5 fascinating facts about missions in the GTA series

Missions are often the heart and soul of a GTA game, which makes it a fascinating topic when it comes to fun facts.

More often than not, missions are required to progress through a GTA game's story. That's surprisingly not mandatory in all GTA games, but it's a general rule most GTA players know.

The GTA series has a rich history of innovative and new missions, which means there are a lot of interesting facts one can share about the game.

This article will focus on a general overview of missions rather than a list of specific mission facts. For example, this listicle won't include facts about particular mission irregularities or anything like that.

However, something like a GTA game having the most missions would qualify as a fun fact on this list.

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Five fun facts about missions within the GTA series

#5 - GTA Vice City Stories has the most vehicle missions

The Hunter is used in the vehicle mission, Skywolf (Image via GTA Wiki)

There are nine vehicle missions in GTA Vice City Stories, which is higher than GTA San Andreas's eight. Considering the HD universe has drastically lowered the number of vehicle missions in-game, this record is unlikely to be broken anytime soon.

There is a good variety of vehicle missions too. The usual staples (Firefighter, Paramedic, Taxi Driver, and Vigilante) are there, but GTA Vice City Stories also introduced plenty of new vehicle missions with new objectives.

Surprisingly, these new missions never returned in the GTA series. For reference, the nine vehicle missions are:

• Air Rescue
• Beach Patrol
• Fire Copter
• Firefighter
• Paramedic
• Skywolf
• Taxi Driver
• Vice Sights
• Vigilante

#4 - GTA 4 & The Lost and Damned don't show off "Mission Passed"

Most GTA fans find the iconic message, "Mission Passed," to be ubiquitous within the series. Surprisingly, it's absent in GTA 4 and The Lost and Damned for seemingly no reason.

Players still hear the appropriate jingle, but the text itself doesn't show up.

This text is present in The Ballad of Gay Tony, and it's also present in every GTA game afterward. It's strange, especially since this message was even in the first Grand Theft Auto game.

Both GTA 4 and The Lost and Damned make it pretty clear when the player completes a mission, so it's not a game-breaker by any means. Still, it's a minor feature that many players love.

#3 - The Ballad of Gay Tony introduced a scoring system for missions

An example of a Mission Passed screen in The Ballad of Gay Tony (Image via GTA Wiki)

On a similar note to the previous GTA 4 entry, it's worth noting that The Ballad of Gay Tony introduced a scoring system for missions to the GTA series. Previously, there were no medals or anything like that for most standard missions.

The Ballad of Gay Tony changed that, as it now scores the player's performance based on remaining time and other objectives.

Later games like GTA 5 also include this feature, although it is tuned slightly differently in that game.

Players can easily see their scores once they complete a mission in The Ballad of Gay Tony, considering it takes up a sizable chunk of their screen.

The rainbow background also makes it easy for players to see what they were graded on, although there aren't any accompanying medals to go along with it.

#2 - The first GTA game had 90 missions

90 missions is an impressive amount for the first GTA title (Image via GTA Wiki)

GTA San Andreas is the game with the most missions at 101, so it's astonishing to some players to hear that the first GTA title had 90 missions (88 on the PlayStation version). Part of the reason is because of how the first game worked.

Grand Theft Auto had Liberty City, Vice City, and San Andreas all in one game, each with a distinct amount of missions in each area. Liberty City had 24 missions, Vice City had 32 missions, and San Andreas had 34 missions.

The reason the PlayStation version has two fewer missions is that the train feature is absent in the game, so Rockstar decided to remove two missions that relied on it.

#1 - There are eight missions in GTA London 1961

On the opposite end of the spectrum is GTA London 1961. It's an expansion pack for the original Grand Theft Auto, and it only has a surprising eight missions for the player to play. For reference, GTA London 1969 had 43 missions.

It's no coincidence that the game has a speedrun of one minute and 33 seconds, and that's without glitches. The missions aren't mandatory, as they're simply there to pad out a player's score (which is used for ending the game).

It should go without saying that this is the fewest number of missions in the entire GTA series. Unsurprisingly, this is also the shortest game to play through without glitches or exploits.

Note: This article reflects the writer's personal views.