If you want another game like GTA, start with Sleeping Dogs. Its modern city, criminal story, stolen cars, police chases, and free-roaming structure make it one of the closest alternatives to Grand Theft Auto. Choose Watch Dogs 2 if you want a more playful city with hacking, or Saints Row: The Third Remastered if the chaos and comedy matter more than realism.
No single game copies everything GTA does well. Some offer a stronger story, better hand-to-hand combat, a more reactive world, or greater freedom in missions. The best choice therefore depends on whether you most enjoy GTA 5 for its crime story, driving, gunfights, open-world exploration, or the simple pleasure of causing trouble and seeing how the city reacts.
Best Games Like GTA at a Glance
| Game | Best for | Closest GTA feature | Main difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sleeping Dogs | Closest all-around alternative | Modern crime and city freedom | Much better melee combat |
| Watch Dogs 2 | Interactive modern city | Cars, police, missions, free roam | Hacking is the main tool |
| Saints Row: The Third Remastered | Wild crime sandbox | Gang building and city chaos | Far less realistic |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | Rockstar-style immersion | Crime, law response, rich world | Slow Western setting |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | Dense futuristic city | Vehicles, gangs, weapons, jobs | First-person RPG |
| Mafia III: Definitive Edition | Serious crime story | Cars, guns, police, criminal empire | More repetitive structure |
| Just Cause 3 | Explosive freedom | Vehicles and open-world mayhem | Not a crime drama |
| Yakuza 0 | Characters and side stories | Urban crime and distractions | Smaller map and no free driving |
| Far Cry 5 | Open-ended combat | Vehicles, weapons, wanted enemies | Rural first-person setting |
| American Fugitive | Classic top-down GTA feel | Crime, theft, police chases | Smaller indie production |
| Shakedown: Hawaii | Retro crime satire | Top-down city and criminal business | 2D arcade style |
| MadOut2: Grand Auto Racing | GTA-style play on mobile | Driving, guns, open city | Less polished and more limited |
12 Games Similar to GTA Worth Playing
1. Sleeping Dogs - Best Overall Game Like GTA
Best for: Players who want a modern crime story, a busy city, and plenty of freedom between missions.
Sleeping Dogs places you in Hong Kong as Wei Shen, an undercover police officer trying to enter the Triads without losing himself in the role. You can drive across the city, steal vehicles, buy clothes, take part in street races, complete favors, and attract police attention. The setup feels familiar to GTA, but the double life at the center of the story gives every alliance more tension.
The largest difference is combat. Instead of treating punches as a backup for gunplay, Sleeping Dogs builds fights around counters, combos, grapples, and objects in the environment. The Definitive Edition includes the previously released content, but its age still shows: some driving and shooting can feel less smooth than newer games. Even so, it remains the safest recommendation for anyone searching for games similar to GTA 5.
2. Watch Dogs 2 - Best for Hacking a Modern City
Best for: Players who like GTA 5's city sandbox but want more ways to manipulate people, cars, and security systems.
Watch Dogs 2 turns the San Francisco Bay Area into a network you can control. Marcus Holloway can hack vehicles, phones, cameras, doors, forklifts, and other city systems. That creates options GTA does not offer: you can send a car into an enemy, call the police on a target, scout with a drone, or finish some objectives without starting a large gunfight.
Ubisoft frames the story around Marcus and DedSec taking down ctOS 2.0, but the city itself is the stronger reason to play. In a detailed player discussion, people singled out vehicle hacks, movable machinery, NPC reactions, and environmental distractions as the features that make ordinary streets enjoyable to experiment with. The tone is lighter than the first Watch Dogs, although its internet culture and dialogue will not work for everyone.
3. Saints Row: The Third Remastered - Best for Pure Chaos
Best for: Players who enjoy GTA's weapons, cars, gangs, and destruction but do not need a realistic world.
Saints Row: The Third begins with the Saints already famous, then sends them into Steelport to fight a new criminal organization. The basic ingredients are close to GTA: a city map, story missions, car theft, character customization, gang conflict, and activities spread across different districts. The difference is that Saints Row keeps asking how much more ridiculous the next mission can become.
