The GTA saga has been one of those videogame sagas that changed the gaming world and opened many doors for those game developers with not-so-politically correct ideas that wanted to release their projects but weren’t sure about the market wants at that time.
The GTA project has changed over the years. What started being just a kill-and-steal game with not so much story to talk about ended up being a great platform to send a harsh critique about politics, the American dream, and the only way some people have to follow only to have something to eat.
Thanks to this criticism, and the creativity around these stories, we found ourselves submerged in a compendium of stories attached. There are a lot of theories about these stories and the characters that link them. Still, there’s an official one (even approved by Rockstar) that unifies all the games between universes.
The “Multiuniverse” Theory and its Chronological Order
The Rockstar-approved theory says there are three universes in the GTA saga; the 2D universe, the 3D universe, and the HD universe.
However, these universes aren’t linked to each other, even when some elements appear in simultaneous universes, like Claude Speed, who appears in GTA 2 in the 2D universe and is the GTA III’s protagonist, or other small elements that work more like an easter egg than a real link between universes.
In other words, the same thing that appears in, an example, the 2D universe, and the 3D universe aren’t the same.
The universes in the GTA History and chronology, are divided like this:
- 2D Universe: This universe starts with the expansions of GTA, which are GTA: London 1961 and 1969 (that develops in the years 1961 and 1969, respectively), then continues with GTA (1997) and GTA 2 (1999).
- 3D Universe: The 3D universe starts with GTA: Vice City Stories (1984), then follows GTA: Vice City (1986), GTA: San Andreas (1992), GTA: Liberty City Stories (1998), GTA Advance (2000), and ends with GTA III (2001).
- HD Universe: The HD universe’s chronological line starts with the first mission of GTA V, Prologue, which happened in 2004. Then, GTA IV, alongside its DLCs (The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony) (2008). Then, we have GTA: Chinatown Wars (2009). We don’t have activities in the GTA saga until GTA Online (2013) and, shortly after, GTA V (also in 2013). Also, the GTA Online DLCs have their order in the timeline, but they follow the same year as their release date.
Now that we have a certain order of the GTA saga’s distribution and how their stories work, it’s time to dig into these three timelines. Let’s go!
2D Universe
This first universe is known for not having lore or a story, as the first GTAs aimed to create an arcade game instead of giving the gamers a story to follow.
Therefore, chronologically, there’s not much to talk about this game besides including some concepts that are still used these days in the HD universe.
GTA London 1961 & 1969
The 2D Universe’s timeline starts with the two GTA expansions: GTA London 1961 & 1969. These two aren’t games by themselves, as you needed to have GTA installed on your PC to play these. The expansions got released for free on GTAs webpage in 1999.
GTA London 1961 takes place in Manchester, while London 1969 takes place in London. You’ll have a set of missions in both games with a not-so-much story, besides stealing cars, killing people, etc.
These two don’t have much to tell, so let’s continue.
GTA
In the first GTA of all, which takes place in 1997, we can choose the aspect and name of our protagonist, who will be doing some gigs for some gangsters among three fictional cities that you probably know: Liberty City, San Andreas, and Vice City.
You may think GTA’s cities are the same as those in the 3D universe or the HD universe, but that’s not true. None of the universes share the exact maps between games; they have slight changes.
And about the plot, your main character’s objective is to get to the top of the criminals by working alongside them while escalating and creating a name in this world for them. The game starts in Liberty City, where you are helping a gangster named Robert Seragliano (AKA Bubby) by doing some missions like stealing cars and killing some objectives. You’ll be working with Bubby until you take his rivals down. At that moment, the police force is looking for you, and, as a reward for a great job, Bubby sent you to San Andreas.
After working with Bubby, you’ll be working for several criminals and cops like Uncle Fu (leader of a Chinese Syndicate), Samuel Deever (a cop who extortionate you like the Tenpenny-style), Brother Marcus (a rasta, leader of Brotherhood of Jah Army of Love) and El Burro (a Mexican-American drug dealer) until the game ends.
There’s not much to comment about this game besides some concepts that have been on GTA since here, like the maps and some locations.
Here’s our complete GTA I overview article.
GTA 2
After GTAs happenings, GTA 2 got released shortly after. It took place in an unknown place that never appeared again named Anywhere City. We control Claude Speed, a criminal trying to build a name in the streets.
There’s no specific way to exactly know the year this game takes place because it has a retrofuturistic aspect. There are some hints in the game that led us to think that the game was set in 2013. Still, there are also hints (like references to the new Millenium and the Y2K bug mentioned on the radio) that make me think it was set in its release year, 1999.
There’s not much lore on this game besides the protagonist running through the city, stealing cars, killing objectives, and setting bombs on places—the usual thing in the 2D universe.
There are two interesting facts about this game; it has an opening and ending scene recorded by actors, where we can see how Claude dies. These two scenes were recorded in New York in 1999. Also, this is the only GTA game with no cutscenes; there’s not much lore available here.
That’s the end of the 2D universe. With the release of GTA III, the universe resets entirely and starts a new one, known as the 3D universe, the one with the most story to tell.
3D Universe
We left behind the sprites of the 2D universe to get into big maps displayed as sandbox games. This universe is called 3D because the characters left the sprite-look behind to transform into 3D models.
Let’s start with this universe, as there are a lot of elements to cover.
GTA: Vice City Stories
The 3D universe starts with Vice City Stories, which takes place in 1984. The story begins with Victor Vance, a solder, who gets kicked out of the army as his Sargeant, Jerry Martinez, uses him to deal drugs and bring prostitutes to the barracks.
Victor was in the army to help his brother with his asthma treatment, so getting kicked out made Vic try to survive and help his family, no matter what he had to do. Also, the problems didn’t end there, as Victor also had an enemy behind him, his Sargeant Martinez, who wanted to kill Victor to cover himself against any accusation.
With that in mind, Victor, alongside his brother Lance Vance, started to work to get money and revenge.
Victor found his revenge by killing Martinez while working with world-class drug dealers like Ricardo Díaz. Still, the harsh drug world ended almost killing both Vance brothers, so they decided to retire, stealing a big amount of drugs for using it only to sell when they needed the money in case they wanted to get into the drug deal empire again.
GTA: Vice City
The next game in the timeline is Vice City, which takes place in 1986 and, at the purest, The Grandfather-style shows us Tommy Vercetti’s story. A gangster (sent by the Forelli Family’s leader, Sonny Forelli) recently got out of prison to be part of a drug deal between Victor and Lance Vance, with the company of a lawyer named Ken Rosenberg and two other security guards.
But, the drug deal went wrong as an unknown drug dealer set up an ambush. As a result, Vic Vance died, Lance ran away, Ken and Tommy, and the ambushers stole both the money and the drug.
The ambush made Sonny Forelli get very angry, and now Tommy has an enormous debt to pay. So Tommy starts investigating the situation while meeting other drug dealers of Vice City, like the aforementioned Ricardo Díaz or Juan Cortéz, and other dangerous names around the city.
Tommy and Lance met thanks to some mutual contacts, and they started working together. That was how the couple got to know the ambush setter, none other than Ricardo Díaz. The problem was that Ricardo was such a big objective to take down in a day, so they planned to get infiltrated his forces and get him as an ally to break his whole empire from the inside.
After a lot of chaos because of Lance losing his patience and blowing his cover-up, the couple got Ricardo down and took all his business. But power blinded Tommy, and he had several discussions with Lance because Tommy started putting Lance aside, making him feel unappreciated. Meanwhile, the problems got ahead as Sonny went to look for his money. Lance betrayed Tommy and got to work with Sonny, so Tommy had to kill both his old friend and Sonny.
After the chaos, Tommy took all the money. He ran away, letting Ken Rosenberg be responsible for all of Tommy’s business in Vice City.
GTA: San Andreas
Our next stop in the GTA timeline is in 1992, in San Andreas, where Carl Johnson (also known as CJ) arrived in Los Santos after knowing that his mother got killed.
There’s an introduction video that few people know about this game. Here we saw what happened to Ken Rosenberg, who got addicted to drugs and had to run away from Vice City to get rid of it, having his rehab in San Andreas. He tried to contact Tommy, but Tommy completely ignored him, so he had to solve his problems by himself.
Meanwhile, Salvatore Leone and Johnny Sindacco, both leaders of rival families, met at a Casino in Las Venturas, where Leone was in charge. They needed a weak guy to run the things as a cover-up, and Rosenberg was the perfect man for it.
CJ arrived in Los Santos, and the first thing he saw was the officers Tenpenny, Pulaski, and Hernandez (known as C.R.A.S.H) stealing his money and leaving him in a rival territory. From now on, CJ has to work alongside Tenpenny or else he will die and his brother, Sweet.
That’s how CJ started to get rid of the police corruption Tenpenny caused in Los Santos—starting with discovering that one of his brothers betrayed the family and was responsible for CJ’s mother’s death. Tenpenny knew CJ was a problem, so he took him out of Los Santos and led him as his own.
On his way to getting important, CJ’s friend, Cesar Vialpando, gave CJ a contact of a cousin who would make him get a lot of money, a girl named Catalina Vialpando. Unfortunately, CJ and Catalina got into a complicated relationship while getting money. Catalina broke CJ’s heart by running away to Liberty City with a driver named Claude Speed.
That’s how CJ started his empire, knowing influential people like Wu Zi Mu, or Ken Rosenberg (and therefore, Salvatore Leone, whose casino got heisted by CJ), with the mere objective to kill Tenpenny. He did, revenging his mother’s death.
GTA: Liberty City Stories
Though it’s not confirmed, it is said that Toni Cipriani, the protagonist of GTA: LCS, was hiding in an unknown place for a couple of years after killing an important man, who’s none other than Carl Johnson. The theory gets stronger because Salvatore Leone is Toni Cipriani’s boss, and Toni is the most trustable gangster Salvatore has. However, the theory isn’t confirmed, so we can’t know what happened to CJ.
Regardless of what happened, Toni returned from his retirement to take some jobs from Salvatore Leone in 1998. Toni’s adventure in Liberty City leads him to take some jobs for big-time capos of the Leone family to try to take the Sindacco and Forelli families and the Sillician Mafia down.
Toni was Salvatore’s strongest man, and many people wanted him dead, like other capos from their same family. Nonetheless, Toni remained loyal to Salvatore and coped with the people trying to kill him. He, in return, killed their menaces.
Toni’s mission during the game is to make the Leone’s family strong by putting an ally as Liberty City’s mayor, mess with the plans of the Sicilian Mafia of taking all of Leone’s territory, and take some more missions from Salvatore Leone after the latter got in prison because of Sindacco’s family influences.
After all the madness, Toni Cipriani made the Leones the strongest family in Liberty City after killing Paulie Sindacco and taking down the Sicilian Mafia’s underboss, Massimo Torini.
At the end of the game, Salvatore Leone takes control of Liberty City. He makes Toni Cipriani a capo of his family.
Here’s everything we know about Toni Cipriani.
GTA Advance
Chronologically, the next game of the saga is GTA Advance.
The game takes place in 2000 in Liberty City, and the protagonist is Mike. He, alongside his well-connected partner, Vinnie, planned to leave Liberty City to look for better opportunities.
The problem is that Vinnie takes some extra jobs for the Mafia, resulting in him getting killed by a bomb in his car, taking all the money Mike and Vinnie had to travel with him. So Mike doesn’t want to leave the city until he finds the culprit of his best friend’s death.
Mike’s adventure takes him to work with 8-Ball, an explosives expert and gun dealer, and others like Jonnie (a bartender connected to the Mafia that got killed) or King Courtney (leader of the Uptown Yardies, a Jamaican gang) until he gets to the Colombian Cartel and suspects that their leader, Cisco, was the one in charge of Vinnie’s death.
Mike was slick, so instead of killing Cisco, he started to work with him to take some information. Cisco lets Mike know about the Uptown Yardies and King Courtney’s intentions, so he gets to work as a double agent for both sides.
When Mike was getting into Vinnie’s death thanks to Cisco, the latter got killed in front of Mike by an unknown killer. Mike suspects that the killer was also the culprit of killing Vinnie and Jonnie, so he goes after him in a car chase that ends up with Mike stopping the killer’s car and revealing that the killer was none other than Vinnie, who wanted to steal Mike’s money and run away without him.
Vinnie and Mike got into a gunfight that ended with Vinnie getting executed by Mike.
After running out of the city, Mike meets 8-Ball for the last time, but both get ambushed by the Colombian Cartel, who thought Mike was responsible for Cisco’s death. The Police Force also arrived, arresting 8-Ball in the process, but Mike managed to escape.
So, the game ends with Mike getting even with the Colombian Cartel by ending with the Yardies and running away from Liberty City in a Colombian Cartel plane.
GTA III
Remember that Catalina Vialpando, Cesar’s cousin in GTA: San Andreas, left San Andreas with a driver named Claude Speed? Well, this is when they get important.
GTA III takes place in 2001 in Liberty City. We follow the adventures of Claude Speed, who got into a bank robbery with Catalina, and Miguel. He was the getaway driver of the plan. Suddenly, Catalina betrayed Claude, leaving him getting caught by the police and taking all the money from the robbery away with Miguel. He is part of the Colombian Cartel.
Claude got arrested and got sentenced to prison. However, when he was on a Police convoy to get to prison, the Colombian Cartel ambushed it to kidnap an unknown man. During the ambush, Claude escaped with another prisoner, 8-Ball.
8-Ball helped Claude by introducing him to Leone’s family. So, 8-Ball introduced Luigi Goterelli to Claude and started working with him, so Claude quickly gets the trust of Luigi and starts meeting other important members of the family, like Toni Cipriani and Salvatore Leone.
The Leone family uses Claude as one of his killers, giving some missions that lead Claude to know that Catalina now runs the Colombian Cartel. Meanwhile, Claude also meets Maria Latore, Salvatore Leone’s wife.
After some time working for Salvatore, his last mission was to get rid of a car filled with evidence. Still, Maria took Claude out of the mission as it was rigged to get Claude killed because Maria told Salvatore that she was in an affair with Claude.
Afterward, Maria wants to take Salvatore down with the help of the Yakuza, so she connects Claude with Asuka Kasen, and they start working together. Then Claude’s mission is to eliminate Salvatore, assassinating him in a club.
With the Leones completely fainted, Claude focused on taking the Colombian Cartel down, so he kills Asuka Kasen’s brother, Kenji Kasen, with a Colombian Cartel car.
With the war in full swing, Claude manages to get to Miguel and Catalina in a construction place. Miguel started to negotiate with Claude not to get killed, but Catalina betrayed Miguel by shooting him in the back. Meanwhile, the Yakuza thought that the Cartel had killed her brother, so Asuka Kasen arrived at the construction place (thanks to Claude).
They started to take information out of Miguel by torturing him. Claude leaves Asuka in charge of Miguel and leaves. Still, as soon as he arrives again, he discovers that Asuka and Miguel got killed by Catalina. She also kidnapped Maria Latore and wants $500,000 to take her back.
The game ends with Claude going to the Cartel Mansion with the money, but all was an ambush to get Claude killed. Claude managed to leave the place, knowing that Catalina had taken Maria away in a helicopter. The helicopter was in the city’s dam, and Catalina left Maria there to run away. Still, Claude gets in time to take Catalina’s helicopter down, rescuing Maria and killing Catalina.
Claude and Maria’s whereabouts are unknown, but they are probably alive.
The 3D universe ended here, as with GTA IV, the saga started a new universe, the HD one.
HD Universe
The HD universe covers GTA IV (with its expansions), GTA Chinatown Wars, GTA Online, and GTA V.
There’s a lot to see here, but I’ll be quick to explain the most critical points of this universe; let’s go!
GTA IV
This game is the start of the HD universe, it takes place in 2008 in Liberty City, and our protagonist is Niko Bellic, a Bosnian Warfighter and human trafficker who’s getting to Liberty City thanks to his brother, Roman Bellic, who promised Niko a lot of money and job opportunities.
Niko is in Liberty City for two reasons; he’s running away from Ray Bulgarin, a Russian mafia leader, and Niko is looking for the man who betrayed his war squad. Three of the 15 members of the squad survived an ambush, one of them was Niko, and one of the other two sold the squad for money, revealing them.
The story starts with Niko arriving in Liberty City and meeting Roman, realizing that the American dream Roman sold to Niko was a lie. Instead, Roman only needed Niko to work with him.
Niko’s adventure makes him mess with the Russian Mafia, dominated by Dmitri Rascalov. Dimitri was constantly trying to kill Niko as he was a menace because Niko killed several of Rascalov’s friends, like Mikhail Faustin, the other leader of the Russian Mafia.
During Niko’s adventure, he also meets essential characters of the HD universe, like Johnny Klebitz. Niko worked with him in a diamond deal that went wrong because another vital character, Luis Lopez, ambushed them. Luis ran with the diamonds, Johnny ran with the money, and Niko got without the diamonds.
The problem was that the diamonds belonged to Ray Boccino, who stole them from Gay Tony, an important club owner. Boccino, in retaliation, orders Niko to kill Jim Fitzgerald, Johnny’s best friend. This is important as it’s the catalyst of the end of The Lost and Damned, which pass simultaneously as GTA IV and The Ballad of Gay Tony.
At least Niko made some other great contacts, like Ray Boccino, who introduced Niko to Patrick McReary. Niko and Patrick, alongside his Irish brothers, made a lot of money by robbing banks. Patrick introduces Niko to his family, being the most important Gerald McReary and Kate McReary, who became Niko’s best friends. The Irish had many problems with the Ancelotti Family as they were part of Ray Boccino’s Family, the Pegorinos.
Continuing with Niko’s problems, he also gets into problems with a government agency that uses him as an undercover agent. In exchange, he’ll get his criminal story cleaned and help look for his war squad’s two possible betrayers. Niko helps the government, and thanks to the connections he made, he gets to Florian Cravic, one of the squad’s survivors.
But Florian wasn’t the man Niko was looking for, so the search got reduced to finding the location of Darko Brevic, the other survivor.
Meanwhile, Gerald McReary got to prison, but he got news about the diamonds in Ancelotti’s possession. So, as Ray Boccino needs them, Gerald plans with Patrick and Niko to kidnap Giovanni Ancelotti’s (Ancelotti Family leader) daughter, Gracie Ancelotti, to use her as an exchange for the diamonds.
Ancelotti sent Gay Tony and Luis Lopez to do the exchange. Everything went properly until Ray Bulgarin appeared, ordering his men to kill Niko. Niko survived, and Tony and Lopez got Gracie Ancelotti back. Still, the diamonds got lost permanently because one of Bulgarin’s men tossed them into a garbage truck.
Meanwhile, the government agency helped Niko find Darko Brevic. So Niko can decide if he should kill or spare Darko. Nonetheless, the decision doesn’t affect the GTA Timeline.
From here, GTA IV gets two different endings. Unfortunately, there’s no information about which ending is canon. Rockstar doesn’t give hints on which one is the one that continues with the timeline, so both of them are valid to continue the story as the most critical piece to continue, Niko and Johnny Klebitz, got still alive.
To get to the endings, it’s essential to know that it all starts because Niko meets Jimmy Pegorino. Thanks to Ray Boccino, he asks Niko to conduct a drug deal between them and Dmitri Rascalov, Niko’s enemy.
Niko can accept the deal, betraying his principles and getting to do a deal with his biggest enemy that ended up badly, or deny the deal, betraying the Pegorinos.
The Deal ending makes Niko keep the money from the deal as Rascalov tries to kill him. Roman and his girlfriend get married, and one of Rascalov’s men appears in the place to kill Niko. Niko prevents the man from killing him, and in the fight, the man shoots Roman in the chest, and he dies. Out of rage, Niko finds and kills Rascalov.
The Revenge ending makes Niko betray the Pegorinos by getting directly to Rascalov and killing him. This makes the deal stop, making the Pegorino lose the heroin and the money.
Here, Roman and his girlfriend also get married. Still, a car from the Pegorinos appears, doing a drive-by that ends up with Kate McReary being killed. Niko then looks for Jimmy Pegorino, killing him.
GTA IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and Damned
As I said, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony happened simultaneously as GTA IV.
The Lost and Damned
The protagonist of this expansion is Johnny Klebitz, the vice-president of the Lost Motorclub. He will try to administrate the business of the Lost while dealing with Billy Grey, the president and a drug addict that is destroying the club.
The expansion ends when Jim Fitzgerald gets killed because Johnny stole the money from the diamonds deal. Johnny, who got the leadership of the Lost MC, decided to burn their place as they were in serious problems, so they departed to Los Santos.
The Ballad of Gay Tony
The Ballad of Gay Tony follows the adventure of Luis Lopez, the bodyguard of Tony Prince, the owner of several nightclubs in Liberty City. They are in debt with the Ancelotti’s, so the expansion shows how they get rid of the debt.
Luis and Tony are connected to the Ancelotti’s as Luis used the diamonds of the ambush where Johnny betrayed Niko to pay the debt. Then Niko kidnaps Gracie Ancelotti, so Tony and Luis have to use the diamonds to get Gracie back. The diamonds get lost, but they get Gracie back.
The problem was that Ray Bulgarin was behind all the situation, messing with Tony and Luis. So, Ray used Luis for some jobs, and then he got interested in the diamonds; that’s why he ambushed the Gracie-Diamonds deal unsuccessfully.
Luis and Tony get tired of the debts and the situation with Bulgarin, so Luis goes to where a Bulgarin deal was going, killing Bulgarin’s right-hand man and pursuing Bulgarin until they get on a plane. Bulgarin gets killed by Luis, and the GTA IV part of the universe ends.
GTA: Chinatown Wars
This installment of the saga is set in Liberty City and tells us the Triads’ story that messed Niko up a lot of times during GTA IV. Chinatown Wars happened in 2009, a year after the happenings of GTA IV.
This game tells the story of Huang Lee, who arrived at Liberty City carrying an important sword that belonged to his father, that got killed in the city a long time ago. Huang was carrying the sword to give to his uncle, Wu Lee, to offer it to the Triad boss, Hsin Jaoming, who is very old. We would give Jaoming the sword as a trust symbol as Wu wanted to be the new triad boss.
Nonetheless, Huang gets intercepted by unknown hitmen, who kill Huang’s bodyguards and almost kill Huang, stealing the sword.
Huang’s adventure will lead us in search of the sword while learning more about Huang’s past and investigating who killed Huang’s father.
This game doesn’t add much to the main timeline story but works more to know about the Triads to add more information to the tribes in Liberty City. Also, it’s a short but very good game, so I recommend you all to play it!
GTA V and GTA Online
The saga’s last installment leads us to the story of three characters, Michael Townley, Trevor Philips, and Franklin Clinton, and we will know their adventure through Los Santos in 2013. Again, the game will run around heists.
It all starts in 2004, when Michael Townley, Trevor Philips, and Brad Snider take a bank heist in North Yankton. Unfortunately, the heist goes wrong, resulting in Brad getting to prison, Trevor hiding, and Michael dead.
But Michael faked his death because the FIB caught him and added him to the Witnesses Protection Program to use him when needed. So Michael got a new identity, Michael De Santa, and he and his family moved to Los Santos.
We jump to 2013 when we see Franklin Clinton and Lamar Davis, two-car agency workers who work to do repositions. Michael and Franklin know each other because Franklin did a Repo in his house, taking Michael’s son’s car back.
Michael detected Franklin and waited for him in the back of the car. When Franklin is about to get to the agency, Michael threats Franklin with a gun asking them to take him to the car agency. Instead, Franklin stomps the car in the agency, Michael fights Simeon Yetarian, the agency owner, and Franklin loses his work.
Out of options, Franklin goes to Michael to look for jobs. In one of those moments, Michael discovers that his wife, Amanda de Santa, is having an affair with her tennis coach, so Franklin and Michael chase the coach to a house in the hills.
The coach asks them not to take the house down, but Michael and Franklin don’t listen and take the hill House down. The problem was that the house owner wasn’t the tennis coach; it was Martin Madrazo’s house, the most important Latino mafia leader in Los Santos.
Now, Michael and Franklin have a big debt with Martin Madrazo, and the only way to pay it is by making a heist in a jewelry store. They plan it with Lester Crest’s help, a hacker that was affiliated with Trevor, Michael, and Brad when they did the Ludendorff hit.
The heist went perfectly, except for when a traffic policeman tried to make Franklin move out of the place and suddenly discovered the heist.
Meanwhile, Trevor was hiding in San Andreas, exactly in Sandy Shores. But, then, the heist news appears on TV, and Trevor sees the heist and realizes that it was Michael’s work, so he departs to Los Santos. But first, he had to attend his business in Sandy Shores, getting rid of some bikers that were running some gun deals.
The bikers were none other than The Lost MC, with Johnny Klebitz in the head. They got to San Andreas, running from Liberty City, and tried to establish their business there.
Trevor was having an affair with Johnny’s girlfriend, Ashley Butler. Johnny went to get revenge, but instead, Trevor killed him. After ending with the Lost MC by himself, Trevor gets to Los Santos and tries to get to Michael.
The game then tells the story of Michael, Franklin, and Trevor doing several heists and fighting against the FIB, The Ballas (who in this universe took Los Santos completely), and the Triads in Los Santos.
The game has three endings; Franklin kills Michael or Trevor, or the three get along and take their menaces down.
GTA Online
GTA Online runs at the same time as GTA V in 2013, and our character is the protagonist. GTA Online is connected with GTA V through Lamar Davis, which is our character’s contact in Los Santos.
This means that all the heists of the DLCs are canon.
FAQs
Question: Which ending is canon in GTA IV?
Answer: There are some hints of the Revenge ending being canon, like Roman’s taxi service existing in Los Santos, Lester talking about a contact in a far city when planning a heist, but everything is far from being confirmed, so we have to wait.
Question: Which ending is canon in GTA V?
Answer: The canonical ending for GTA V is The Third Way, when Michael, Franklin, and Trevor take The Ballas, The Triads, and Merryweather down together.
Question: Is Tommy Vercetti still alive?
Answer: Yes, he ran away after Vice City happenings, but don’t expect him to take place in the HD universe’s next games as he’s part of the 3D universe.
Conclusion
GTA tells us the story of the so-called American Dream and how, in most cases, it ends up being a lie, making honest people mess with bad guys.
Meanwhile, the community is waiting for the conclusion of the HD universe through GTA VI. I hope we get some conclusions about Niko Bellic and Luis Lopez’s life.
Nonetheless, Rockstar created a strong story hidden behind the car thefts and the killing sprees.