Grand Theft Auto 5 is an inescapable popular culture powerhouse. One of the best-selling games of all time, it brought the world a trio of unforgettable protagonists, a supporting cast of fascinating personalities from Lemar to Lester, and absurd setpieces. From the biggest heists to Michael pulling down the house he believes to belong to the tennis coach (but is actually Martin Madrazo's), it's ambitious, iconic action from start to finish. That's not even to mention the fact that Grand Theft Auto Online is still going strong all these years later. Huge as its map may be, though, there are titles from across the ages that are much bigger, in terms of their influence on the genre as a whole.
5 Best Mobile Games Like GTA
For handheld gamers looking to get their GTA fix, these are some like-minded games that emulate Rockstar's million-dollar franchise.
The Grand Theft Auto franchise has changed considerably across releases, and the upcoming GTA 6 is an even bigger phenomenon still, just waiting to land. In the meantime, though, these titles may not have gigantic open-world maps, but they transformed the industry in an even more ambitious way.
5 Tetris
The Defining Puzzle Game
No, there's no vast city to speed around in Tetris. Side quests and character development are all but entirely absent too. Nonetheless, this puzzler is a true titan, and was pivotal in transforming the industry around it. Grand Theft Auto 5 was a wonderful refinement of an existing open-world adventure concept, but the original launch of Tetris marked something entirely new.
One of the simplest and most accessible concepts in gaming history, both dedicated gamers and those who had never touched a system in their lives could intuitively tell exactly what they had to do. Doing it effectively, meanwhile, is something that players can steadily improve at over the course of a whole lifetime, and the experience is constantly evolving with new editions adding a wealth of modes and replayability to the core concept. Thanks to the Game Boy bundle, millions around the world got their first taste of video games with this title, and what a transformative experience it was.
4 Wii Sports
Another Blockbuster Bundle-In Game
It's always appreciated when a console is released with a pack-in game. Sometimes it's a bit of a tech demo, other times it's a full-scale release, such as the versions of the Sega Genesis that retailed with Altered Beast thrown in. What was the title that Nintendo trusted to be millions' first impression of the Wii? Wii Sports, one of the brand's most important games ever.
8 Nintendo Wii Games That Have Aged The Best, Ranked
Thanks to their unique gameplay and aesthetics, these Nintendo Wii games are still extremely fun and satisfying to play.
Of course, there's no denying that Grand Theft Auto 5 is an infinitely more robust package in terms of content. It's still one of the most sophisticated open-world experiences the industry has ever seen. In terms of the scope of everything it represents, though, Wii Sports was an entirely different level of phenomenon. It's Nintendo's own modus operandi in playable form, in a way: A slice of pure fun that can get whole families and communities playing together, controlled through an innovative new means that would help to shape the industry's audience and power its growth among different demographics. Rockstar's effort certainly struck a chord with many who wouldn't typically consider themselves gamers too, but the two games did so in rather different ways.
3 Minecraft
It Seems The World Will Never Stop Digging
In a lot of open world titles, such as Grand Theft Auto 5, the experience revolves around largely doing whatever you like in the vast world provided. You can follow the campaign, in which the aforementioned house destruction leads Michael (plus Franklin and Trevor by extension) back into a life of crime. You can, instead, leave all that behind to complete sidequests and activities in singleplayer, or race or engage in other coop or competitive modes in multiplayer. You can even just relax by driving along the roads of Los Santos with the radio playing. Non-Stop-Pop FM is full of the perfect earworms for that. Minecraft is an entirely different breed, however. In this title, you are instead crafting your own playground, and have an extraordinary amount of options and resources with which to do so.
The Minecraft phenomenon has grown to include everything from plastic sword replicas to releases on almost every system possible. Its gigantic audience hasn't appreciated every update and new feature the game has added over the years, but has largely remained committed to the cause throughout. There's an almost unparalleled level of freedom here that resonates with seemingly everybody, as is demonstrated by the fact that it tops Grand Theft Auto 5 by an enormous margin as the (at the time of writing) best-selling video game of all time.
2 Super Mario 64
Perhaps The Most Influential 3D Platformer Ever
Typically, you have to go quite some distance back through the industry's history to find a title that tops the impact that Rockstar's mighty Grand Theft Auto 5 had. 1996's Super Mario 64 is one of the oldest titles in this rundown, and it managed to achieve just that. It's not about sales records or the size of the in-game world, metrics by which GTA wins in no uncertain terms, but what the title meant to the development of video games more broadly.
8 Best Games Only Available On The Nintendo 64, Ranked
These fantastic titles are only playable on the N64, but deserve to be ported to modern hardware.
How has Super Mario 64 aged? That depends who you ask, and it certainly suffers with the same errant camera that negatively impacted so many of the first wave of 3D titles. Nonetheless, it was a masterpiece that would establish vital series conventions to be built upon, and it was a blast to simply experiment with Mario's arsenal of jumps to see where they could take you in each of the game's varied and vibrant worlds.
1 Fortnite
The Reigning Meme Champion Of The Industry
We see so many different online games come and go. Some attract a huge amount of attention, helped along by streamers and YouTubers, and then slowly fade away. Some may have expected this to have happened to Fortnite by now, but it seems there's just no escaping it. Fortnite wasn't the game that ultimately launched the battle royale concept, as that was actually PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, but it has risen to define the genre. Grand Theft Auto 5 was a fantastic refinement rather than a revolution in that regard. Collaborating with just about every franchise and celebrity you could conceive of, the cachet of this battle royale blaster is unrivaled, really.
Just as with Minecraft, it's transcended gaming to be a multimedia phenomenon. It has also naturally transformed in all kinds of ways since its introduction, with new fan favorites being added and old ones being consigned to the vault (down to the Fall Guys Crown Jam mode). The creative building/blasting concept, however you feel about it all these years later, really brought something new.
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Peely has become one of the most iconic mascots in Fortnite, and his library of incredible banana skins speaks for themselves.