Hover jets, human-cannonball cars, oversized weapons, and criminal rackets make Steelport feel more like an action comedy than a crime film. That freedom is exactly why the game remains such a natural GTA alternative. Choose it over Sleeping Dogs when you want immediate mayhem and co-op fun; skip it if you prefer grounded characters and believable police chases.
4. Red Dead Redemption 2 - Best for Rockstar's Open-World Detail
Best for: Players who care more about GTA's living world and criminal characters than its modern cars.
Red Dead Redemption 2 moves the Rockstar formula to 1899. You play as outlaw Arthur Morgan and travel with the Van der Linde gang through towns, wilderness, and changing frontier settlements. Robberies, shootouts, witnesses, lawmen, bounties, side encounters, and long rides give it much of the same cause-and-effect pleasure as GTA, but the pace is slower and more deliberate.
Small interactions are the main attraction. Strangers remember what happened, crimes can attract witnesses, and an unplanned ride can turn into a rescue, ambush, or discovery. Players often praise the dynamic conversations, explorable buildings, physical interactions, and unexpected side events because they make the world feel inhabited rather than decorated. Choose it if you want Rockstar's strongest sense of place; avoid it if you mainly want sports cars and fast mission restarts.
5. Cyberpunk 2077 - Best Futuristic Alternative to GTA 5
Best for: Players who want a dense city, cars, gangs, weapons, and character builds in a science-fiction setting.
Cyberpunk 2077 trades Los Santos for Night City, a vertical metropolis divided by wealth, violence, and corporate power. You can drive between districts, accept criminal jobs, buy vehicles and apartments, fight gangs, and choose how to build your character. Its quests also allow more dialogue and role-playing choices than GTA 5.
The main difference is perspective and structure. Most action is first-person, combat depends heavily on weapons, cyberware, and skills, and the police sandbox is not as central as it is in GTA. Still, few games match its mix of city atmosphere and criminal work. The scale of its comeback is difficult to ignore: CD Projekt Red reported more than 30 million copies sold after years of major updates.
6. Mafia III: Definitive Edition - Best for Building a Criminal Empire
Best for: Players who want revenge, organized crime, period cars, and a serious story.
Mafia III follows Lincoln Clay through New Bordeaux in 1968. After the Italian mob murders his adopted family, he starts taking apart their operations district by district. Driving, third-person shooting, police attention, and criminal businesses make it one of the most direct games related to Grand Theft Auto.
Its strongest feature is atmosphere. Music, cars, radio reports, racial tension, and the New Orleans-inspired city give the story a clear time and place. The drawback is repetition: taking over rackets often means completing similar tasks before confronting the person in charge. Choose Mafia III for narrative and mood, not for the broad range of casual activities found in GTA 5.
7. Just Cause 3 - Best for Vehicles, Stunts, and Explosions
Best for: Players who use GTA as a playground for impossible jumps, aircraft, and large explosions.
Just Cause 3 is not about rising through a criminal organization. It is about removing a dictator by destroying military infrastructure across a huge Mediterranean island. Cars, motorcycles, boats, helicopters, jets, explosives, a grappling hook, a parachute, and a wingsuit give you more movement options than almost any GTA-style game.
The physics systems work together particularly well. You can attach objects with cables, pull enemies from towers, launch vehicles, or turn a simple fuel-tank attack into a chain of destruction. The story and pedestrian life are much thinner than GTA 5, but few open worlds are better when your only plan is to make something spectacular happen.
8. Yakuza 0 - Best for Crime Drama and Memorable Side Stories
Best for: Players who like GTA's criminal characters and optional distractions more than its driving.
Yakuza 0 takes place in compact versions of Tokyo and Osaka during the late 1980s. Its main story follows Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima through a violent conflict over a small piece of land. Outside that story, karaoke, arcades, businesses, substories, restaurants, and street fights make both districts feel unusually dense.
