GTA Timeline Explained: Every Universe, Story and Year From GTA III to GTA 6

Grand Theft Auto VI finally returns the series to Vice City on November 19, 2026, and one question keeps coming up as the launch gets closer: how does it all connect? This guide has the full GTA timeline explained, from the top-down 2D games of the late 1990s to Tommy Vercetti, CJ, Niko Bellic and the GTA V trio, and finally Jason and Lucia in Leonida. You will learn why Rockstar splits the series into three separate universes, the in-universe year of every story, which characters cross over between games, and where GTA 6 most likely fits.

We stick to what the games and Rockstar itself have established. Where something is only assumed by fans, we clearly label it as speculation.

⚠️ Spoiler Warning ⚠️ This article spoils the stories and endings of GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, the Stories games, GTA IV and GTA V.

🚗 Quick Facts: The GTA Timeline in a Nutshell

• Three continuities, the 2D, 3D and HD universes. Stories and characters never cross between them, only brands, place names and radio or background personalities do
• 2D universe, Grand Theft Auto (1997), the London 1969 and London 1961 expansions and GTA 2 (1999)
• 3D universe, GTA III, Vice City, GTA Advance, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories, set between 1984 and 2001
• HD universe, GTA IV and its two episodes, Chinatown Wars, GTA V and GTA Online, set from 2008 onward
• GTA 6, set in present day Vice City and the state of Leonida, launching November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Rockstar has not officially said which universe it belongs to

🌐 GTA Universes Explained: Why There Are Three Timelines

Grand Theft Auto is not one long continuous story. Rockstar explained the setup in a Newswire Q&A for the tenth anniversary of GTA III in 2011: the series’ worlds are “interpreted at different definitions”, 2D, 3D and high definition. Fans and wikis therefore speak of the 2D, 3D and HD universes, each named after the graphics era it started in.

The rule is simple. Brands, city names and radio or background characters can exist in more than one universe, but fully realized story characters cannot. That is why Liberty City exists in GTA III and GTA IV, but they are two different versions of the city, and Claude from GTA III could never meet Niko Bellic. The same goes for the many shared jokes and brands, such as the radio host Lazlow, who is heard across both 3D and HD games and even appears on screen in GTA V, or the Epsilon Program cult, which is teased in San Andreas, mentioned in GTA IV and gets its own mission strand in GTA V.

🕹️ The 2D Universe: Where It All Began (1997 to 1999)

The original Grand Theft Auto from 1997, developed by DMA Design (today Rockstar North), introduced the three cities that still define the series: Liberty City, San Andreas and Vice City, all seen from a top-down view. Two expansions followed in 1999, GTA: London 1969 and GTA: London 1961, the only time the series left America for a full setting. Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999) then moved to a new location called Anywhere City.

These games are light on story, with players working for rival gangs across a sprawling map. None of their characters carry over into later games, which makes the 2D universe the easiest part of the GTA timeline to understand: it is a closed chapter.

🌴 The 3D Universe Timeline in Chronological Order

The 3D universe started with GTA III in 2001, but its stories were told out of order. Here is the GTA timeline in chronological order for this era:

1. GTA: Vice City Stories, set in 1984 (released 2006)
2. GTA: Vice City, set in 1986 (released 2002)
3. GTA: San Andreas, set in 1992 (released 2004)
4. GTA: Liberty City Stories, set in 1998 (released 2005)
5. GTA Advance, set in 2000 (released 2004)
6. GTA III, set in 2001 (released 2001)

🎖️ 1984: Vice City Stories and the Rise of Victor Vance

The earliest story in the 3D universe follows Victor “Vic” Vance, a corporal stationed at Fort Baxter in Vice City. To pay for the medication of his asthmatic brother Pete, Vic gets pulled into the side business of his corrupt superior, Sergeant Jerry Martinez. Martinez frames him, and Vic is dishonorably discharged.

