Many games have tried to take away GTA’s crown, so here are the failures worthy of looking back on and reminiscing what could have been

Ever since the GTA series became the biggest game franchise in the world with GTA 3, many have tried to one-up it. No game has succeeded, but many of its challengers have remarkable development stories, so let’s remember the fallen.

Driv3r

The first two Driver games are staples of the original PlayStation and legendary car-chase titles. Driv3r, the game meant to beat GTA 3 with its experience in the 3D realm, achieved legendary status, but only for the worst reasons.

Driv3r’s development became so troubled that it was delayed to the point of competing not with GTA 3 or GTA Vice City, but with GTA San Andreas, a game lightyears ahead of everything else. And it gets worse.

Driv3r is responsible for “Driv3rgate,” a huge scandal that hit when people suspected publisher Atari was cozying up to big gaming outlets of its time in exchange for ridiculously high scores that overlooked all of the game’s technical issues. Never heard about Driv3rgate? Well, that might be because Atari then allegedly spent big bucks on a campaign to delete all negative press about Driv3r and replace it with positive reactions from fake accounts. Seems bad, but you gotta give them credit for pulling off this level of crap before AI was a thing.

So, if we’re to end on a positive note, as far as criminal simulators go, Driv3r actually outdoes GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas, because its development reportedly featured actual unlawful activity! Here’s hoping that joke doesn’t age poorly very, very fast.

JAK 2

Jak 2 isn’t the game most would think of as a GTA competitor, but they’d be wrong.

The original Jak and Daxter was a cool platformer, one that combined the action of the Crash Bandicoot series that Naughty Dog was known for, with much more open play areas. The natural evolution of that alone should’ve gotten Naughty Dog enough praise and sales to keep the series alive, but then something changed everything.

GTA 3’s release deeply shook the entire gaming landscape, and Naughty Dog admitted the Jak and Daxter sequel was heavily inspired by it, and that’s why you now have guns, cars, and a huge megacity-like play world. Even the name was changed to a three-letter name followed by a number. Jak 2 is a good game, but it’s too far away from the original, and definitely still not the game that would appeal to the more mature GTA-loving audience.

Mafia

If we overlook Mafia 3’s considerable technical issues because a dangerous-looking dude told us to, we can say the Mafia series is pretty great overall. It did, however, make a big mistake in its clinging to realism. The original Mafia takes place over the 1930s, some of the greatest years of organized crime, I’ve been told, and also a time that feels completely separate from the ’90s and ’80s of most GTA games up until then. Sadly, however, the developers seemingly didn’t conduct much research into the cars of that time, a big part of making a GTA competitor. The good news is that cars were, indeed, already a thing back in the ’30s, but they were slow as hell and thus not fun for either chasing other bad guys or getting away from the police.

Interestingly, there’s one mission in the original Mafia where the cars can actually achieve decent speeds—the racing minigame, naturally—but that’s actually gone down in history as one of the worst missions in this kind of game, since the cars are nearly uncontrollable. Mafia is a good game, but beating GTA 3 would have taken so much more than just that.

True Crime: Streets of LA

To anyone growing up in the ’90s and Y2K times, everything about True Crime: Streets of LA read like “GTA but BETTER.” It had you join the “good” guys, starred a wild number of Hollywood A-listers, and even added cool martial arts and Matrix- inspired shooting shenanigans. How are we not suffering acutely while waiting for True Crime 6 right now? Well, turns out there’s such a thing as a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.

Though the idea of putting a greater focus on combat was the right one, the game suffered from a bunch of technical hiccups, like bad camera and clipping that left the gameplay feeling too unpolished to measure up to GTA 3 or Vice City. Weirdly, True Crime’s weaker technical side would only get worse with its sequel, True Crime: New York City, and the martial arts GTA-like would only resurface a decade later with Sleeping Dogs.

The Getaway

The Getaway is one of the most expensive games ever made, and it shows. The developers at Team Soho literally cloned a large part of London and put it in a game with some of the best visuals of its time. The Getaway was as real as a game could get up until that point—and that proved a problem. See the sky in the image above? It’s grey just like the London sky tends to be, but that just isn’t as fun as sunny Vice City, sorry, Londoners.

The same focus on realism over fun is seen in many other parts of the game, like the minimalistic or null HUD, a very realistic and immersive choice that absolutely works with games meant for hardcore players like Escape From Tarkov, but that tend not to work on games aimed at mass market appeal. The Getaway was still a technical marvel, but not a marvelously fun game.

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Fantasy FC Team 1 is coming soon to FC 26, and you can expect some fantastic cards in Ultimate Team.

So far, EA Sports has been tight-lipped about what’s coming after Knockout Royalty. It appears that the ongoing promo will be a one-team affair, and Fantasty FC (or FC Fantasy) is all set to be the replacement. Let’s look at all the information that has already crept onto social media ahead of the official launch.

All FC 26 Fantasy FC Team 1 players

A few names have already popped up on social media who are expected to be part of the first team.

• Rafael Leao
• Salma Paralluelo
• Endrick
• Bruno Fernandes
• Antoine Semenyo

While the names are few as of writing, more leaks will appear closer to the release date. Fantasy FC will feature dynamic cards eligible for upgrades. The upgrades will be based on certain stipulations that will likely depend on real-life football. If you have played Ultimate Team in the last few years, you’ll have a fair idea about what to expect.

Fantasy FC will once again feature special cards for Heroes and Icons, along with cards of active footballers. A few of them have been leaked on social media.

• Stam
• Yaya Toure
• Antonio Di Natale
• Al Owairan
• Brolin

FC 26 Fantasy FC Team 1 release countdown

The first team of the Fantasy FC promo will go live on Friday, Feb. 20. The new promo will replace the ongoing Knockout Royalty cards from packs. The following countdown will expire once the first set of Fantasy FC cards is added to the packs.

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The countdown is based on the following times.

• 10am PT
• 12pm CT
• 1pm ET
• 6pm UTC
• 7pm CET

This is the usual schedule EA Sports follows with promo launches. While most of the cards will be available in packs, we should get new SBCs and objectives to complete. These will be alternate options to get the promo cards without relying on pack luck. We will know which cards eventually make it to the first week of the new promo on Friday.

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