History of Grand Theft Auto (1984 - 2021) | Documentary

A full history of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. From the origins of DMA Design, up to the latest updates to GTAOnline and beyond!

Celebrate nearly 25 years of one of the most iconic open world video games of all time by learning how the series has evolved.

Join me as I detail each and every game, breaking down their development history, storyline, gameplay features, visuals, and their critical reception, all backed with each game's original soundtrack.

Twitter: @nick930gaming

Even the smallest donations help me make these videos! (I record all of my own footage and need to purchase several old games for the footage)

This video in particular took me longer than any project I've ever worked on. I put a ton of passion and effort into this documentary - but even so, there are bound to be errors. Please feel free to let me know in the comments if you spot one!

Now sit back, grab a drink and enjoy the ENTIRE History of GTA!
Timestamps:

00:00 Intro
01:56 Origin of DMA
07:56 GTA Development
12:17 GTA
17:32 GTA2 Development
19:27 GTA2
23:17 GTALondon
26:25 GTA3 Development
31:16 GTA3
44:58 Vice City Development
47:09 Vice City
55:05 The GTA Killer Controversy
57:25 San Andreas Development
59:47 San Andreas
01:10:55 GTA Advance
01:13:58 Liberty City Stories
01:18:57 Vice City Stories
01:22:58 GTAIV Development
01:28:02 GTAIV
01:41:44 The Lost and the Damned
01:44:01 The Ballad of Gay Tony
01:46:41 Chinatown Wars
01:50:26 Red Dead Redemption
01:52:24 GTAV Development
01:55:18 GTAV
02:04:30 GTAOnline
02:14:26 Conclusion

Sources:

#GrandTheftAuto #Rockstar #Documentary

[Nick]

Minor Corrections:
-Claude mispronounced.
-It's "Zed-X Spectrum" not Z-X-Spectrum
-Prototype footage of GTA1 and its associated design documents has been blurred (changes still processing atm)
-GTA2 was the first game to increase wanted level from 4 ->6, I never explicitly said GTA3 was the first to do this - but I just wanted to clarify as I didn't mention the increase in GTA2
-Double-Decker* Bus - not Triple-Decker. Must've had harry potter on the brain when recording that bit.
-Michael is "technically" not in witness protection, as many have noted - though it is implied initially. The concept is based on real-life criminals like Henry Hill that became FBI informants, only there's more to it than that. Throughout the story - Michael's relationship with the "FIB" is expanded upon more to reveal the truth about what happened (trying to avoid spoilers here)






Hey everyone! Kept you waiting huh? I present to you - my biggest project to date: The entire history of the Grand Theft Auto series, from the formation of DMA all the way up to the current state of GTAOnline. This series has a rich history, and one that I felt deserved no compromise - which is why I spent the last 4 weeks straight researching, writing, and editing to bring you what I feel is the most complete overview of the series.

To give you an idea of how much work into this one, I captured over 6 Terabytes of 4K footage, wrote a 60+page script, and managed to watch the entire 19 seasons of Family Guy in the background... gotta say... the later seasons aren't as bad as I remembered them being - still fun to watch.

For those of you wondering about Resident Evil Village, Mass Effect, and Returnal - yes those are all planned still. I just finished REVillage yesterday and am working on a comparison now. Mass Effect is next. Returnal coverage is delayed because my PS5 completely bricked on me while playing (it's been sent to Sony now for repairs - super

Stay tuned for more coverage of all the latest games! Schedule will return to normal now :)

[TheRealMTR]

Your documentary skills are insane. The fact that what you created is free on YouTube is mind boggling. You pushed the bar, and you should be proud of that

[qwasdr]

The thing that impressed me the most about playing GTA for the first time back then, was the radio stations.

[tylerborders]

The amount of time and effort that went into this video is insane. Props to the creator

[IAGIC]

I did not expect to watch this whole thing but here we are. This was incredible

[ssbooth]

It seems like such a small thing now, but playing the original GTA on PC, you could put a music CD into your computer and the in-game radio in the car would play a random song from the CD in place of the radio station. As a kid, it was utterly amazing and blew my mind!

[vaibhavgarve]

This thing deserve a spot on Netflix in documentary genre.

[fabianr]

Here, after the first trailer for Gta 6 dropped. What a time to be alive. 2025 🎉

[JohnsProdzTV]

I don’t care what it takes but everyone who watched the gta vi trailer needs to see this video. It’s like a spiritual journey connecting the dots with everything that’s happened so far.

[miguelangellicea]

This is so gonna blow up when they finally reveal GTA6.

[TrapGawdd]

“... The pedestrians will say absurd things as you pass them”

Pedestrian: *Mah mother’s my sister.*
I spit out my drink 😂😂😂

[maxmustermann]

By the length and the quality of this documentary I can tell that a lot of passion and research went into this. Thanks for over 2 hours of GTA nostalgia and infotainment!

[BLTZEN]

I worked at Gremlin Interactive in Sheffield from 1994 to 1997 and some of us still have our original GTA dev CDs

[TheRealGuywithoutaMustache]

GTA is simply one of those franchises that got a lot of people into gaming in the first place

[ENXGMA_YT]

My type of movie-night.

*Grabs popcorn*

[Capitul]

who’s here after the gta 6 trailer dropped

[MPZ]

I've watched this several times now, and it gets better each time. Given the amount of time spent playing these games, the awesome memories, this documentary is incredibly special to me. THANK YOU!

[TigerChamp]

I have a feeling that video will be one of those videos that I regularly come back to.

[tybera]

I'm so old I played every one of these games on their release aside from GTA:London which I wasn't able to pick up till much later. When GTA 3 was released it was astounding. It's difficult to explain to folks what a huge impact GTA 3 actually made on the industry as a whole. There really weren't any games at all that were open world and 3D at the time. It was really the first time you saw that games and entertainment could be limitless.

GTA games will always be a day 1 purchase for me.

[connorc]

As someone from Dundee, it’s great seeing DMA having a good story told in GTAs history. Great video!