7 Infamous Moments from the Grand Theft Auto Franchise

Originally published on March 9, 2026. This article revisits 7 iconic, infamous moments and memes from games across the Grand Theft Auto franchise including San Andreas, Vice City, and titles up through GTA V.

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Fans currently await the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI launch, most recently scheduled for November 19, 2026. The latest installment of the franchise promises a massive free-roaming campaign world with detailed graphics, engrossing storylines, and plenty of criminal action. But before gamers can get their hands on it and work on driving up their Wanted Level, there’s still time to revisit some of the moments that have made this series famous.

With levels ranging from iconic to infamous, there’s plenty of criminal connective tissue across the franchise’s many titles. GTA video games are full of pulse-pounding missions, memorable NPCs (non-player characters), betrayals, and urban legends. And sometimes, all you have to do to succeed is follow the damn train. Here are 7 of the series’ biggest moments:

• Wrong Side of the Tracks — GTA: San Andreas
• Getting Betrayed by Lance Vance — GTA: Vice City
• Phone Calls from Your Cousin Roman — GTA IV
• Three Leaf Clover— GTA IV
• Mr. Philips — GTA V
• Getting the Jetpack — GTA: San Andreas
• The Myth of Bigfoot — GTA Series

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Wrong Side of the Tracks — GTA: San Andreas

• Wrong Side of the Tracks is a famously difficult mission in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
• It involves chasing a moving train while allowing your ally to successfully shoot and kill rival gang members.
• Big Smoke’s quote when the player fails the mission has become an internet meme. Players often had to play this mission multiple times in order to succeed.

Say it with us — “All we had to do was follow the damn train, CJ!”

Big Smoke’s words echo through the collective memory of gamers everywhere, thanks to GTA: San Andreas‘ notoriously difficult chase mission Wrong Side of the Tracks. Featuring a tense driving sequence on a motorbike accompanied by a shootout (against enemies who are more durable than usual), this mission has inspired numerous strategy guides and countless online discussions about more efficient ways to shoot all the Vagos gang members while CJ and Big Smoke keep pace with a moving locomotive.

It’s clearly easier said than done. Many players heard Big Smoke’s frustrated dialogue numerous times before completing the challenge. That phrase and this mission have gone on to be referenced in other games, from Red Dead Redemption Online to Minecraft. Love it or hate it, it’s a poster child for the Grand Theft Auto franchise, blending challenge, high-octane action, and memorable dialogue all into one.

It felt so good when you finally finished following the train and came out on top.

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Getting Betrayed by Lance Vance — GTA: Vice City

• Lance Vance’s betrayal leads to to GTA: Vice City‘s climactic final shootout.
• The character went on to recur in Vice City Stories, another installment of the franchise that served as a prequel.
• Lance Vance is well known for his Lance Vance Dance.

“This is Vice City! This is business.”

Released in 2002 and set in 1986, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City draws inspiration from Scarface, The Godfather, and Miami Vice. It follows the rise of gangster Tommy Vercetti (voiced by Ray Liotta, of Goodfellas fame) as he seeks out those responsible for getting him imprisoned after drug deal gone awry.

During this time, he works with freelancer Lance Vance (voiced by Philip Michael Thomas, who played Ricardo Tubbs in Miami Vice) and others, from band managers to business tycoons. But it’s Lance selling you out to the Forellis that ultimately sets the path for Tommy’s victory. The betrayal hurts, but as he says, “This is business.” It gives Tommy the opportunity to turn around and kill Sonny Forelli, turning your character into the undisputed kingpin of Vice City.

Lance Vance would return in the prequel game GTA: Vice City Stories, making his evolution and last Lance Vance Dance all the more impactful for players.

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Phone Calls from Your Cousin Roman — GTA IV

• Roman Bellic is the deuteragonist and cousin of protagonist Niko Bellic in Grand Theft Auto IV.
• He is an immigrant from Yugoslavia known for his gambling addiction and close relationship with the player’s character.
• Roman is also notorious for calling the player to go bowling or otherwise get off track with missions.

As enjoyable as he is occasionally frustrating, Roman Bellic is your character Niko’s cousin in Grand Theft Auto IV. He is a constant source of outside perspective and occasional advice for the player as they progress through missions and moral challenges. Roman looks to you for help with his own problems. And perhaps most famously, he’s known for calling nonstop to ask you to go bowling with him, which many players will admit to ignoring.

Roman provides character contrast to Niko as well, in the way GTA frames their respective stories. Both Bellics came to Liberty City from Yugoslavia, marking the first game with an immigrant protagonist. And one of the major themes of GTA IV is challenging the reality of the American Dream. While Roman is presented as more of a failure to thrive than Niko is, the two relatives work together to overcome the difficult odds facing them at every turn, including their own personal vices like Roman’s gambling addiction.

But mostly, a lot of people remember how damn often he calls you to go bowling. Seriously.

