Released on October 29, 2002, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is due to celebrate its 20th anniversary this month, and a lot of fans will be gobsmacked that the game is this old. There have already been a couple of release date milestones this month, with the Fallout series turning 25 and Portal 2 reaching its 15th birthday, not to mention Mortal Kombat now being a whopping 30 years old. Evidently, October is a strong month for releasing games, and the beloved GTA entry is just one more to add to the list.
While people generally consider Grand Theft Auto 5 the best installment in the series and it has in fact gone down as one of the most successful video games in history, Vice City is definitely up there as a magnificent entry. With its campy 80s aesthetic and players getting to control Tommy Vercetti, voiced by the late Ray Liotta, the 2002 PS2 game continued on from the groundbreaking work of GTA 3, which came out just a year before. It's hard to imagine an era in which Rockstar released new games in its long-running franchise on a yearly basis.
As for Vice City itself, there don't appear to be any official plans to celebrate the game's two decades at the end of this month, but no doubt many fans will be reminiscing about their first encounter with the beloved crime sim. Some may even be tempted to relive the game through the Definitive Edition collection, but many people would likely prefer to play the original release.
Vice City is generally considered to be one of the best games of the PS2 era. In fact, GTA 3, Vice City, and GTA: San Andreas are counted as an iconic trilogy for this period in gaming history, sitting alongside titles like Resident Evil 4, Metal Gear Solid 2, and 2005's God of War. The series has obviously moved on since the more cartoony style of the older games, but there is still a lot of love being given to this 20-year-old title, with mods still being released for it.
It's even been reported that Grand Theft Auto 6 will be set in Vice City, though it's unlikely to be a remake of the classic entry. Given that GTA 4 and GTA 5 were set in Liberty City and San Andreas respectively, it seems even Rockstar is keen to revisit previous locations for newer games in the series. On the whole, it's hard to imagine that the fourth GTA game is about to reach this milestone birthday. How time flies.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City originally released in 2002 for PS2.