GTA Liberty City Stories in 2026: where to play it after the PSP and PS2

GTA Liberty City Stories (LCS) was the first 3D GTA for a handheld console. It was made by Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar North and first came out exclusively on PlayStation Portable in October 2005. It's set in 1998, three years before GTA III, in the same Liberty City, a parody of New York.

The protagonist is Toni Cipriani, whom players already know from GTA III. He comes home after several years in hiding: Toni once killed a made man. Don Salvatore Leone takes him back, but the city has changed: the Leone, Sindacco and Forelli families are fighting over territory, City Hall is corrupt, and Toni's own mother puts out hits on him. From there it's a climb from foot soldier to the man who runs the city for the Leones.

The map resembles GTA III, adjusted for 1998: some buildings are still under construction, others are already gone. Motorcycles, outfit changes and more interiors were added. There are no planes, and helicopters can only be used through glitches. The GTA III events that LCS leads into were re-released by Rockstar in Trilogy – The Definitive Edition, alongside Vice City and San Andreas. To compare with a later Liberty City, look at Chinatown Wars, where the city is from the GTA IV era.

At launch the PS2 version cost roughly half as much as the PSP one, because it lacked custom music playback. The PS2 version also lost multiplayer: on PSP up to six people can play over local Wi-Fi in seven modes, while the PS2 and mobile versions have no such mode.

In 2017 the ESRB rated Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories for PS4, and players expected PS2 Classics re-releases. They never came, on PS4 or PS5.

The mobile version is an enhanced port: touch controls, real-time lighting, high-resolution textures and a longer draw distance. It came out on iOS on December 17, 2015, and on Android in February 2016. Both versions are published by Rockstar Games itself.

The sales model has changed. On the App Store and Google Play the game is now a free download, and you can play it for up to 30 minutes, a one-time trial per user. After that you buy the full game with a one-time in-app purchase, with no time limit. The stores don't show the exact price of that purchase on the game page: you see it in the game itself, and it depends on your country.

Data as of October 31, 2026. Look for the developer Rockstar Games: the stores are full of clones and "cheat apps" with GTA logos that have nothing to do with Rockstar. Don't install APKs from unofficial sites; that's the easiest way to pick up malware.

On October 19, 2023, Rockstar added Liberty City Stories and Chinatown Wars to the game library of its GTA+ subscription. GTA+ members play the full mobile version without buying it: you sign into the game with the Rockstar Games account linked to the subscription. You can subscribe on PlayStation, Xbox or PC; on consoles LCS isn't available through GTA+, only on phones and tablets.

GTA+ costs $7.99 a month. The subscription's game library rotates, so check the current list on the GTA+ page on Rockstar's site before subscribing: as of October 31, 2026, LCS is in it.

There's no official PC version: Rockstar never released one, and the game isn't on Steam or Rockstar Games Launcher. Searches like "Liberty City Stories PC edition" lead to fan projects that Rockstar didn't create and doesn't support. The legal options are the mobile version, or PSP or PS2 with your own disc.

The voice acting is in English. According to the App Store, the mobile version has text in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and one more language.

On PSP and PS2, cheats are entered as button combos during play, without pausing. For example, full health is L R ✕ L R □ L R on PSP (L1 R1 ✕ L1 R1 □ L1 R1 on PS2), $250,000 is L R △ L R ○ L R, and the Rhino tank is L L ← L L → △ ○. Mobile has no touch input for cheats; players enter the same combos on a connected Bluetooth controller. Save to a separate slot before using cheats: the riot and pedestrian attack cheats can't be turned off. The full table of 43 codes is on the GTA Liberty City Stories cheats page.