Five GTA Clones That Did Some Things Better Than Rockstar

Grand Theft Auto set the template for open-world crime games, and the rivals that followed have spent years being dismissed as knockoffs. Some of them earned that reputation. Others took the formula somewhere GTA never bothered to go, and a few did specific things more compellingly than Rockstar's own criminal playground.

Mafia (2002) is the clearest example of a game that traded freedom for focus. Lost Heaven is less a sandbox than a film set you drive between story missions, but that restraint suits Illusion Softworks' 1930s story of a humble man's rise and fall. The game also pushed for realism with real-time vehicle damage and a police response that treats minor and serious offenses differently, rather than GTA's star-based Wanted System.

Scarface: The World Is Yours (2006) shows that a licensed game can add to its source material. Set in an alternate timeline where Tony Montana survives the film's ending, it gave players a revenge campaign with a more robust targeting system and a money-laundering mechanic that affected the heat from both police and rival gangs. Its Balls meter, which fills with taunts and reckless driving to unleash a rage mode, previewed a similar idea that later showed up in GTA 5.

Saints Row 2 (2008) went the opposite way from GTA 4's gritty realism, embracing an over-the-top tone and a deep character creator. Its fully voiced female protagonist was a bold choice for the genre in 2008, a milestone Rockstar took nearly two decades to match in its flagship series.

Sleeping Dogs (2012) is a favorite for many players who would happily replay it over any GTA. Its Hong Kong setting captures the humid, neon-lit streets and the sound of Cantonese chatter, and its martial arts melee combat, with brutal takedown animations and bullet-time gunplay, feels more distinctive than anything in Rockstar's catalogue, even if its driving is arcadey.

The field is wider than these five. Yakuza 5 offers density over sprawl in a carefully detailed Kamurocho, Lego City Undercover offers a family-friendly take on the same design, and Watch Dogs 2 uses hacking to make San Francisco feel unpredictable. GTA 6 is expected to refine the open-world crime formula further, but these games are a reminder that the genre has never belonged to one studio.