GameRant and Écran Large rank every GTA game ahead of GTA VI — GTA V and San Andreas still set the bar
GameRant and Écran Large both published a full ranking of the GTA saga within 24 hours, ahead of GTA VI's November 19 release. GameRant puts the disastrous Trilogy remaster last and GTA 5 third; Écran Large crowns GTA V number one ahead of GTA IV and San Andreas. Neither outlet is ready to say where GTA VI belongs — that will be decided on launch day.
The pre-launch ritual returns
With GTA VI due on November 19 — eleven weeks away — the gaming press is doing what it always does when a landmark Rockstar release approaches: arguing about the past. Within the space of twenty-four hours, two outlets published complete rankings of the Grand Theft Auto saga. GameRant updated its exhaustive worst-to-best list on the night of September 5, and French culture and gaming site Écran Large ran its own thirteen-entry countdown on September 6, timed to the wait for GTA 6's "official release, still planned for November 19, 2026."
Both lists reach a similar verdict before GTA VI even joins the table: the 3D-era classics — GTA V, San Andreas, Vice City — remain the games to beat, and the series' celebrated run leaves any newcomer an enormous bar to clear. GameRant's authors put it bluntly: Rockstar "hasn't dropped a bad entry yet," and GTA 6 "will need to be an all-time great to rank above the likes of San Andreas and GTA 5."
GameRant: the Trilogy in the cellar, GTA 5 in the top three
GameRant's ranking, updated on September 5 by Mark Sammut — who also added a dedicated GTA 6 section recapping the Extended Look — climbs from the bottom up. Dead last sits Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition, the 2021 remaster bundle the article treats as one of the most disastrous launches in Rockstar's history, a package whose dated visuals, bugs and altered soundtrack dragged three classics down with it. From there the list rises through the original top-down GTA (with the London 1969 and 1961 expansions discussed along the way), GTA Advance, GTA 2, Vice City Stories, Liberty City Stories, and Chinatown Wars, singled out as the best version of classic GTA.
The 3D golden age fills the upper reaches: GTA III "changed gaming forever," Vice City improved on it in nearly every way, and GTA 5 takes third place, thirteen years and three console generations after it first shipped. The update's GTA 6 section is careful not to rank the newcomer early. It sticks to what the Extended Look showed — a wanted system that remembers your car, plates and clothes, San Andreas-style body management, activities from kayaking to alligator hunting — while acknowledging the fear that GTA 6 might disappoint, "even if that has more to do with insane expectations than a perceived lack of quality."
Écran Large: from London 1969 to Los Santos
Écran Large, which notes that the franchise has now sold more than 470 million copies, orders all thirteen of its entries from worst to best. The bottom belongs to the series' pre-history: London 1969, dismissed as a derivative mission pack, GTA 2, the Game Boy Advance oddity GTA Advance, then the 1997 original. The PSP interlude follows — Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories land mid-table — before Chinatown Wars, defended as one of the most underrated games in the saga, and GTA Online, ranked sixth as "the maddest GTA," a roleplay phenomenon that has kept Los Santos alive for more than a decade.
The top five is where the French outlet stops debating: GTA III for turning the city into a character of its own, Vice City for its timeless Miami-Vice atmosphere and Ray Liotta's voice, San Andreas for its post-1992 Los Angeles grounding and CJ's charisma, GTA IV for what the article calls the most captivating story in the series, and GTA V for the three-protagonist heist machine that defined a generation.
Same podium, different order
The two lists disagree on details — Écran Large places GTA IV second and gives GTA Online a real spot at number six, a game GameRant treats as an annex of GTA 5 — but the shared judgments are striking. Both outlets bury the London expansions and GTA Advance; both rescue Chinatown Wars from obscurity; both treat the 2001-2004 run of GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas as the creative peak; both refuse to let the Trilogy remaster tarnish the originals. And GTA V, wherever it lands, is never far from the summit.
The seat reserved for GTA VI
No ranking published in September 2026 can answer the only question that matters to fans: where does the sixth entry belong? GameRant frames it as the ultimate test — an all-time great, worthy of sitting with San Andreas and GTA 5. Écran Large simply leaves the chair empty until launch day. Between now and November 19, the arguments over Claude, Tommy, CJ, Niko, Michael, Franklin and Trevor are the warm-up act. On launch day, GTA VI gets its turn to be judged.
