GTA series timeline: setting year vs release year

Search "GTA timeline" and you will find tidy lists with a year next to every game. Most of those years are worked out by fans from in-game clues, and many are probably right. But Rockstar itself has written down a setting year for far fewer games than those lists suggest. This page builds the timeline only from years Rockstar has published. It then shows how much of the familiar chronology rests on inference.

The result: Rockstar has put a year in writing for six settings. One is London 1969, whose year is in its title. The other five are the 3D-era games of 2001 to 2006. For every HD-era game, from GTA IV to GTA VI, we found no setting year in Rockstar's or Take-Two's own words.

At a glance

What is counted, and how

A setting year counts only if Rockstar published it. The strongest source is a Rockstar Newswire post of Apr 10 2013 about printable maps. It compares "the 1998 and 2001 layouts of Liberty City" and "the 1984 and 1986 maps of Vice City", with "three year gaps" between the two Liberty Cities. The post does not say which game is which year. Rockstar's Vice City Stories page opens "Vice City, 1984", which leaves 1986 for Vice City. For Liberty City, WorthPlaying's review of Nov 17 2005 says Liberty City Stories "takes place 3 years before the events of GTA 3", which fits 1998 and 2001 only one way. A Newswire post of Dec 11 2012 says two Vice City characters reached Los Santos "in 1992", which dates San Andreas. Rockstar's game pages back these up in looser terms: "Vice City, 1984", "Welcome to the 1980s", and "it's the early '90s" for San Andreas. London 1969 carries its year in its title on Rockstar's page. London 1961 also has its year in its title, but it is not on Rockstar's games list and we found no Rockstar or Take-Two page for it, so it is listed but not counted.

Release dates come from Rockstar's game pages, except where Take-Two's filings are more specific or the page has no date. Grand Theft Auto's November 1997 international date is from Take-Two's fiscal 1999 10-K (Rockstar's page says May 1, 1998, and the 10-K gives June 1998 for North America). The two GTA IV episodes are dated by the quarter Take-Two's fiscal 2009 10-K lists them in. London 1961 is not on Rockstar's games list, so we give it no release date.

Left out. Fan-derived years for GTA 1, GTA 2, Advance, GTA IV, the episodes, Chinatown Wars and GTA V. We have not checked those against an in-game screen or a Rockstar statement, so they stay blank. This is a sourcing gap, not a claim that the games have no year.

One more caveat. Rockstar says the 2D, 3D and HD games are separate worlds (Newswire Q&A, Dec 15 2011). A single year line mixes universes. London 1969 and Vice City are not the same continuity. Read the "story order" column as calendar order, not one story.

The timeline, both ways

Release order runs down the table. The last column ranks the six dated settings in story order.

Chinatown Wars and The Lost and Damned share rank 11 because Take-Two dates the episode only by quarter, and that quarter (February to April 2009) includes Chinatown Wars' Mar 17 release. Counting the London 1961 row, which has no release rank, the table has 17 games.

The arithmetic. Each gap is release year minus setting year. London 1969: 1999 minus 1969 is 30. Vice City Stories: 2006 minus 1984 is 22. Vice City: 2002 minus 1986 is 16. San Andreas: 2004 minus 1992 is 12. Liberty City Stories: 2005 minus 1998 is 7. GTA III: 2001 minus 2001 is 0.

What the two orders show

The 3D era ran backwards. GTA III, the first 3D game, is also the latest-set of the five 3D-era games with published years. Every one released after it is set earlier: 1986, 1992, 1998, then 1984. So in story terms, the whole 3D era after GTA III is a run of prequels to it. The last of them, Vice City Stories, reached furthest back of all.

The gaps did not shrink steadily. Release by release, the look back went 0, 16, 12, 7, then 22 years. The two "Stories" games point in opposite directions. Liberty City Stories sits three years before GTA III. Vice City Stories sits two years before Vice City (1986 minus 1984).

The HD era has no published years at all. Fans widely place GTA IV and GTA V in or near their release years. That may well match what the games show on screen. But we found no Rockstar or Take-Two text that states those years, so the table leaves them blank. GTA VI is the same: Rockstar's confirmed material describes "Vice City, USA" in the state of Leonida, but not a year. Any GTA VI setting year you see online is unconfirmed. See GTA VI: confirmed vs rumor.

Story order, dated settings only

Rows 2 to 6 sit in the 3D universe. Row 1 is a 2D-era pack and does not share its continuity. London 1961, if it were counted by its title, would sit above it. For how the universes divide, see GTA universes.

Trivia

• Rockstar's 2013 map post names "the ongoing construction of the Callahan Bridge" as one of the differences between the 1998 and 2001 layouts of Liberty City.
• San Andreas' story year comes from a post promoting "The Introduction", a 20-minute prologue video. The post said two characters "made the trip" from Vice City to Los Santos in 1992.
• GTA III and Vice City Stories, the first and last 3D-era releases with published years, are also the latest-set and earliest-set games of that era.

Related: GTA release dates, Liberty City, Vice City, San Andreas.

Sources

• Rockstar Newswire, high-res maps for LCS and VCS, Apr 10 2013, checked Oct 11 2026
• Rockstar Newswire, San Andreas on PSN, Dec 11 2012, checked Oct 11 2026
• Rockstar Games, game pages, checked Oct 11 2026
• Take-Two 10-K, fiscal 1999, checked Oct 11 2026
• Take-Two 10-K, fiscal 2009, checked Oct 11 2026
• Take-Two 10-K, fiscal 2014, checked Oct 11 2026
• WorthPlaying, PSP review of GTA: Liberty City Stories, Nov 17 2005, checked Oct 11 2026
• Metacritic, Grand Theft Auto Mission Pack #2: London 1961, checked Oct 11 2026
• Rockstar Newswire, GTA III Q&A Part One, Dec 15 2011 (archived), checked Oct 11 2026
• GTA VI Forum FACTS.md, items F1 and F43, checked Oct 11 2026