A History Of Grand Theft Auto Box Art, From GTA 1 To GTA 6

Grand Theft Auto 6 launches in a few months, and with Rockstar Games officially opening up preorders soon for the open-world crime caper, we've also gotten a first look at the official cover art for it. The GTA 6 cover isn't deviating from a design template that the franchise has been using for decades now, and in case you missed it, here's a closer look at it.

The Evolution Of GTA Box Art

So how does this compare to older GTA covers? The original games developed by DMA Design kept things simple when they first came out, as both GTA 1 and GTA 2 used real-life photography mixed with flashy titles to grab eyeballs at the time. The exception was the GTA London mission packs, which opted for an old-fashioned Gaussian Blur of the Union Jack.

Fast-forward to 2001, and GTA 3 raised the bar for open-world games upon its release. The first game in the series—developed at Rockstar Games—GTA 3 had several covers, but it was the mosaic design by Stephen Bliss that would become synonymous with the franchise. The original cover art was changed following the September 11 attacks in 2001, with Rockstar wanting to distance itself from the tragic events. Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser said that Bliss came up with the new—and now iconic—cover design in a single night, and it was inspired by movie posters like the one used for The Thomas Crown Affair.

"This was done by one of our artists in an evening, and as soon as we saw it, we preferred it to the cover we had planned to use," Houser said to IGN. "It created the template for what was to become the game's look, in all subsequent iterations," he said in a different interview with CVG.

For a breakdown on just how much GTA 3 changed during its three-week delay, this video by Vadim M provides an in-depth summary.

https://youtu.be/SdiCBLiGkaA

That original design wouldn't be abandoned, as it was still used for the European release of GTA 3. It featured a stylized collage of GTA 3's characters, with the image being heavily inspired by Hollywood movie posters.

Bliss was credited with creating several more covers for the GTA series during his time at Rockstar as its senior artist, and he also illustrated most pieces of art that were used for the promotional campaigns and loading screens in the games. For GTA: Vice City, the cover art reflected the '80s time setting of the game with a neon-lit logo.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas kept the visual language of previous covers alive, with major differences being highly detailed artwork and a focus on bolder colors.

The Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories cover art kept the trend alive and was reused for several ports:

  • GTA: Advance
  • GTA: Mobile
  • GTA: Advance 2

And Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories saw a familiar logo return.

For the next mainline entry, Grand Theft Auto 4, the cover art had thinner borders, and the character portraits once again evolved with even more detailed designs.

For the physical release of Grand Theft Auto 5: Episodes from Liberty City, Rockstar chose to use the same design for this compilation of the two expansions, The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony.

It would be a while before Grand Theft Auto 5 launched, but the Nintendo DS game Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars kept the torch burning for the franchise. As you'd expect, the cover art was instantly recognizable.

With Grand Theft Auto 5, Rockstar released the game with a cover that once again featured the game's main characters, location, and vehicles.

With GTA Online proving to be a huge success, Rockstar would often release promotional artwork inspired by its now classic cover art designs.

And that brings us up to Grand Theft Auto 6. The artwork is unmistakably a continuation of Bliss' original design, but with a striking use of color, borders that feature a navy blue motif, and a very large logo smackdab in the middle:

Launching on November 19, GTA 6 is headed to PS5 and Xbox Series X|S first, and it's projected to be one of the biggest hits of the year and beyond. While we're still waiting for a new trailer, you can also check out 178 GTA 6 images to ease the wait.

GTA 6: 178 Screenshots To Ease The Wait