Realism

Realism refers to the similarity between the environment and gameplay of Grand Theft Auto games and real life. Realism has been an important aspect of the series since Grand Theft Auto III, and began to receive more prominent focus in Grand Theft Auto IV.

GTA games are by nature very realistic, with GTA III being the first game to even imagine such a level of realism. Due to the open-world sandbox-style gameplay of the series, the player is able to do anything that they wish, and the games take place in realistic cities, with pedestrians that actually appear to have lives in the city. Each game has also added additional features which make the games realistic.

Subsequent games in the GTA III era, particularly GTA San Andreas, added more over-the-top gameplay, which was very unrealistic.

GTA IV gave a more prominent focus to realism, by removing unrealistic features of previous games, adding a number of realism-based features, and making the environment, gameplay and story as realistic as possible without impeding gameplay. That being said, some realistic features that did impede gameplay, such as the requirement to eat food, have been removed.

Many fans of the GTA series consider GTA San Andreas, or another GTA III era game to be their favourite GTA game and many actively dislike GTA IV, asserting that the over-the-top gameplay of these past games was what made them fun. These people believe that Rockstar's attempt to improve realism was simply removal of features, making the game far less fun, and a step bakwards for the series. A recent Grand Theft Wiki poll, however, seems to suggest that the majority of players prefer the realistic gameplay of GTA IV. These players assert that it was always the realism that was great about GTA games, and that GTA San Andreas was in fact a step backwards for the series.