On the streets, Vic teams up with the gunrunner Phil Cassidy, kills the abusive gang leader Marty Jay Williams and takes over his operations, building what becomes the Vance Crime Family together with his brother Lance Vance. Their rise brings them into conflict with the drug lords Armando and Diego Mendez, and they also work with a rising drug baron named Ricardo Diaz. In the finale, Vic kills Martinez and Diego Mendez, but Phil’s sister Louise Cassidy-Williams dies from her injuries after being kidnapped. Vic refuses Lance’s idea of one more drug deal, and the brothers leave Vice City.

🔫 1986: GTA Vice City Story Recap, Tommy Vercetti’s Empire

Two years later, Vic’s story ends in the opening cutscene of GTA: Vice City. He is killed when Ricardo Diaz’s gunmen ambush a drug deal, the same deal that brings our next protagonist to town. That is the darkest connection in the 3D universe: the hero of the prequel dies in the first minutes of the original game.

The new lead is Tommy Vercetti, voiced by Ray Liotta, a mobster just released after 15 years in prison. His boss Sonny Forelli sends him from Liberty City to Vice City to oversee the deal with crooked lawyer Ken Rosenberg. After the ambush, Tommy has lost both the drugs and the money and has to win them back. He gets help from Lance Vance, who lost his brother Vic in the same attack, and from Colonel Juan Garcia Cortez.

Tommy and Lance eventually discover that Diaz was behind the ambush. They storm his mansion and kill him, and Tommy takes over his empire, buying up businesses across the city as fronts. When Sonny Forelli comes to Vice City to collect his share, the truth comes out: Lance had betrayed Tommy to the Forellis. In the final shootout, Tommy kills both Lance and Sonny and becomes the undisputed ruler of Vice City.

Tommy Vercetti in front of the Ocean View hotel, his first base in 1986 Vice City.

🏘️ 1992: San Andreas and CJ’s Return to Grove Street

GTA: San Andreas moves the story to the West Coast in 1992. Carl “CJ” Johnson returns to Los Santos after five years in Liberty City because his mother has been killed in a drive-by shooting. Right after his arrival, corrupt officer Frank Tenpenny and his C.R.A.S.H. unit threaten to pin a murder on him, forcing CJ into years of dirty work.

CJ rebuilds the Grove Street Families with his brother Sweet, his sister Kendl and his friends Big Smoke and Ryder, until he learns that Smoke and Ryder have betrayed the gang to Tenpenny and the Ballas and were involved in his mother’s death. The story then spreads across the whole state, from the countryside to San Fierro and Las Venturas, with allies like Cesar Vialpando, the blind Triad leader Wu Zi Mu and the mysterious Mike Toreno, who turns out to be an undercover government agent. In the end, CJ kills Big Smoke, and Tenpenny dies when he crashes a fire truck off a bridge above Grove Street.

San Andreas is also the game that ties the 3D universe together. Ken Rosenberg, Tommy’s lawyer from Vice City, shows up in Las Venturas at the Mafia-run Caligula’s Palace casino, where Salvatore Leone from Liberty City also appears. CJ even meets Catalina, Cesar’s cousin, who later leaves with a silent man for Liberty City. That man is Claude, the protagonist of GTA III, who loses two street races to CJ, including the deed to a garage in San Fierro’s Doherty district. Claude’s name is first used in a game here.

CJ and the Grove Street Families in 1992 Los Santos.

🍝 1998 and 2000: Liberty City Stories and GTA Advance

Liberty City Stories is set in 1998, three years before GTA III, in an earlier version of the same Liberty City. Toni Cipriani, a character first introduced in GTA III, returns after four years abroad, where he had to hide after killing a made man. He works his way back up under Don Salvatore Leone, battles rival families like the Sindaccos and Forellis, deals with billionaire Donald Love and the Yakuza, and helps stop a Sicilian plot against the Leones. By the end, the Leones control Liberty City and Toni is promoted to caporegime.

The Game Boy Advance title GTA Advance takes place in 2000, one year before GTA III. Its protagonist Mike sets out to avenge his partner Vinnie, who seems to have died in a car bomb. In truth, Vinnie faked his death, and Mike ends up killing him at the end of the game.

