Grand Theft Auto III was the game that took the franchise from a top-down 2D perspective to the world of 3D. And it was awesome.
Players could immerse themselves in a creative re-imagining of New York City in the form of Liberty City, where they could wreak havoc to their heart’s content.
Whenever you weren’t poking holes in public property with your 9mm, you could also indulge in the exciting mafia storyline.
Playing GTA3 decades years after its original release can be a bit tougher than you’d think. But mods help a lot.
So here I’ll be listing all the essential mods you can try for an updated experience, along with many others that promise to make your next playthrough feel like the best one yet.
Note: most of these mods need a little outside help to run correctly, so I recommend installing the CLEO Library before anything else.
Back in 2011, GTAIII got a re-release on mobile platforms to commemorate the game’s 10th Anniversary, complete with an updated interface.
This mod by creator Huckleberry Pie simply ports this updated interface to your PC version of GTA3, replacing the usual menu and splash screens with the ones from the iOS release.
They’re pretty stylish, and it’s a great way to spice things up after playing GTAIII for a while.
Another small but meaningful improvement comes in the way of the GPS Radar, a mod by Jey Bee that replaces the old & boringly square map from the base game, with something more akin to a GPS.
It’s mostly for looks, but I can’t deny that it’s less cumbersome.
And it feels a lot more like more recent Grand Theft Auto installments. I wouldn’t pass up this one even if it seems minor.
One of my first encounters with the limitations of technology during my formative years was walking up to a door in a video game, only to find out there was no way to open it.
We’ve all been there, right?
Moments later, it dawned on me that there was probably no interior either… and then the whole charade fell apart.
Perhaps modder Silberio had the same experience. His way to get back at reality was the Go-Inside-Vehicles mod, which lets you access the inner sanctum of stationary vehicles like the subway trains of Liberty City.
It’s a nice touch of realism added to the transportation system, and it goes a long way towards a more immersive experience.
One of GTA’s most attractive features is the opportunity to drive around pulling off dangerous tricks with no regard for your safety.
Or anyone else’s, for that matter.
This exciting mod by Odie expands our possibilities by outfitting Portland with its very own stunt park.
You’ll find loops to conquer, ramps to challenge, and many other impressive stunt-oriented structures. Even if you only use it once in a while, I guarantee you’ll get plenty of fun from this simple install.
Since we’re updating GTA3 to match our hardware, take the time to set-up this Widescreen Fix too.
It’s also made by ThirteenAG to help modern us access the cryptic worlds of antique games.
Since issues with widescreen resolution settings are so prevalent among older games, you’ll be happy to hear that ThirteenAG has these kinds of fixes for a variety of titles too!
These include other iconic GTA titles like Vice City and San Andreas, and even the ancient sprite-based GTA games that dinosaurs used to play.
Driving at breakneck speeds through the streets of Liberty City is one of GTA3’s most appealing aspects.
So we want the experience to be as comfortable as possible.
This mod by RMWS modernizes driving by letting you move the camera using your mouse and keyboard controls, all while Claude (the main guy) is still at the wheel.
It’s a bit wonky sometimes, but it can be incredibly useful. Even if you run into a bug here and there while cruisin’ I think you learn to adapt fast.
At least 50% of your time playing GTA will be spent sitting at the wheel and watching the asphalt move below your low-poly wheels.
So why not make it look better?
With this addition by modder Duh02, you get a much more detailed finish on streets all around Liberty City.
People always sleep on these smaller mods. But even something as simple as updating the roads’ texture can elevate the experience to new heights, at absolutely no cost. Thanks, modding!
Now that you’ve taken care of the textures, you might want to take it a bit further and mess with the game’s visual effects.
Creator 1TUFSS makes it easy for us with his Real Effects mod, which modifies weather effects such as the rain, mist, or smoke from fires and car exhausts.
Even bullet trails get a touch-up here, and water has never looked this natural in GTA3. Too bad we still can’t swim (yet).
Something great about this mod is that you get all the features without so much as a hint of a performance cost.
Not that you’d have any with a modern gaming PC, anyway.
Nowadays, we take several Quality-of-Life features in games for granted. Chief among them?
An autosave feature.
If we die, we want to restart the game at the beginning of the current mission rather than four missions back… which is always the last time I decided to save manually.
While GTA3 was made before this was a standard feature in most action-oriented games, modder ThirteenAG brings us the solution with the Autosave and Stuff mod.
This enables Autosave, Quicksaves, and real-time maps, among a few other things.
Once you’ve tried this mod you won’t be able to go back.
Now here’s something with a bigger scope than a mere HD texture pack.
Created by OmeXr, GTAIII: Remastered Edition promises to be the ultimate visual improvement for this age-old game.