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Three Leaf Clover — GTA IV

• Three Leaf Clover is a mission from Grand Theft Auto IV.
• Inspired by the movie Heat, it’s a large-scale heist involving a bank robbery gone wrong.
• Fans remember it for its overall challenge, action-packed gunfights, and series-defining tone.

Also from the fourth main installment of the game franchise, this entry is a big-scale heist mission that helped set the scope of the series to follow. Three Leaf Clover sees Niko Bellic and his allies working to rob the Bank of Liberty in Liberty City. Of course, like any massive heist, things don’t go as planned. One member of the crew gets killed, leaving Niko and the others to flee from law enforcement while navigating underground subway tunnels with the cash score.

The setup and writing of the mission draws inspiration from the films Heat and, more secondarily, Point Break. With action-packed narrative, high stakes, and plenty of consequences, Three Leaf Clover is a difficult but rewarding challenge that helped further cement the heights the GTA franchise could continue to reach moving forward.

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Mr. Philips — GTA V

• Mr. Philips is the first independent mission protagonist Trevor undertakes in Grand Theft Auto V.
• It is propulsive, violent, and memorable, introducing one of the series’ most notorious player characters, Trevor Philips.
• Fans consider it “a wild ride” from start to finish, setting the game’s tone from an early point on.

Grand Theft Auto V features a total of three protagonists: Michael De Santa, Franklin Clinton, and Trevor Philips. The mission entitled Mr. Philips is Trevor’s first independent mission and introduces him as a former associate of Michael’s who blasts his way back into the other man’s life in unforgettable fashion.

While Michael thinks Trevor is dead, players are treated to a raunchy, gory ride when Mr. Philips catches wind of his former associate’s new life on the news (all while having less-than-intimate sexual relations with a woman). What ensues is a profane and violent altercation with the woman’s boyfriend, a pursuit with some bikers and a van, a shootout in a trailer park, and Trevor taking over the local meth trade after running a man’s trailer into a river.

This mission encapsulates what all naysaying parents and video game detractors think the entire series is like — just sex, violence, drugs, and murder.

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Getting the Jetpack — GTA: San Andreas

• Players could obtain a jetpack, a unique traversal item, through completion of missions Green Goo or Black Project.
• The jetpack was also obtainable through cheats, a popular method for players to unlock it.
• The player can use weapons while piloting the jetpack, making it useful for fulfilling objectives.

If following the train was too frustrating, the jetpack feels like the perfect apology from GTA: San Andreas. This unique traversal tool, not technically considered a vehicle, allows for directional control and simultaneous shooting (one-handed weapons only). It turns players into a highly mobile angel of death, raining bullets from the low-altitude skies above. The jetpack can be encountered through multiple missions or with cheat codes — be honest, you probably did this once yourself. We won’t snitch.

In a series full of memes, myths, and other larger-than-life inclusions, the jetpack feels like the right mix of sci-fi silliness and fantasy wish fulfillment that makes you feel like the coolest guy in San Andreas. The jetpack itself is indestructible, grants the player some invulnerability, and can be submerged into the water found around various points of the map. Why doesn’t everyone use one of these to commit crimes?

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The Myth of Bigfoot — GTA Series

• Rumors about Bigfoot in Grand Theft Auto began in 2004 with San Andreas.
• The rumors spread through low-resolution footage, modified gameplay and screenshots, and general word of mouth.
• There is no evidence that a Bigfoot or Sasquatch ever existed in these earlier games.
• However, Rockstar Developers did include reference to the myth in Grand Theft Auto V.

There is nothing so powerful in the world as the force of an old-school gaming urban legend. From nonexistent cheat codes to ultra-secret content your uncle who works at Nintendo told you about, gaming rumors used to run rampant across internet forums, gaming magazines, and school yards alike. One of the most famous of these was the alleged presence of Bigfoot (also known as Sasquatch) in the Grand Theft Auto games.

The myth began with 2004’s GTA: San Andreas, although the exact origin of the rumors is as elusive as the cryptid himself. In the years before more intricate data mining (analyzing game files for unused/cut content) and modding, people took advantage of the game’s graphical limitations and general word of mouth to create hoax footage and accounts of discovering Bigfoot in the forests of San Andreas.

Rockstar Devs responded to the rumors by adding Bigfoot to GTA V

There is no evidence the creature ever existed in the game, but the rumors persisted through releases of future titles like GTA III and IV. Finally, in GTA V, the creature was made more or less canonical — Bigfoot can be seen through a scope in the mission Predator and you can become a Sasquatch hunter in The Last One, although that one doesn’t go the way you may expect.

Visual references can also be found on cars, advertisements, and other branding. The Rockstar crew knew they had big shoes to fill with big feet when this rumor dominated the franchise.

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Did you know GTA VI is set to technically be the eighth main game in the franchise and the 16th installment overall? Will you be getting in on the action when the game releases on November 19 later this year?