Inducted Year: 2016
Grand Theft Auto III’s vast open world made it famous while its mature content made it infamous.
It wasn’t the first 3-D “sandbox” game to allow players to freely interact with an open virtual world, or even the first game in its juggernaut franchise. But the 2001 game was the first of its kind to achieve massive mainstream popularity and widespread critical acclaim by appealing to millions of players who relished the freedom to push the boundaries of what their in-game characters could do in an open world.