Grand Theft Auto 5 is a best-selling open-world action-adventure game that's still strong as ever since its launch in 2013. Offering both a multiplayer online mode and a campaign story with iconic main characters Michael, Franklin, and Trevor, all the activities, cars, heists, and custom game modes you can try can't even begin to compare it to the previous GTA installments.
Though it's not easy to capture the same experience you're in for in this game, several games try to mimic it in different aspects. For most, it's either the open-world story or similar themes and mechanics, so here are some games like GTA 5 you're bound to enjoy.
10 Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag
With Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, your criminal enterprise takes to the high seas in Nassau during the Golden Age of Piracy. There's a vast emerald ocean of ships to pull off heists, and your companions are an equally eccentric cutthroat crowd consisting of notable pirates like Edward Teach (Blackbeard) and Anne Bonny.
You're Edward Kenway, an ancestral assassin captaining the Jackdaw and working against the Templar Order in this historical time through stealth and smooth-flowing parrying combat. The gameplay adventure represents the finest of the classic Assassin's Creed titles with a story just as thrilling.
9 Far Cry 5
Leave the city life of GTA 5 and say hello to more wilderness in Far Cry 5, bringing you a new fictional piece of America that can be explored in open world style. While Far Cry 5 may have little to do with the actual story and objectives seen in GTA 5, it has cars, gliders, planes, and a bunch of guns to wreak some havoc on the cult of Joseph Seed that's taken over Hope County, Montana.
The character you play here is also the complete antithesis of Trevor, Franklin, and Michael, as he's a Sheriff's deputy in a joint task force with the US Marshals working to stop the bad guys. As with previous Far Cry games, you'll slowly take back the world from Seed's militia and explore all it has to offer.
8 Marvel's Spider-Man
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What does a superhero like Spider-Man have in common with a band of criminal protagonists in GTA 5? Nothing much besides stopping them, and you'll have your plate full dealing with an army of evil comic book villains like Kingpin, Electro, Doc Oc, and Scorpion. And you'll find the map of New York just as enjoyable as Los Santos, especially the traversal of swinging around by webs from building to building.
You also have some minigames here when Peter Parker works his day job as a lab assistant at Oscorp and won't be playing just Spider-Man the whole game. Like Grand Theft Auto, there are missions where you will have to become MJ Watson and Miles Morales.
7 Cyberpunk 2077
There's a lot to love in Cyberpunk 2077 if you're a fan of GTA 5. Cruising around the open world of Night City will feel like Los Santos but with a stunning futuristic twist, and the early part of the game involves carrying out a heist for a Relic with your partner Jackie Welles. You can also now own property and have a variety of new apartments to select from.
However, this game is a first-person RPG where you can create your own character from the detailed options you have available, and it takes quite an interesting turn after the heist. The main protagonist, V, will have a former rock star-turned-soldier named Johnny Silverhand bonded with their brain the rest of the way, voiced by Keanu Reeves, whose presence manages to give off a chaotic personality like Trevor at times.
6 Yakuza Series
Like GTA, shared themes of crime and money in an open-world setting are the epitome of Yakuza games. GTA 5's Michael De Santa can probably even relate a bit to the recurring protagonist of the Yakuza series, Kazuma Kiryu, as he's also looking to retire from a life of crime but keeps getting pulled back in.
The gameplay, however, is where things get slightly different, considering it's an RPG beat 'em up.
You'll mostly be engaging in some beatdowns with the fun combat system (Yakuza: Like A Dragon having turn-based party combat) and earning experience throughout the story, though there are always unique minigames you can play, like disco dancing, karaoke, or golfing that GTA 5 also has. The Judgement games are also a part of this series, should you want to switch things up and play as a detective who chases criminals.
5 Just Cause 3
The fun of GTA 5 is all the chaos and damage you can unleash in the open world, whether in the campaign or playing online. Just Cause 3 is a game dedicated to destruction, equipping you with creative tools and methods to generate some of the most satisfying over-the-top explosions and structural damage.
Even more impressive are the tricks you can perform with your character's grappling hook, which will have enemies launched in the air or helicopters colliding with buildings.
Also, if you enjoy the parachuting aspects of GTA 5 like on the heist missions or just free-roaming, there's plenty more of that here with wingsuit gliding and on a pretty large-scale map with gorgeous Mediterranean landscapes. The main difference here is protagonist Rico Rodriguez is causing all the mayhem to liberate his home of Medici from a vile General.
4 Mafia: Trilogy
2K and Hangar 13's Mafia series drew heavy inspiration from Grand Theft Auto, and it'll be the closest crime adventure to it that you'll experience. All three games have been newly remade and remastered and bundled into one trilogy. Mafia: Definitive Edition is a remake of the 2002 game that started it all about a cab driver named Tommy Angelo entering a life of crime for the mob during Prohibition.
The sequel, Mafia 2, follows WWII veteran Vito Scalleta who returns home and starts doing jobs for the mob with the influence of his friend Joe Barbaro. Mafia 3 goes to the late 1960s and follows Vietnam War veteran Lincoln Clay as he works in partnership with Mafia 2's Vito Scalleta, the Irish mobster Thomas Burke, and Haitian mob boss Cassandra against new antagonist Sal Marcano.
The characters, story missions, gunplay, and car chases are just as engaging as GTA.
3 Red Dead Redemption 2
What better way to follow up GTA 5 than with another Rockstar Games masterpiece? Red Dead Redemption 2 sees the return of the original Van der Linde gang during a tumultuous period that precedes the events of the first Red Dead. Your protagonist is Arthur Morgan, a contrasting personality from the GTA 5 characters with a lot more heart and emotional moments in his journey.
The scenic open world immerses you in the Western Frontier of 1899, horses and stagecoaches becoming your methods of transportation versus exotic sports cars, and the weapons obviously differ from those you're used to. But something that translates from GTA 5 is the morality system, where you can change Arthur's character by committing more evil acts that give him the same wickedness as other members.
2 Saints Row Series
The Saints Row series is on the same level of comedy and crime story as GTA 5. The first one came out in 2006 and saw a remake in 2022, but the first three installments are often the fan favorites.
You may be called a Saint here, but surely you're not one, like the protagonists of GTA 5. You're literally the Boss in this world who leads the Saints in some of the wildest conspiracies and rival gang hostilities they're caught up in.
With its similar US city-inspired open world featuring identical minimap UI, characters involved in a gang called the Third Street Saints, memorable car radio stations, and similar gameplay mechanics, the inspirations from GTA are pretty clear. The characters are another highlight of Saints Row, who are all very outlandish and fun, and the game is full of much more raunchy content and silliness in even the weapons and vehicles you can obtain.
1 Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy
If you haven't experienced the classic GTA games that gave the series its prominence for years to come, you should give them a go, especially since they've each been remastered into a trilogy. The early GTA games delivered some of gaming's most iconic characters, such as CJ and Big Smoke from San Andreas and Tommy Vercetti from Vice City.
The weapon variety, physics, dialogue, and memorable missions in worlds inspired by Los Angeles, Miami, and New York City are what make the series. And that's not also to undervalue GTA 4, which is still a marvel of an entry in the series that tells as complex of a story and offers terrific DLC.