🌉 2001: GTA III, Claude and the End of the 3D Era

GTA III is the last story in the 3D timeline, even though it came first. During a bank robbery in Liberty City, the silent protagonist Claude is shot and left for dead by his girlfriend, Catalina, the same woman who ran off with him at the end of his San Andreas cameo. He survives, escapes a prison transfer with the explosives expert 8-Ball and starts working for the Leone family.

Midway through the story, Salvatore Leone tries to have Claude killed, and Claude kills him in return on behalf of Yakuza co-leader Asuka Kasen. He also takes jobs from familiar faces such as Donald Love and Toni Cipriani. Catalina, now leading the Colombian Cartel, kidnaps Salvatore’s widow Maria and demands a ransom. In the finale, Claude shoots down Catalina’s helicopter and frees Maria. As they walk away, Maria’s complaining is cut off by a gunshot, an ending Rockstar has deliberately left open.

Other recurring faces make the 3D universe feel like one connected world. Phil Cassidy, for example, appears in GTA III, Vice City and Vice City Stories, while Donald Love appears in both GTA III and Liberty City Stories.

🏙️ The HD Universe: GTA IV and Episodes From Liberty City (2008)

With GTA IV in 2008, Rockstar started over. The HD universe has its own, completely new Liberty City, and each major game is set around the year it was released. Niko Bellic, a former soldier from Eastern Europe, arrives to join his cousin Roman, who had promised him the American Dream. Secretly, Niko is also hunting the man who betrayed his unit years earlier, who turns out to be Darko Brevic.

Niko works for the Russian mobster Mikhail Faustin, is betrayed by Dimitri Rascalov, befriends Packie McReary of the Irish mob and ends up working with the Mafia boss Jimmy Pegorino. The game ends with a choice. In the Deal ending, Niko works with Dimitri, who betrays him again, and Roman is killed at his own wedding. In the Revenge ending, Niko kills Dimitri, and Packie’s sister Kate McReary is killed instead.

The two expansions, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony (2009, later bundled as Episodes from Liberty City), tell parallel stories in the same 2008 city. Johnny Klebitz of The Lost motorcycle club and Luis Fernando Lopez, bodyguard of nightclub owner Tony Prince, cross paths with Niko during a chaotic diamond deal that links all three stories. Chinatown Wars (2009), starring Huang Lee, uses the same Liberty City setting but tells an otherwise separate story.

Niko Bellic opened the HD universe with a completely new Liberty City.

💰 2004 to 2013: GTA V Story Recap and Its Three Endings

GTA V opens with a prologue in 2004 in Ludendorff, North Yankton, where a robbery by Michael Townley, Trevor Philips and Brad Snider goes wrong. Michael is believed dead. In reality, he has a secret deal with FIB agent Dave Norton and lives in Los Santos under the name Michael De Santa.

The main story takes place in 2013. Michael meets the young repo man Franklin Clinton, and Trevor eventually tracks his old partner down. Pushed by the drug lord Martin Madrazo, corrupt FIB agent Steve Haines and billionaire Devin Weston, the trio pulls off a string of heists. In the end, Franklin chooses between three options: kill Trevor, kill Michael, or the Deathwish option, where all three survive and take out their enemies together.

GTA V also proves that the HD games share one world. Johnny Klebitz from The Lost and Damned appears in GTA V, where Trevor kills him in the mission “Mr. Philips”. Packie McReary from GTA IV can be met in a random event and recruited as a gunman for heists.

Trevor Philips in Blaine County, where his first mission links GTA V directly to GTA IV.

🤔 Which GTA V Ending Is Canon? What GTA Online Reveals

Rockstar has never formally declared a canon ending for GTA V. However, GTA Online, which launched on October 1, 2013 in the same world, treats Deathwish as what happened. Trevor is referenced in later Online content, and Franklin returns years later in The Contract (December 2021), running his celebrity agency F. Clinton and Partner alongside Lamar Davis and Dr. Dre. In December 2025, Michael De Santa himself returned in the update A Safehouse in the Hills. If all three are still alive, the Deathwish ending is the only one that fits.

