the skies, tasked with intercepting an incoming plane, boarding it, killing everyone on it, and then somehow landing the plane safely.
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Freefall is an epic, grand, blockbuster mission that feels ripped straight out of a Mission: Impossible movie. It makes you feel like a cool, action hero, albeit a villainous one. Every aspect of this mission escalates, culminating in a series of events that encapsulates just what San Andreas is known for.
5Caída Libre - Grand Theft Auto V
When the cousin of Cartel leader, Martin Madrazo is about to testify in court, Michael and Trevor are tasked with first shooting down his plane with a high-power sniper rifle, and then chasing the descending plane across Los Santos and the desert.
This mission excels when Trevor takes the lead. The dirt bike chase across a busy Los Santos desert brings the area to life, with farmlands, barrens, and wildlife in his way. It also makes for an exciting, fun sequence, with big jumps and high-octane risks abundant.
4Breaking The Bank At Caligula’s - Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
This is another heist mission, this time in San Andreas, and the culmination of several missions in which CJ and Woozie have planned the perfect casino heist, akin to Oceans Eleven. You start off undercover in the casino, spreading gas throughout the building to knock out the staff and customers.
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Once your Yakuza allies enter, things go awry. A rival of Zero’s alerts the mafia owners, a gunfight ensues, and CJ must act as a decoy, reaching the roof where he escapes via parachute and then a helicopter. This is a mission that constantly builds and escalates, from heist to battle, to flight.
3The Big Score - Grand Theft Auto V
Grand Theft Auto V is built around the concept of heists. You start off small, with a jewelers store, building up to FIB tower invasions, small-town bank robberies, and a couple of others. But The Big Score is the final one you pull off. In it, you rob the Union Depository.
There are two paths to success. The first is the stealthy approach, disguising yourself as a security van driver and going undercover. The other involves drilling your way into the vault from underground. The result is the same: a lot of cash and a lot of fun.
2Saint Mark’s Bistro - Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
Saint Mark’s Bistro is an iconic location in Grand Theft Auto III. As Claude, you go there and receive missions from the mob, although you can never enter the place in gameplay. Several years later (or prior in the game), CJ is tasked with traveling to Liberty City and visiting the place himself.
This mission is pure nostalgia. One of the reasons San Andreas stands out for many GTA fans is that it’s a culmination of the GTA games up to that point. This mission encapsulates that, as CJ visits the Bistro, shoots up the place, and then returns to San Andreas where he belongs.