This is not a direct GTA clone. You cannot steal cars, the map is much smaller, and combat happens in contained street encounters. Yet the contrast between serious organized crime and strange side stories creates a similar freedom to move between drama and comedy. Pick Yakuza 0 if a smaller world packed with characters sounds better than a large map built around driving.
9. Far Cry 5 - Best for Open-Ended Gunfights
Best for: Players who want vehicles, weapons, wanted enemies, and freedom in how they attack each location.
Far Cry 5 places you in rural Hope County, Montana, where a violent cult controls the region. You can travel by car, boat, helicopter, or plane, recruit companions, hunt, explore, and clear hostile outposts. Missions often let you approach from any direction, mark targets, use stealth, release animals, or begin a loud attack.
It shares GTA's pleasure in combining systems and watching a plan collapse into chaos. A quiet rescue can quickly involve armed trucks, fire, wildlife, and aircraft. The setting has few dense urban streets, however, and the first-person view makes it feel closer to a sandbox shooter than a crime simulator.
10. American Fugitive - Best Indie Game Inspired by Classic GTA
Best for: Players who miss the overhead view and quick crime loops of the early Grand Theft Auto games.
American Fugitive is a top-down open-world action game about an escaped prisoner trying to uncover the truth behind his father's murder. You can steal cars, break into buildings, change clothes, buy weapons, commit robberies, and escape the police across a rural American county.
Its smaller scale makes the systems easy to understand, and planning a burglary gives crime more structure than simply entering a building. It lacks the dialogue, animation, and world detail of a large Rockstar production, but that is also part of its appeal. It delivers the basic GTA loop without demanding a huge time commitment or powerful hardware.
11. Shakedown: Hawaii - Best Retro GTA-Style Satire
Best for: Players who want fast missions, a top-down city, and jokes about business and consumer culture.
Shakedown: Hawaii turns open-world crime into a colorful 16-bit business takeover. You complete missions, acquire properties, pressure local stores, and use multipliers to increase income across the map. Driving and shooting recall the earliest GTA games, while the empire system keeps giving you a reason to revisit the city.
The humor targets subscription fees, hidden charges, and aggressive corporate behavior rather than telling a realistic gangster story. Its missions are short and accessible, though the simple combat and repeated business tasks may feel light beside GTA 5. It works best as a quick arcade alternative.
12. MadOut2: Grand Auto Racing - Best Mobile Game Like GTA
Best for: Mobile players who want an open city, driving, weapons, missions, and online activity.
MadOut2 is one of the clearest mobile attempts at the GTA formula. It combines free driving, vehicle customization, combat, story tasks, and a multiplayer world. Being able to move from street races to gunfights makes it more relevant than mobile games that copy only GTA's cars or visual style.
Expect a rougher experience than a console crime game. Physics, mission design, balance, advertising, and online behavior can feel inconsistent. It is worth considering when mobile access matters most, but Sleeping Dogs or Watch Dogs 2 remains a stronger choice when you have a PC or console.
Which GTA Alternative Should You Choose?
- For the closest overall match: Start with Sleeping Dogs.
- For a modern city with more interaction: Choose Watch Dogs 2.
- For comedy and destruction: Play Saints Row: The Third Remastered.
- For Rockstar's detailed world design: Choose Red Dead Redemption 2.
- For a futuristic city and RPG builds: Try Cyberpunk 2077.
- For a serious gangster story: Pick Mafia III.
- For pure physics-based chaos: Play Just Cause 3.
- For a smaller world full of characters: Start Yakuza 0.
GTA recommendation threads repeatedly return to Sleeping Dogs, Saints Row, Mafia, Watch Dogs, and Yakuza, but for different reasons. Sleeping Dogs is usually the closest fit for story and street-level crime, while Saints Row is better for unchecked fun. That distinction is more useful than looking for a game that copies every GTA 5 feature.
Are There Any Anime Games Like GTA?
