What about all the years between the first GTA and GTA V? Rockstar went on to produce 14 more installments for the franchise between the years of 19. An example of just how much has changed between the first and last GTA is that GTA V does not give one the option of choosing their avatar, instead giving the player three assigned protagonists. The growth and development of the franchise is very apparent when comparing the two side by side, with innovations and improvements in mechanics and graphics obvious throughout the game play. It is also the most successful GTA with over 100 million copies sold since its release. It is the most recent installment in the franchise, having been released in September of 2013. Today in 2019, the GTA most often talked about is Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V). A franchise only twenty-two years in the making though, Grand Theft Auto has come a long way since the original GTA was released in 1997. This is due to the fact that GTA 1 gives the player the option of choosing who their protagonist is from a pool of characters, five of which are people of color. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the first and original Grand Theft Auto, often referred to as GTA 1, was the first game in the franchise to have playable characters of color. When I embarked on my research journey for this piece, I was not sure what information I would discover.

However, the realization also raises two questions: how often have minorities been main characters in Rockstar franchises - specifically in the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) franchise -, and how heavily has Rockstar relied on stereotypes to create the characters in question? As someone who has grown to become aware of just how little of myself I see on-screen I was not too surprised Latinx people are very rarely seen as central characters in any type of media. Though all good games in the opinion of many, looking back at them now I realize that not many of the Rockstar games I have played have had characters which were people of color, both playable and supporting. Not only are they all among the list of my fa vorite video games, but also on the list of video games produced by Rockstar Games. Red Dead Redemption, La Noire, and Grand Theft Auto V.

Gta 1 characters