From a 'single save-passing exercise' to an 'international community': How GTA’s world-hopping Chain Game has endured through hundreds of rounds—and how it's preparing for its biggest test yet with GTA 6

GTA characters posing.

'Community-based relay game' isn't something I'd immediately associate with Grand Theft Auto. It's just not very gangster, is it? It hardly evokes Trevor Phillips forcibly removing a hostage's teeth with pliers, nor does it reflect Niko Belic delivering harvested organs to the Black Market. When I think of the wider GTA timeline, I picture Tommy Vercetti storming Ricardo Diaz's Vice City mansion, leaving him in a bullet-strewn pool of his blood; and Carl Johnson murdering his way to the top of San Andreas' gangland underworld.

I don't immediately think of a non-real-time version of multiplayer where players take it in turns to progress a single save file, back and forth, round after round, until each game hits 100% completion. That is exactly what the GTA Chain Game is all about, therefore this community-based relay game, in actual fact, brushes up against all of the above—something it's now been doing for several years, now across several Grand Theft Auto classics.