#17: Grand Theft Auto III (2001)
Liberty City did not feel like a level. It felt like a place players had been let loose inside. Released in 2001 for PlayStation 2 by Rockstar Games, with DMA Design, later Rockstar North, as developer, Grand Theft Auto III moved the series into 3D and changed the public idea of open-world freedom. Claude, the silent protagonist, could follow missions through a crime story, but many players remember the wandering just as much: driving through traffic, listening to radio stations, discovering neighborhoods, causing trouble, and realizing the city kept moving whether they behaved or not.
