Oftentimes throughout history, the people involved in world-changing cultural shifts don't realise they're ongoing until some time after and they look back in retrospect. Such is the case for GTA III, Rockstar North (then known as DMA Design)'s open-world action spree came as if from nowhere, completely revolutionising not only the idea of what a protagonist could do within a world, but how to interact with that world itself. Sure you can point to GTA's IV and V as having far better graphics, but as Rockstar hit the big leagues they lost some of that pugnacious "We're here to prove what we can do" approach to design that was caked over GTA III. Every character has the right amount of likeability and snark to their disposition, not to mention the missions in general were far stronger across the board than the vast majority of those in IV and V. In addition you had an entire generation of people exploring the city in front of them for the first time - finding all the slow-motion ramps, hidden supercars, learning how to make the Dodo plane fly and so on. Open-world titles took off following GTA III's proof of concept, as suddenly everyone from Jak and Daxter to Spider-Man were adopting city-wide mission structures, thereby also meaning that newcomers to gaming as a whole didn't partake in this incredibly rewarding dive into everything the genre could offer that first time through. GTA will most likely never be as good as three was, but it's never been Rockstar's fault. After all, they can't help only changing the world once. Which games for you are so unbelievably incredible it's going to be near-impossible to dethrone them in your mind? Let us know in the comments!
