Grand Theft Auto V is not only the most successful title in Rockstar's long-running video game franchise, but with over 90 million copies sold and $6 billion in revenue, it's the , as of 2018. While GTA V has been an unstoppable cash cow for Rockstar Games ever since its release in 2013, the franchise wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for the groundbreaking run of PlayStation 2 t𝔉it𝓰les released between 2001 and 2004.
Grand Theft Auto III kicked things off in 2001 by taking the series into three dimensions for the first time and revolutionizing open-world game design in the process. Vice City and San Andreas, released in 2002 and 2004, respectively, refined GTA III's core concepts while expanding the series' scope in just about every way imaginable. Admittedly, the trilogy hasn't exactly aged well in terms of gameplay systems or visuals, but the individual games are still beloved and held up ꦕas crowning achievements in game design for their era.
One of the best things about this crop of GTA games is just how packed they were with details both big and small. Vice City and San Andreas in particular are filled with all sorts of pop culture influences and callouts, and really capture the look and feel of the eras they're set in (in this case, the 1980s and '90s, respectively). While each game tasks players with tracking down various secrets, they also have some rathe💞r cleverly hidden Easter Eggs, the following 25 are arguably the best of the bunch.
25 ꦍ San Andreas: Gordon Freeman’s Crowbar
Rockstar loves to put Easter Eggs referencing other video games in its titles and one of the best can be found in the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 🍷mission “Black Project”. The mission tasks protagonist CJ with sneaking into Area 69, a military research base, to steal a jetpack.
In a lab near where the scientist gives Carl a keycard is a table with a crowbar on it. This is a reference to Valve’s 1998 game Half-Life, which follows protagonist Gordon Freeman, crowbar in hand, as he escapes an alien-filled🍰 underground lab.
24 ꧃ San Andreas: Running With Scissors ꦕ
Gordon Freeman’s crowbar isn’t the only gaming Easter Egg to be found in San Andreas’ Area 69, however. When inside the base, various announcements ca🐓n be heard over the intercom, including “Anyone caught stealing alien technology will not be invited to the next staff night out”, and “Running with scissors is dangerꦍous and not permitted.”
The latter message is suspected of being a nod to the game developer Running with Scissors, best known for creating the Postal games. Ro🍃ckstar probably included the shout out because their games are considered by some to b☂e “GTA Clones”.
23 Vice City: Chocolate Easter Egg 🎀
It’s not every day you find a literal Easter Egg in a game, but players can find one in Vice City if they know where to look. In Downtown Vice City on the Vice City News Building, there’s a helipad that can be accessed by a stairway from the ground. On the side of a building adjacent to the helipad (on the l♓eft), there’s a section of wall that can be jumped through. On the other side, you’ll find a small room with a large chocolate Easter Egg on a pedestal with “Happy Easter!” written on it. Well played, Rockstar.
22 🍌 Vice City: Swim With The Fishes 📖
Vice City may not have had much of a mob♐ presence before Tommy Vercetti showed up, but there's definitely evidence of their dirty work if you look hard enough. Grab a boat and take a look around the waters off🍷 the short of Leaf Links near the Downtown area.
Under the water, you should be able to spot a fat man at the bottom of the sea. Upon closer inspection, you'll see that the fat man is🔯 wearing cement shoes, wh🦩ich of course was a traditional way for the mafia to dispose of people.
21 San Andreas: Th🌜e V-Rock Hotel
With the switch from the '80s to '90s, San Andreas ditched the sounds of glam metal in favor of era-appropriate grunge and alternative, but that didn't stop one of Vice City's best radio stations from making a cameo 🎶of sorts.
Among the many hotels found in Las Venturas is the V-Rock Hotel, which is both a parody of the real-life Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and a tribute to Vice City's V-Rock radio station. While the building is disappointingly both inaccessible and unavailable for purchase, it does hᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚave a basketball court around back if you want to shoot some hoops.
20 🧸 San Andreas: The Truth Speaks… The Truth? 🍌
San Andreas is one of the last Rockstar games to feature celebrity actors in most of the supporting roles, with name✱s such as Samuel L. Jackson, Charlie Murphy, and the legendary Peter Fonda all voicing memorable characters. Fonda plays The Truth, an elderly hippie and conspiracy theorist who at one point hints to being involved in the previous game in the series.
In the mission “Wear Flowers in Your Hair”, Truth says that his guys “used to work on marine engines, ‘til the mob bought their business over in Vice.” This seems to refer to Tommy Vercetti’s takeover of the shipyard in Vice City.
19 Rockstar Logos Galore 💙
Rockstar Games has a pretty iconic logo at this point and eagle-eyed fans will notice it all over the place in the PS2-era GTA games. Some of our favorites include a logo-shaped pool on Vice City's Starfish Island (easy to spot from the air), stars in the night sky that form the Rockstar logo in San Andreas, and the poorly disguised logo atop an unusable helicopter on the roof of Kenji's Casino in GTA III (it's poorly disguised because it clearly rea🉐ds "Rockstar Games" below it).
18 Vice City: Oh, Hi Claude 🍬 ꦓ
After taking some time off from Vice City, GTA III's silent protagonist Claude appears in a couple of San Andreas missions as a supporting character. However, Claude can still be found in Vice City if you look hard enough.
Take a look around Tommy Vercetti's room at t♔he Ocean View Hotel and you'll find a poster featuring the black jacket-clad gangster himself in comic book style aesthetic. The poster is centered between two other parody posters.
17 Vice City: I’ve Heard This One Before 𒆙
Another (much more subtle) GTA III callback in Vice City can be heard during the mission Two Bit Hit. The instructions Avery Carrington gives to Tommy Vercetti are almost ex🥂actly the same ones Donald L🙈ove gives to Claude during the mission Waka-Gashira Wipeout:
Carrington: "Now, nothing brings down real estate prices 🌳quicker than a good old-fashioned gang war - 'cept maybe a disaster, like a biblical plague or something, but, that may be going too far in this case."
Love: "Nothing drives down real estate prices like a good old f♔ashioned gang war, apart from the outbreak of a plague, but that might going too far in this case."
16 🃏 Vice City and San Andreaꦐs: Shoot The Moon
The moon occupies a huge spot of the night sky in all the PS2 era Grand Theft Auto titles, mostly because it always takes the form of a full moon and doesn't adhere to lunar cycles. What you may not have realized is that the moon isn't just there in service of GTA's day/n🐼ight cycle, but is i🌼tself an Easter egg of sorts.
If you fire at the moon with a sniper rifle, it will change sizes (Normal Size-Bigger-Bigger-Smaller-Bigger-Norm🔜al Size). No other weapon will activate the size change and it's unclear if this was an intentional design decision or just a bug.