Since its founding in 1998,Rockstar Gameshas steadily grown to become one of the most successful and important companies in the medium of video games, introducing millions of fans to theGrand Theft Autoseries and shepherding it to become one of the most successful IP of all-time. Outside ofGrand Theft Auto, though,Rockstarhas 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. Therecent announcement ofGrand Theft Auto 6proved to be just as monumental as many imagined it would be, with its trailer breaking single-day viewership records on YouTube. Both the trailer forGTA6and the reception to it indicate that the game will sit comfortably alongside Rockstar’s incredible library of past games when it launches in 2025.
S Tier
Red Dead Redemption 2:Red Dead Redemption 2is 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 incredibleGrand Theft Auto Onlinemodethat 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 ofGrand Theft Auto 3and running with it,Grand Theft Auto: Vice Cityis one of the greatest sequelsin the history of video games. Transporting players to the neon-soaked streets of an analogue of 1980s Miami,Vice Cityuses 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 incredibleRed Dead Redemption 2is the game’s predecessor,Red Dead Redemption. Following the success ofGrand Theft Auto 4and Rockstar’s smooth transition into 7th generation hardware,Red Dead Redemptiontranslates the company’s knack for developing compelling open worlds to be much more than “Grand Theft Horse”. John Marston is one of thebest protagonists of any Rockstar titleand 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 inRockstar’s ps2-eraGrand Theft Autotrilogy,San Andreasis a love-letter to the early 90s much in the same way thatVice Cityis 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 likeVice 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 thatGrand Theft Auto 5would smooth out. That said, being back in a newly envisionedrecreation of Liberty Citywas like a dream come true for longtime fans.
Bully:One of Rockstar’s more controversial games,Bullywould end up delivering so much more than the “Grand Theft Autoin school” violence-simulator that the media accused it of being. Truthfully, the social systems and"slice-of-life" gameplay ofBullyhelp 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 likePersona 5orHogwarts Legacy.
A Tier
Max Payne 3:After simply publishing and working on the console ports forthe first twoMax Paynetitles,Max Payne 3would 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,Manhuntperhaps 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 talentedveteran actor Brian Cox(ofSuccessionfame).
The Warriors:The Warriorsdoes 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 ofWalter Hill’s classic 1979 film,The Warriorswas 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 originalMax Payneis 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 fromfilms such asThe Matrixand John Woo’sHard Boiled, Max Payne is a gritty noir classic absolutely bursting with style.
LA Noire:Speaking of noir fiction,Rockstar and Team Bondi’sLA Noireis 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, butLA Noire’s story and investigations are top-notch.
B Tier
Grand Theft Auto 3:In terms of its overall importance to the medium of video games,Grand Theft Auto 3would 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 dowhatGrand Theft Auto 3introducedback 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 Payneis 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 thecore gameplay ofGrand Theft Auto 3successfully onto a handheld,Liberty City Storiesis 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:LikeLiberty City Stories,Vice City Storiesis 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 excellentRed Dead Redemptionseries,Red Dead Revolveris much more straightforward and more of an arcade-style third-person shooter rather than an open-world adventure.
Midnight Club: Los Angeles:While the thirdMidnight Clubgame 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 2ditches 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 firstGTAgame to land on a Nintendo platform since the ill-fated GBAGrand Theft Auto,Chinatown Warsis a great DS game but an otherwise average game within the context of the entireGrand Theft Autofranchise.
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 originalGrand Theft Autoillustrates just how far the series has come in the intervening years.
D Tier
Grand Theft Auto 2:Even thoughGrand Theft Auto 2adds 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 2is 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 thedriving mechanics in theGrand Theft Autogamesare fun, they’re not enough to sustain their own arcade racing title, makingMidnight Clubnot hold a candle to other similar series likeNeed for SpeedorBurnout.
Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis:More of a tech demo than anything else,Table Tennisis a game that wears out its thin premise rather quickly, but it was at least something to hold fans over until the hypedrelease ofGrand Theft Auto 4.
