The best open world games available on the Play Store owe a significant chunk of their success to the GTA franchise, given its notable contribution to the genre’s popularity. GTA-inspired apps evoke the series’ living, breathing worlds full to the brim with color, life, and room to mess around. These apps offer unique missions, customizable avatars, slick vehicles, and vibrant combat mechanics with plenty of morally duplicitous methods for dispatching foes, played best on your best cheap and cheerful Android phone. AP won’t be held responsible for what you get up to with our roundup of the best games that evoke GTA on Android, but far be it from us to discourage you from playing some of the finest games on the Play Store. Enjoy!
What makes a game like GTA?
A GTA-like is broadly speaking a sandbox app that takes place in an aesthetically modern over-world, filled with missions, collectibles, and situational events to help players engage with society. Two major staples of this sub-genre are smooth vehicle mechanics that allow for convenient traversal of the map and responsive combat with a variety of approaches; the ideal ingredients for games about consequence-free violence. These games are for you if excessive linearity and railroading aren’t to your tastes.
1 Payback 2 – The Battle Sandbox
Payback 2 – The Battle Sandbox offers a high-quality GTA-like experience, centering around climbing a criminal hierarchy. Play campaign, multiplayer, and challenge missions in three distinct sandbox maps featuring gunfights, car chases, and occasional tank missions. Enjoy smooth controls with great feedback, essential for competitive online play. Insanely replayable for GTA lovers and amazing to look at; check it out.
2 Los Angeles Crimes
Los Angeles Crimes is a hidden gem with in-depth map creation, multiple game modes, and a thriving community. Fight other players in team deathmatches, outpace them in car races, or fight alongside them in zombie survival, enhanced with smooth controller support. The touch interface is intuitive, integrating the inputs for a GTA-like perfectly for the mobile platform, making the most high-intensity gameplay. Have a blast with existing content, or create your own.
3 Gangster Crime
Gangster Crime’s open world provides tons of content to enjoy, letting users rise from broke nobodies to street-brawling gangsters. Driving and gunplay are precise, with a slew of different vehicles and weapons to acquire through gameplay, perfect for escaping or defeating enemies. Gangster Crime’s open world represents a legit GTA alternative on Android, with impressive variety and customization options.
4 Gangstar Vegas: World of Crime
This game starts strong, plunging you into a combat tutorial car chase. After escaping, users run around Gangstar Vegas: World of Crime’s open world, stealing cars, fighting rival gangs, or playing story missions that further the plot. Movement and gun controls are intuitive, with that characteristic GTA looseness that makes it almost impossible to drive sensibly. A lovely world kept interesting with updates and player events, Gangstar Vegas: World of Crime goes the extra mile.
5 West Gunfighter
West Gunfighter immerses users in an atmospheric, spaghetti western-style open world. Take out enemies with everything from revolvers to rifles, and roam the open world atop your free steed. Complete quests to level up your skills and purchase new guns, explore the world to find hidden treasure, or get drunk and challenge people to duels; up to you. West Gunfighter takes clear inspiration from RDR, and very competently so.
6 Cyberika
Cyberika is an MMORPG throwing users into a futuristic world. Get immersed in an intense story over top-down combat with appealing weapon variety, enhanced by cyber implants for additional punch. Explore detailed environments peppered with consumables and upgrades. Steal items from downed enemies and Fast travel down the highway, dodging traffic with your flashy car. This is perfect if you like our best cyberpunk games on Android roundup.
7 MadOut2 BCO
MadOut2 BCO is notable for its feature list, boasting full support for both solo play and online multiplayer of up to 200 users per server. Character customization is unusually in-depth, with advanced detail alteration worthy of a decent Souls-like app. Users are let loose in a detailed city environment full of cars, cops, and fellow citizens, with nothing but a few guns for screwing the whole place up. MadOut2 BCO is playable solo, with a whole host of thrilling missions for making money to be used on upgrades and customization; with multiplayer exclusive story missions for financial bonuses that go the extra mile.
8 Guns and Spurs 2
While more aesthetically and mechanically akin to RDR, Guns and Spurs 2 evokes the freedom of GTA by having the player free right from the start. The app provides an impressive list of game features that take advantage of the old west setting, providing everything from bounty hunting to sheep herding. The traversal and gunplay controls work excellently with touch controls and only work better with its tight controller support. With its charming setting and diverse gameplay, Guns and Spurs 2 represents a stellar open-world experience on top in addition to its authentic and immersive atmosphere.
9 OTR – Offroad Car Driving Game
OTR – Offroad Car Driving Game centers around GTA’s driving mechanics, with controls just loose enough to keep you guessing. Personalize vehicles with in-depth customization options for cars, boats, and helicopters; explore different kinds of terrain and experience more of the map. Winch up to the tallest mountains, cruise on the open ocean, walk around and enjoy the view, or simply compete in multiplayer races and challenges for additional XP. This is ideal if (like me) driving is your favorite GTA mechanic.
Gaming never slows down on the Play Store
While linearity isn’t a dirty word nowadays, there is still something to be said about a refined sandbox experience, especially in how they tell stories and encourage exploration. GTA-likes strike a delicate balance of being just grounded enough to make the more fantastical aspects feel inherently possible within their worlds; maximizing player immersion and engagement. Their sprawling layout makes them ideal for deep exploration gameplay that makes knowing the world fun and interesting, something that is greatly accentuated by the apps that feature stellar driving mechanics. All of this can be experienced on the best gaming Android phones with great optimization and tight controls, ideal for enjoying exciting action gameplay anywhere you want. Enjoy!