Ananta and Neverness to Everness are the two names most often compared with GTA because both place anime-style characters in modern open cities. Ananta has shown driving, urban exploration, chases, combat, and several forms of movement. Neverness to Everness combines driving and city life with supernatural action and RPG systems.
Neither should be treated as a proven replacement for GTA 5 until its final systems, release version, regional availability, and monetization are clear. Even early followers disagree about the label: some see Neverness to Everness as closer to Yakuza and Ananta as the more direct “anime GTA” concept. For now, their appeal lies in their urban anime worlds, not in a promise that either will reproduce GTA's crime sandbox.
What Makes a Game GTA-Style?
Grand Theft Auto is an open-world action-adventure series built around movement through a large map, story missions, vehicles, combat, crime, police response, and optional activities. GTA 5 also uses three playable protagonists and lets players move between a directed crime story and unscripted free roam.
A game does not need every one of those features to feel related to GTA. The strongest alternatives usually share at least three: a freely explored city or region, vehicles, third-person or first-person action, criminal activity, a law or wanted system, and missions that leave room for unexpected outcomes. If you want a broader comparison beyond urban crime games, SoonLab's guide to the best open-world games covers exploration-focused worlds such as Elden Ring, Skyrim, and Minecraft.
Can You Make a Small GTA-Style Game?
A full city with traffic, pedestrians, police AI, vehicles, shops, missions, and online play requires a large team and years of work. The expectations are enormous because the Grand Theft Auto franchise has sold in more than 470 million units, according to Take-Two's May 2026 investor presentation.
A small prototype is much more realistic. Focus on one neighborhood, one vehicle, one mission, and one response system. For example, create a top-down courier game where the player steals a car, collects three packages, avoids patrol vehicles, and reaches a garage before the alert meter fills.
You can use SoonLab's AI 3D game maker to test a compact driving or city idea from a prompt, or begin with a simpler top-down prototype using the car game maker. Start with a single playable loop; adding an entire open world before the driving and mission rules work will only make problems harder to fix.
Turn your idea into aGTA-style game
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FAQs About Games Like GTA
What game is most similar to GTA 5?
Sleeping Dogs is the closest overall choice because it combines a modern city, vehicles, crime, police chases, story missions, side activities, and free exploration. Watch Dogs 2 is a better match if city interaction matters more than the gangster story.
What should I play if I like GTA but want a better story?
Choose Red Dead Redemption 2 for a slow, character-focused Rockstar story, Sleeping Dogs for undercover crime drama, or Yakuza 0 for organized crime and memorable characters. Mafia III is also a strong option if you prefer a focused revenge story.
Are there games like GTA with co-op?
Saints Row: The Third Remastered is the clearest choice for playing a crime sandbox cooperatively. Watch Dogs 2 includes cooperative activities, while Red Dead Online provides a separate multiplayer frontier rather than story-campaign co-op.
Are there free games like GTA?
Free GTA-style choices are more common on mobile than on PC and console. MadOut2 offers an open-world mix of driving and action, but free games may include ads, in-app purchases, or less consistent production quality. Check the current store terms before downloading.
Is GTA 5 a good game for adults?
GTA 5 is made for mature audiences, but “for adults” does not mean suitable for every adult. It includes strong violence, crime, sexual material, drugs, and harsh language. Players who want an adult crime story with less satirical excess may prefer Mafia III, while those who want action without an urban crime focus may prefer Just Cause 3 or Far Cry 5.
Final Recommendation
Sleeping Dogs is the best place to start if you want the closest single-player alternative to GTA 5. Choose Watch Dogs 2 when experimenting with a modern city matters more than the criminal story, or Saints Row: The Third Remastered when you want open-world crime without GTA's realism. Each game captures a different part of Grand Theft Auto, so the right choice depends on whether you value story, city interaction, or pure chaos most.
If these games have inspired your own idea, keep the first version small. With AI game maker SoonLab, you can turn a focused concept-such as one city block, one car, and one police chase-into a playable browser prototype, then refine the driving, objectives, and difficulty with follow-up prompts.