Not only does it improve virtually every texture including shadows, but it features color correction, and even adds accurate reflections to many of the game’s surfaces, like windows and car paint.
It’s a bit of an extra, but this mod also makes the sky a vibrant vivid blue that gives Liberty City a completely different feel.
Back when I was a child, learning the cheats for my favorite PC games was like a game in and of itself.
And whenever I got to try a new one, it was like discovering a whole new side to a game I loved.
But you know what would’ve been simpler? Having hotkeys to every one of my cheats – and that’s what the GTAIII Ultimate Trainer by LithJoe is here to offer.
It includes all the classic boosts, such as giving yourself all weapons, extra money, full health, and manipulating your wanted level.
It also features some more obscure changes such as the ominous “Gore Mode” and making every police officer and patrol car disappear with the push of a button.
No more scouring the web for a cheats list, cause you’ve got them all at your fingertips.
We’ve covered so many mods so far, you’ve likely seen several that could make a great addition to your GTA experience.
To help you install and manage so many mods, I recommend Link2012’s Mod Loader.
This convenient tool will let you choose which mods load first, enable and disable them at will, and even tweak their config files without too much trouble.
Mod authors generally work with this manager in mind, so it usually works wonders for every mod out there.
Easily the best part about the Mod Loader is that you don’t need to install any mods over your vanilla game files, keeping your game’s file directory intact.
I have many friends who own GTA V just for the pure hedonistic pleasure of booting up the game, going into the airport guns blazing, and stealing a plane, only to crash it into the water minutes later.
I can see the appeal.
The PC GTA3 didn’t include any kind of aircraft you could pilot.
However, both Vice City and San Andreas did have this feature… and since they run on virtually the same engine, it wasn’t too hard for notorious modder Silent to re-work some code and bring flying machines to Liberty City.
Aircrafts in GTA3 offer a whole new world of fun to discover.
And you can do so in anything from an LCPD Maverick helicopter to a stylish biplane.
Another mod by prolific modder Silent, this offers a fix that’ll let you use your modern DualShock and Xbox gamepads to play this incredible low-poly sandbox game.
Older titles like GTA3 are generally programmed to use DirectInput for collecting the user’s commands, which isn’t ideal for current-gen gamepads that work with Xinput.
This mod not only enables GTA3 to work with Xinput and recognize your modern gamepads, but it even supports SIXAXIS functionality on DualShock controllers too.
Lots of PS2 and PC GTAIII users went through their time with the game feeling like those playing on XBOX had it better. Since the XBOX version of the game had sharper graphics, better textures, and several other improvements.
This incredible mod will make sure you never have to feel that way again by bringing every single upgrade from the XBOX version to GTA3 on the PC.
Better models, road gloss, realistic rain droplets, and HQ Radio Stations are only some of the enhancements you’ll notice.
And since you’re going to be using this on a more technical system, you won’t have to contend with the framerate drops the XBOX version was known for.
Whenever we’re hunting for mods, most of us hope we’ll find a massive conversion that’ll let us re-experience our favorite game from an entirely new perspective.
Liberty City Twenty Ten offers us just this by presenting a new storyline taking place in Liberty City, just after a violent Civil War has ravaged the State of Liberty and America at large.
Chaos reigns and murder is commonplace.
But that’s just what GTA has always looked like, right?
This mod includes new vehicles, a very modified map, and hours of fun as you try to survive and take over the city. It’ll definitely keep you busy for a while.
If there’s a type of mod that we can all equally benefit from, it’s massive compilations of fixes and small improvements that the original developers should’ve taken care of, but didn’t.
Lucky for us, there are modders like Silent who’ve made it their Odyssey to go around bringing games to their most polished version yet.
Once you’ve installed this mod you’ll realize a lot of what made the PS2 or Xbox versions of the game better: fixed bugs, rather than new features.
Stuff like car reflections being appropriately rendered can make a real difference.
Few names are as respected in the classic GTA modding community than PistukasMods, responsible for massive total conversions such as Frosted Winter for GTA3.
This frosty mod brings in so much content, it might as well be a whole new game.
It features 53 new story missions, 18 new asset missions, and even 14 side-missions, letting you enjoy the new storyline and providing an excuse to try out all those new weapons (granted the old ones are still around too).
Other than that, there are also several new jumps, rampages, and collectibles to find in this snowy city.
If you’re looking for a single mod that’ll give you weeks of new things to explore, you have to try out Frosted Winter.
Nelson Chitty is a Venezuelan expat living in Argentina. He’s a writer and translator passionate about history and foreign cultures. His ideal weekend is spent between leisurely playing games of Civilization VI and looking for the next seinen anime to marathon.
