Curated playlist

Organized crime video games

Grand Theft Auto: San AndreasGrand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a 2004 action-adventure game from Rockstar North, gave players one of the most repeated lines in gaming. Early in the story, a mission called "Wrong Side of the Tracks" goes badly, and Big Smoke shouts, "All…
Grand Theft Auto VThree days after Grand Theft Auto V reached stores in September 2013, it had passed one billion dollars in sales. No entertainment product in history had reached that mark faster. The game came from Rockstar North and was published by…
Grand Theft Auto: Vice CityGrand Theft Auto: Vice City, a 2002 action-adventure game from Rockstar North, sold more than 500,000 copies within 24 hours of its release. Within two days it had reached 1.4 million, which made it the fastest-selling game in history at…
Grand Theft Auto IVGrand Theft Auto IV sold more than 3.6 million copies in the first twenty-four hours after its release in 2008. That worked out to roughly 310 million dollars in revenue. The game came from Rockstar North and Rockstar Games, and it centres…
Grand Theft Auto IIIGrand Theft Auto III began with an art director's complaint about the games of his day. Aaron Garbut felt that most of them were "a thing you played". He wanted this one to be "a place you lived in". The core team behind that ambition was…
Yakuza (franchise)By 2024, Sega reported that the Yakuza series, known in Japan as Like a Dragon, had sold a combined 27.7 million units since its debut in 2005. Those buyers were playing games about organized crime. In the same games they could also sing…
Marvel's Spider-Man (video game)Marvel's Spider-Man, released for the PlayStation 4 on the 7th of September 2018, sold 3.3 million units in its first three days. That figure includes copies bundled with consoles. It made the game the fastest-selling first-party release…
Batman: Arkham CityThe blueprints for Batman: Arkham City were hidden in a secret room inside the warden's office of Batman: Arkham Asylum, the game that came before it. Rocksteady Studios planted those hints in the 2009 original while that game was still…
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was blocked from sale in Kuwait before release. Every pre-order in the country was cancelled and refunded, and Kuwaiti officials gave no reason. Publications guessed that the game's Gulf War setting was the cause.…
Batman: Arkham KnightBatman: Arkham Knight is a 2015 action-adventure game made by Rocksteady Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It opens on Halloween night, as Gotham City's six million civilians are evacuated. Only criminals…
Grand Theft Auto OnlineGrand Theft Auto Online went live on the 1st of October 2013 and asked its players to start as nobodies in the state of San Andreas. The state is fictional and based on Southern California. Up to 30 players can share its open world at the…
L.A. NoireL.A. Noire, a game from 2011 set in Los Angeles in 1947, became the first video game honoured as an official selection at the Tribeca Film Festival. Team Bondi developed it, and Rockstar Games published it. Players follow a young police…
Final Fight (video game)Final Fight, Capcom's arcade brawler, began as Street Fighter '89. Operators said the name was misleading.
Cyberpunk 2077Cyberpunk 2077 broke a record within hours of its midnight GMT launch on the 10th of December 2020. More than one million people played it at once on Steam, and one million viewers watched live on Twitch. Together, the figures doubled the…
Grand Theft Auto VIGrand Theft Auto VI, the next game from Rockstar Games, drew 46 million views for its first trailer within twelve hours of release. That set a record for a non-music video on YouTube, and the game itself had not yet reached players. It is…
Disco ElysiumA man wakes in a trashed hostel room in the district of Martinaise, with a savage hangover and no memory of who he is. He does not know his name, his profession, or anything about the world beyond the door. This is how Disco Elysium…