🌅 Where Does GTA 6 Fit in the GTA Timeline?

Officially, GTA VI is set in present day Vice City and the surrounding state of Leonida. Its protagonists are Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, whose full names Rockstar revealed with Trailer 2 in May 2025. According to Rockstar’s official character bios, Lucia ended up in the Leonida Penitentiary after fighting for her family, while Jason served in the Army and then worked for local drug runners in the Keys. Rockstar’s premise sees the pair caught in a criminal conspiracy across Leonida after an easy score goes wrong.

What Rockstar has not done is officially place GTA VI in a universe. The following is the widely shared assumption, not a confirmed fact. Because GTA VI is set in the present day, like GTA IV and GTA V were in their release years, most fans expect it to be part of the HD universe. Following Rockstar’s own 2011 logic, that would make it a new, third version of Vice City, separate from the 1980s city of the 2002 game. Tommy Vercetti’s story would then not be part of GTA VI’s history, and any nods to the old games, such as familiar names or brands, would be easter eggs rather than proof of a shared timeline.

Whether Michael, Franklin or Trevor could show up in Leonida is pure speculation for now. Rockstar has revealed a number of new characters, and actor Stephen Root has confirmed a role in the game, widely believed to be Brian Heder, as we reported when Stephen Root broke Rockstar’s silence on the GTA 6 cast. For everything Rockstar showed of Leonida so far, read our GTA 6 Extended Look recap.

Leonida, the “sunniest place in America” and the setting of GTA VI.

📋 The Full GTA Timeline at a Glance

• 2D universe, GTA (1997), London 1969 and London 1961, GTA 2
• 1984, Vice City Stories (Victor Vance)
• 1986, Vice City (Tommy Vercetti)
• 1992, San Andreas (Carl Johnson)
• 1998, Liberty City Stories (Toni Cipriani)
• 2000, GTA Advance (Mike)
• 2001, GTA III (Claude)
• 2004, GTA V prologue in North Yankton
• 2008, GTA IV, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony (Niko, Johnny, Luis)
• 2009, Chinatown Wars (Huang Lee)
• 2013, GTA V main story (Michael, Franklin, Trevor), followed by GTA Online
• Present day, GTA VI (Jason and Lucia), universe not officially confirmed

❓ Quick Questions About the GTA Timeline

Is GTA 6 connected to GTA Vice City?
Not as far as Rockstar has confirmed. Both are set in Vice City, but the 2002 game belongs to the 3D universe, and Rockstar’s rule says 3D characters do not exist in the newer continuity.

Is GTA 6 in the same universe as GTA 5?
Most likely, but it is not officially confirmed. Fans expect it to be part of the HD universe because it is set in the present day.

Do I need to play the old games before GTA 6?
No. Every GTA tells a self-contained story, and GTA VI introduces new protagonists in a new state.

Is Claude from GTA III in San Andreas?
Yes. He appears in a short cameo, races CJ and leaves for Liberty City with Catalina, setting up GTA III.

What is the first GTA in the timeline?
Within the 3D universe, Vice City Stories (1984) is the earliest. Within the HD universe, the GTA V prologue (2004) is the earliest scene, while GTA IV (2008) is the first main story.

Which GTA V ending is canon?
Rockstar never said so officially, but GTA Online brings back Franklin and Michael and references Trevor, which only fits the Deathwish ending.

Final Words

The GTA timeline looks confusing at first, but it follows a clear rule: three separate universes that share city names, brands and radio voices, while each keeps its own stories. The 3D era tells one connected crime saga from Victor Vance in 1984 to Claude in 2001, and the HD era links Niko, Johnny, Luis and the GTA V trio in one modern world. With GTA VI taking us back to Vice City on November 19, a new chapter begins, and whatever its connections turn out to be, Jason and Lucia’s story is built to stand on its own.

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Picture Source: Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto VI), Rockstar Games (Vice City), Rockstar Games (San Andreas), Rockstar Games (GTA IV), Rockstar Games (GTA V)