GTA 3 in 2026: where to play it legally and how the Definitive Edition differs

• GTA 3 cheats for PC, PlayStation, Xbox and mobile
• GTA Trilogy – The Definitive Edition prices
• GTA Vice City: the next game in the series

GTA 3 (officially Grand Theft Auto III) was made by Edinburgh studio DMA Design together with Rockstar Games. It was the first game in the series in full 3D with a third-person camera. Small-time criminal Claude is betrayed and shot by his girlfriend Catalina during a bank heist. He survives and is convicted, but his prison transport is attacked and he escapes with explosives expert 8-Ball, who introduces him to the Leone Mafia family. That is where Claude's climb through Liberty City's underworld begins.

Liberty City is made up of three islands, Portland, Staunton Island and Shoreside Vale, which unlock as the story goes on. The industrial district resembles Brooklyn and Queens, the business center Manhattan and the suburbs New Jersey. Claude never says a word; his name comes from the game files and his brief appearance in San Andreas.

The release was pushed back three weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks: the team removed some references and, among other things, repainted police cars that looked like NYPD vehicles. GTA III became the best-selling game of 2001 in the US. The radio has about three and a half hours of material, including the talk station Chatterbox FM hosted by Lazlow.

The cast includes Frank Vincent (Don Salvatore Leone), Debi Mazar (Maria), Kyle MacLachlan (Donald Love), Robert Loggia (Ray Machowski), Cynthia Farrell (Catalina) and Guru (8-Ball).

The original GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas were pulled from digital console and PC stores on October 13, 2021, ahead of the remaster. "GTA 3 Remastered" is the 2021 Definitive Edition; Rockstar has not announced any other remake.

Prices from the official US stores as of November 2, 2026 (GTA+ as of October 31). The US Nintendo eShop has the Trilogy for $19.79 until November 7, 2026. The stores do not show the full price of GTA III – Definitive on mobile: the listing is marked free because the first 30 minutes are a trial.

If you are searching for a GTA 3 download, there is only one legal answer: download it after buying it on the App Store, Google Play, Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox Store or Nintendo eShop, or play it through GTA+. Sites offering a "free download" or "play in browser" have no rights to the game.

GTA III – The Definitive Edition is a remaster by Grove Street Games (formerly War Drum Studios, who made the mobile ports), built on Unreal Engine 4 instead of RenderWare. The story, missions and map are unchanged. According to Rockstar's announcement, as reported by Game Informer and Push Square, the changes are:

• controls reworked to be closer to GTA V, with weapon and radio wheels and better aiming;
• high-resolution textures, new lighting and a longer draw distance;
• map waypoints and navigation, plus mission restarts after a fail;
• a November 2024 update added shooting on the run and a lighting option that matches the original.

Some things were lost too. A few cheats were removed; in GTA III that is the "invisible cars" cheat. Screen Rant's reviewer criticized the removal of GTA III's cinematic and top-down camera angles. At launch in November 2021 the whole collection was panned for technical problems and its new character models, and Rockstar publicly apologized about a week later.

Rockstar gave the original PC version to owners of the PC Definitive Edition (from December 3, 2021, for purchases made by June 30, 2022). Today the only way to buy the original GTA III legally is on mobile, as the 2011 port.

Data from the game's Steam pages: the original GTA III (no longer sold there) and GTA III – The Definitive Edition. The mobile Definitive needs iOS 16 and about 1.9 GB of space; the original port needs iOS 8 and about 0.7 GB.

Voice acting is English only, so English speakers get the game as it was recorded. The original PC release had text in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish; the 2011 mobile port adds Japanese and Korean. The Definitive Edition has more subtitle languages, adding Polish, Brazilian Portuguese and Chinese, among others.

On PC, GTA 3 cheats are words you type during play: IFIWEREARICHMAN gives $250,000, GUNSGUNSGUNS gives every weapon and GIVEUSATANK spawns a tank. On consoles you enter a button combination; in the mobile Definitive Edition you use Options → Accessibility. The Definitive Edition adds a "big heads" cheat, and cheats there disable achievements, so save to a separate slot first. Every code is on the GTA 3 cheats page.