The 10 Greatest Missions in Grand Theft Auto History

When the game launches on November 19th, Grand Theft Auto VI is going to have a lot to live up to. The iconic gangster simulator franchise has produced some of the most iconic moments in gaming. Despite taking place in what is ostensibly an open world, GTA’s mission structure locks you into a particular setting as you try to complete the objective.

While that might sound limiting and almost antithetical to the ethos of the series, you soon realize that as the series progresses through the years, you’re not really locked into anything. Yes, most missions devolve into you “shoot X in order to acquire Y”, but how you get there is up to you. And as you move from one game to the next, the guardrails moved further and further away to the point where you might not even notice there are any. The hope is that with GTA VI, you can just punch that guy in the elevator and see where the mission goes from there.

Before we get to what many are hoping will be their “forever” game for the next several years, here’s a look back at some of the series finest moments. If you were to lay out all of the missions in the GTA series, you would get a history lesson in game design and how it has progressed from 2001 to the 2010s. And along the way, you will find that the series is equally known for its amazing set pieces ripped straight from some of the best Hollywood blockbusters and its wild takes on American culture.

10. Saint Mark’s Bistro - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was, at the time, the largest game in the series in terms of scope of what was possible and in actual mileage. But in what might be the earliest instance of a video game heat check, Rockstar sort of threw in an old map from a previous game just for one mission. In “Saint Mark’s Bistro,” CJ is tasked with eliminating Marco Forelli and family after they tried to take out Salvatore Leone. From Las Venturas, you take a plane to fly to Liberty City, head to Marco’s Bistro, and deal with the Forellis. While you can’t actually walk around the tiny part of Liberty City that Rockstar rendered for this mission, it was still a fun callback to be able to enter a location that you never were able to do in Grand Theft Auto 3.

9. Sir, Yes, Sir - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

So Colonel Juan Cortez (no relation) sends Tommy off to steal a tank from a military convoy that’s going through Little Havana. In the 1980s, the presence of the National Guard and other military units in Miami was relatively common due to civil unrest and the Mariel Boatlift. Not surprisingly, Rockstar parodied the situation by turning the soldiers into bumbling fools who fiend for donuts. But you only discover that fact after you’ve tried shooting down the army first a handful of times and failing miserably. Stealing the tank can be accomplished a number of different ways, both with or without violence, giving players a sense of freedom and discovery.

8. Caida Libre - Grand Theft Auto V

A hallmark of a classic GTA mission is one that takes you from one part of the map to another disparate area that feels like it’s worlds apart. Caida Libre achieves that by having Michael shoot down a small plane from the GTA equivalent of the Griffith Observatory while Trevor chases it down on a Sanchez bike through the outskirts of the map as it crash-lands to retrieve some documents. The absurdity of the mission is of course highlighted by Trevor’s inability to just be a normal criminal because it ends with him kidnapping the wife of the drug lord who sent them on this mission.

7. Give Me Liberty - Grand Theft Auto III

The first mission of GTA III is remarkably easy, as Claude and 8-Ball just so happen to get caught up in a Colombian cartel ambush of the police convoy they are inside of. Once they are free, they hijack a car and drive to a spot where they change out of their clothes before beginning the game in earnest. That sounds downright child’s play in 2026, but in 2001, it set the stage for everything that would come after it. Just remember to turn off the motion blur (aka “Trails”) because that was back then, and it’s even worse now.

6. Black Project - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

The mission that sums up the comic absurdity of San Andreas ends with CJ escaping a heavily guarded military base via a functioning jetpack so he can deliver it to an old-school kook on top of a desert cliff in the middle of nowhere. But before he gets there, he has to infiltrate the base and take out what should be the best and brightest that America’s military has to offer. If this were a Metal Gear Solid mission, Konami would have cut off Hideo Kojima’s funding decades before they actually did. But because this takes place in San Andreas, it’s just the natural endpoint of the escalation of craziness. The best part? There’s so much more of the game to go after this.

5. Three Leaf Clover - Grand Theft Auto IV

It’s the Heat mission. Some of GTA’s showcase missions feature scenes or shootouts that are directly cribbed from classic gangster and heist films. “Three Leaf Clover” was like a Heat appreciation post. From the sharp suits to the epic gunfights as Niko and the McCreary brothers try to survive the entirety of Liberty City’s police force, it had all the makings of an all-time classic from the jump.

4. Museum Piece/Collector’s Item/Not So Fast - Grand Theft Auto IV (and the DLC expansions)

As a solo Niko mission, “Museum Piece” isn’t all that remarkable outside of the museum setting. After all, despite performing some of the most heinous crimes by a GTA “protagonist” that would result in bigger and better consequences in previous games, Niko somehow finds a way to make his life worse afterward. But what is interesting about the mission is that you find out in the DLC expansions The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony that you end up playing “Museum Piece” again, but told through the perspective of the other characters in attendance. It’s a cool way to add to the sense of immersion that Liberty City is a character itself in GTA IV and that not everything has to revolve around Niko’s sorry state.

3. Rub Out/Keep Your Friends Close - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

In hindsight, the mid-season finale and last mission in Vice City are one and the same, just told from two perspectives through the eyes of Tommy Vercetti. In “Rub Out,” Tommy and Lance Vance are headed into the lion’s den that is Tony Montana’s Ricardo Diaz’s mansion to take him out and take over his Vice City criminal empire. In “Keep Your Friends Close,” Tommy is now in the Diaz role, and he has to contend with Sonny Forelli flying down to Vice City to collect a piece of the business and Lance stabbing him in the back. Both missions are practically tame by even San Andreas’ standards a few years later, but in 2002? This was as close to cinematic storytelling as it got in video games.

2. The Big Score - Grand Theft Auto V

The penultimate story mission and final heist in GTA V’s story mode takes you on a ride that is part Heat and part Fast and the Furious. The fact that you can take two different approaches to the mission and that you will want to try it both ways is a testament to the amazing set piece that Rockstar created, although calling one of the branching paths the “subtle approach” when you’re still taking out cops and blowing stuff is kind of funny.

Dishonorable Mention: Demolition Man - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Inarguably the worst of the worst GTA mission ever made is this clunker where you have to control an RC helicopter in an era when nobody had properly figured out flying using dual analog sticks and shoulder buttons. I would not be shocked to learn that people quit this game after hours of failing to get the flight controls down.

1. End Of The Line - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

The first time I played “End Of The Line,” my heart rate was probably approaching or was at unsafe levels about 20 minutes in. With every passing section, I was worried that any screw-up could force me to once again start the mission from scratch. Thankfully, I realized that Rockstar broke up the San Andreas finale into three parts, so I no longer had to worry about listening to Smoke monologue about being untouchable or whatever.

After taking over Los Santos, San Fierro, Las Venturas, and everything in between in San Andreas, CJ returns home to make things right and to take out Smoke, the traitorous Grove Street members, and Officer Tenpenny (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson). The last sequence where you’re chasing Tenpenny in a fire truck takes you back to the areas you explored at the beginning of the game, but in an entirely new context of the city being on fire. That might not work in other games, but it's flawlessly executed in San Andreas, right down to Tenpenny doing his best Alonzo Harris impression before it’s lights out.

Juan Martinez

From video game journalism to veteran of the sneaker blog era to podcasting about well, everything, Juan is smiling through it all and can't believe this is his life. His current hot take is that people are really underrating the Psyduck trading card market. Email: juan@soleretriever.com Instagram | Twitter | Bluesky | Threads : @ezyville