The closest games to Grand Theft Auto V are Red Dead Redemption 2, Saints Row IV and Sleeping Dogs. Below, 9 picks with the reason for each — what carries over from Grand Theft Auto V, and what does not.
GTA V's real innovation is the three-character switch — the camera pulls out and drops you somewhere else in Los Santos mid-heist, and the city carries on without you either way. The campaign is the studio's most cynical writing and its best-engineered set pieces, and GTA Online is where almost everyone actually is.
Also written as GTA, GTA 5, GTA V, Grand Theft Auto 5, Grand Theft Auto — this is the same game, and the same list applies however you spell it.
Grand Theft Auto V released on the PC & Modern Multi-Platform. The list below is not restricted to that console — a recommendation is only useful if you can actually play it, so it spans generations and platforms.
The same studio's other open world, slower and far better written.
The absurd end of the genre, where the superpowers replace the driving.
Hong Kong, the best hand-to-hand in any open-world crime game.
San Francisco, hacking as the traversal, and unusually cheerful.
A linear crime story with none of the sandbox, and better for it.
The most convincing city in any game, after Phantom Liberty.
If the chaos rather than the story was the appeal.
A crime story with far more heart, and the best side content in games.
Rockstar's shooting at its very best, without the open world.
Several of these have their own page here: games like Just Cause 4, games like Max Payne 3.
Red Dead Redemption 2. The same studio's other open world, slower and far better written.
Red Dead Redemption 2, Saints Row IV and Sleeping Dogs are the closest. The full list of Grand Theft Auto V similar games is on this page — 9 of them, each with the reason it is here rather than a genre tag that happens to match.
Yes — Just Cause 4 is catalogued on the PC here. The PC list further down has more from that library.
Because the thing you liked about Grand Theft Auto V is not a property of the hardware. Restricting the list to one console would drop most of the good answers, so the picks above span platforms and eras. If you specifically want more from that library, the PC list further down is the place to start.
By hand, one game at a time, on what the source game actually does — its pacing, its movement, its difficulty, its tone. Genre tags alone put Grand Theft Auto V next to games that feel nothing like it, so they are not the basis for this list. Each pick carries the reason it is here so you can judge it yourself.
No. The whole list is on this page, free, with no sign-in and no email. We earn a small affiliate commission if you buy through a retailer link, which is what pays for the site.
If you already know what kind of answer you want, these are the same list cut by genre — and each one says what it leaves out as well as what it includes:
More from the PC & Modern Multi-Platform library, each with its own recommendations page: