GTA Review Scores: Every Game's Metascore by Platform

Metacritic scores for every main, handheld and episode GTA release by platform, with review counts, named reviews by date, and what the numbers show.

Grand Theft Auto has one of the most consistent critical records in games. Every 3D and HD entry in the main line has a Metascore of 95 or higher on its lead platform. The page answers a narrower question than "which GTA is best": what happens to a GTA game's score when it moves to another machine? The answer is that it almost always drops, and the size of the drop says a lot about the port.

At a glance

Item	Figure
Highest Metascore in the series	98, GTA IV (PS3 and Xbox 360)
Most-reviewed single version	GTA IV, Xbox 360, 86 critic reviews
Lowest Metascore in the series	46, The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition (Switch)
Lowest original release	68, Grand Theft Auto (Game Boy Advance, 2004)
2D releases with no Metascore	Grand Theft Auto (1997), London 1969, London 1961 (0 critic reviews each)

All figures are Metacritic as displayed on Oct 11 2026.

What is counted, and how

What a Metascore is. Metacritic says the Metascore is a weighted average of the scores it assigns to critics' reviews, on a 0-100 scale. On the pages used here, every version with three or fewer critic reviews shows "tbd" instead of a score, and Episodes from Liberty City shows "tbd" with four. Review counts are given in brackets so you can see how much each number rests on.

What is in the table. Every main-series game, every handheld game, the two GTA IV episodes, the GTA V Enhanced PC version, GTA Online and the 2021 Definitive Edition remaster. One row per game, every platform Metacritic has scored. Platforms with no Metascore are left out of the score column and noted.

What is left out. Mobile-only releases Metacritic does not score, user scores (they are open to anyone and easy to brigade), and OpenCritic, so every number on the page comes from one aggregator. Release dates are Metacritic's listed "initial release date" for each page, which is usually the first platform's date.

The arithmetic. "Spread" is the lead platform's score minus the lowest scored platform, for example GTA IV: 98 - 90 = 8.

Every GTA game, every platform

This is the cross-series table no other page has.

Game	Initial release (Metacritic)	Metascore by platform (critic reviews)	Spread
Grand Theft Auto	Feb 28 1998 (listed)	no score on PC or PlayStation (0 reviews)	n/a
London 1969	Apr 30 1999	no score (0 reviews)	n/a
GTA 2	Oct 25 1999	PlayStation 70 (15); Dreamcast and PC not scored	n/a
GTA III	Oct 22 2001	PS2 97 (56); PC 93 (20)	4
Vice City	Oct 29 2002	PS2 95 (62); PC 94 (30)	1
San Andreas	Oct 26 2004	PS2 95 (80); PC 93 (47); Xbox 93 (58); iOS 84 (23)	11
GTA Advance	Oct 26 2004	Game Boy Advance 68 (33)	n/a
Liberty City Stories	Oct 24 2005	PSP 88 (65); PS2 78 (49)	10
Vice City Stories	Oct 31 2006	PSP 86 (50); PS2 75 (37)	11
GTA IV	Apr 29 2008	PS3 98 (64); Xbox 360 98 (86); PC 90 (40)	8
The Lost and Damned	Feb 17 2009	Xbox 360 90 (79); PS3 88 (4)	2
Chinatown Wars	Mar 17 2009	DS 93 (85); PSP 90 (77); iOS 90 (16)	3
The Ballad of Gay Tony	Oct 29 2009	Xbox 360 89 (67); PS3 87 (4)	2
Episodes from Liberty City	Apr 12 2010	no score (page shows 4 reviews but no Metascore)	n/a
GTA V	Sep 17 2013	PS3 97 (50); Xbox 360 97 (58); PS4 97 (66); Xbox One 97 (14); PC 96 (57); PS5 81 (25); Xbox Series X 79 (11)	18
GTA Online	Oct 1 2013	PS3 83 (4); Xbox 360 80 (9)	3
GTA V Enhanced (PC)	Mar 4 2025	no score (2 reviews)	n/a
The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition	Nov 11 2021	Xbox Series X 56 (11); PS5 54 (47); PC 49 (8); Switch 46 (15)	10

Notes: the PS5 Trilogy page shows 47 critic reviews, but its positive, mixed and negative counts add to 46 (5 + 31 + 10). The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony PS3 scores rest on only four reviews each. GTA Online's PS3 score also rests on four.

The port penalty

Sorting the same numbers by what kind of release each version was gives the page's main finding.

Kind of version	Examples (lead score to port score)	Drop
PC port of a PS2 game	GTA III 97 to 93; Vice City 95 to 94; San Andreas 95 to 93	1 to 4
Later PC port of an HD game	GTA IV 98 to 90; GTA V 97 to 96	1 to 8
Handheld game moved down to PS2	Liberty City Stories 88 to 78; Vice City Stories 86 to 75	10 to 11
Handheld game moved across handhelds	Chinatown Wars DS 93 to PSP 90 and iOS 90	3
Same game on a newer console generation	GTA V 97 to PS5 81 and Xbox Series X 79	16 to 18
Remaster of PS2 games	GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas (97, 95, 95) to the Trilogy (46 to 56)	39 to 51

How the last row is counted: the highest original (97, GTA III) minus the lowest Trilogy score (46, Switch) is 51; the lowest original (95) minus the highest Trilogy score (56, Xbox Series X) is 39.

Three readings:

Moving a handheld game to a home console cost about 10 points. Both PSP Stories games lost 10 or 11 when they came to PS2. Our reading: on PS2 they sat next to the full PS2 games, and the comparison was not kind.
The GTA V drop looks like a verdict on the upgrade, not the game. The PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions launched digitally on Mar 15 2022 (Take-Two, May 16 2022), 8 years, 5 months and 26 days after the original. Fewer critics reviewed them: 25 and 11 reviews, against 50 to 66 for the PS3, Xbox 360, PS4 and PC versions.
The Definitive Edition is the series' only critical failure. A remaster of three games that had scored 95 to 97 landed between 46 and 56. Destructoid's Dan Roemer gave the PS5 version 4.5 on Nov 20 2021 and called it a technical mess.

Named reviews, by outlet and date

Metacritic converts every score to 100. Destructoid scores are shown on its own 10-point scale.

Game	Outlet	Date	Score	Source
Vice City (PS2)	Electronic Gaming Monthly	Dec 2002 issue	100	Metacritic list
Vice City (PS2)	Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine	Dec 2002 issue	100	Metacritic list
San Andreas (PS2)	Game Informer	Dec 2004 issue	100	Metacritic list
GTA Advance (GBA)	Nintendo Power	Dec 2004 issue	78	Metacritic list
Liberty City Stories (PSP)	Game Informer	Dec 2005 issue	93	Metacritic list
GTA IV (Xbox 360)	Destructoid (James Stephanie Sterling)	page dated May 29 2008	8.0 / 10	Destructoid
Chinatown Wars (DS)	Destructoid (James Stephanie Sterling)	Mar 21 2009	8.5 / 10	Destructoid
GTA V (Xbox 360)	IGN	Sep 16 2013	100	Metacritic list
GTA V (Xbox 360)	Edge Magazine	Sep 16 2013	100	Metacritic list
GTA V (Xbox 360)	Destructoid (James Stephanie Sterling)	Sep 16 2013	9 / 10	Destructoid
GTA Online (Xbox 360)	Destructoid	Oct 8 2013	70	Metacritic list
GTA V (PS5)	Vandal	Mar 16 2022	85	Metacritic list
The Trilogy (PS5)	Destructoid (Dan Roemer)	Nov 20 2021	4.5 / 10	Destructoid

Destructoid is the useful outlier. Its 8.0 for GTA IV praised the story and Niko but said the game did little to move the series past the previous generation, and it criticized the combat. GTA IV still has the series' highest Metascore, 98, on both consoles. GTA IV's Destructoid page is dated May 29 2008, a month after the game's Apr 29 2008 release. We give the date as the page shows it.

Trivia

Take-Two said GTA V had "over 160 perfect scores worldwide" by Oct 29 2013, six weeks after launch.
In February 2015 Take-Two called GTA V the highest-rated game to date on PS4 and Xbox One, citing Metacritic.
Metacritic lists the 2004 Game Boy Advance game under the title "Grand Theft Auto (Game Boy Advance)". Its 33 reviews split 13 positive, 16 mixed and 4 negative.
The original 1997 Grand Theft Auto has no Metascore. Its Metacritic page shows 0 critic reviews and a listed date of Feb 28 1998.
GTA VI is due Nov 19 2026 (FACTS F1). Its Metacritic page lists that date and shows no Metascore yet. See GTA VI.