Summary
- GTA villains meet brutal ends for betraying protagonists, underestimating players, and pushing them to extremes.
- Criminal acts lead to violent revenge in iconic games like GTA 3, 4, and 5, resulting in tense showdowns and explosive endings.
- Players navigate a web of betrayal, manipulation, and treachery to defeat top adversaries and achieve justice in the GTA universe.
In Grand Theft Auto, players step into the shoes of fairly unambiguously bad people who steal, smuggle, and murder their way to the top of the crime food chain. However, every good story needs a heel, and since the series is known for its cinematic leanings, it makes sense that GTA has produced iconic villains over the years.
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Despite Grand Theft Auto‘s message that a life of crime and brutal violence can pay off in the end, GTA villains tend to end up on the receiving end of brutal revenge for pushing the protagonist to extremes with betrayal, humiliation, or the one major sin the series never forgives: underestimating the player. Beware of end-game spoilers for every mainline Grand Theft Auto game.
Samuel Deever, Bryson, & Sonetti – Grand Theft Auto
The Twisted Long Arm Of The Law Overreaches
Just as the games in the HD universe, GTA 4, GTA 5, and GTA 6, take players to Liberty City, San Andreas, and Vice City respectively, Grand Theft Auto follows the exploits of a silent criminal as they navigate the three cities in the same order. When the protagonist arrives in Vice City, they find themselves being ordered around by corrupt cop (and a serial pest to women, including those in his own family), Samuel Deever.
After so much blackmailing and threatening, Deever gets the player to blow up a limousine containing his wife. The then player sides with Deever’s enemies, the Rasta, for protection, and soon the mission is on to blow up the limo parked outside his home. The explosion presumably kills Deever, blowing up his house and any evidence he had to blackmail the protagonist. Blowing up buildings is incidentally the way the protagonist handles the other two antagonists, Bryson and Sonetti, which Deever should have known before messing with the wrong crook.
The Gang Bosses – Grand Theft Auto 2
Nameless Victims Of A Greater Criminal
As Grand Theft Auto 2 features one of the most psychopathic characters in GTA as its protagonist, Claude Speed, his enemies go unnamed and are known only as the gang leaders. Claude works as something of a triple agent in Anywhere City, working both for and against three criminal organizations in the Downtown, Industrial, and Residential area.
Once all the jobs are done for one gang, Claude proceeds to murder them and take any cash they have lying around in their headquarters or hideouts. After he betrays and robs all three gang leaders, the credits roll, and Claude retires.
Miguel, & Salvatore Leone – Grand Theft Auto 3
The High-Flying Crime Queen Of Liberty
Catalina, also known as the leader of the Colombian Cartel after betraying protagonist Claude during the opening of Grand Theft Auto 3, once ruled Liberty City as its badass crime queen. However, her burned and betrayed ex-lover, Claude, left to rot during a botched bank robbery when Catalina left him for dead, had other ideas once he escaped. Having watched Claude’s rise to power, Cataline sends goons after him, even sacrificing her right-hand man and fellow traitor, Miguel, to ice him.
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Catalina eventually sets up an elaborate trap, but Claude escapes. In desperation, she then kidnaps one of Claude’s closest allies, a member of the Leone crime family, Maria (whose husband, Salvatore Leone, foolishly turned on Claude and met his end), prompting a rescue. When she attempts to escape via a helicopter, Claude shoots it down with a rocket, scattering her smoldering remains across the city.
Ricardo Diez, Lance Vance, & Sonny Forelli – Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
The Lesser Players In The Game Of Vice
Upon arriving on the sun-washed streets of Vice City, Tommy Vercetti is burned by three men. The first was his employer, Sonny Forelli, who let Tommy rot in prison for 15 years before sending him away to establish a new business in dangerous territory. The second was Ricardo Diaz, the mob boss who ambushed him during his deal with the third man, Lance Vance, who acts as a partner with Tommy before turning against him.
After realizing that Diaz had ordered the attack, Tommy takes him down, along with his men. When Lance Vance becomes disillusioned with his partnership with Tommy, he sides with Sonny, who arrives in Vice City to collect his money and taxes from Tommy. Tommy executes Vance on the roof of his mansion before descending to the entrance. Sonny implies that he had set Tommy up before he went to prison, and unrepentant, he attacks. Tommy takes Sonny’s men down in a blazing gunfight before sending him to his final fate.
Officer Frank Tenpenny, Big Smoke, & Ryder – Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
The Drug Kingpin In Police Clothing
Effectively a gang boss in uniform, Officer Frank Tenpenny and his C.R.A.S.H. unit antagonize CJ all the way through the story of San Andreas, even convincing Grove Street Families members Big Smoke and Ryder to join him in his drug-running operation. After killing his mom to lure him home, Tenpenny forces CJ to do his dirty work, threatening his brother’s life if he breaks step.
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Eventually, Tenpenny’s operation is uncovered. When CJ wrestles free of Tenpenny’s control and returns to Los Santos, he puts Ryder and Big Smoke down in Big Smoke’s palace, which Tenpenny lit on fire. After CJ chases the disgraced officer in his fire truck, Tenpenny crashes and dies of a heart attack, finally freeing Grove Street and the rest of Los Santos.
Darko Brevic, Dimitri Rascalov, & Jimmy Pegorino – Grand Theft Auto 4
A City Of Tangled, Nested Rats
Niko’s motivation for moving to Liberty City was to track down a traitor from his war days, who turns out to be Darko Brevic. He makes quick work of him, but Niko’s tragic and dark past compels him to dig deeper into the underworld, with shady characters like Dimitri Rascalov, the slippery and treacherous right-hand man of Mikhail Faustin. Rascalov initially pretends to be Niko Bellic’s ally before revealing his true nature. After helping Niko take down Faustin, Dimitri repays him by turning on him, going so far as to kidnap his cousin, Roman.
By the end of the game, Dimitri offers Niko one final choice: work with him on a heroin deal or take revenge. If Niko spares him and takes the deal, Dimitri betrays him once again and sends hitmen after killing his partner, Jimmy Pegorino. However, if Niko chooses to take revenge, Dimitri meets his end in the cargo hold of a ship, but Pegorino (who survived thanks to Niko’s refusal) pulls a drive-by to avenge his partner, killing Niko’s love interest, Kate McReary.
Devin Weston, Steve Haines, Stretch, & Wei Cheng – Grand Theft Auto 5
Adversaries From High (To Low) Places
A smug and untouchable billionaire investor, Devin Weston believes money makes him invincible. With deep connections to corrupt FIB agents like Steve Haines, Weston manipulates Franklin, Michael, and Trevor into stealing luxury cars for him under the pretense of a business deal, only to refuse to pay them. His arrogance leads him to openly antagonize the three, particularly Michael, whom he attempts to assassinate after Michael gets his secretary killed. When that fails, he orders an unsuccessful hit on Michael’s entire family.
Weston later tries to turn Franklin against Michael, convincing him to turn on his allies. However, if Franklin chooses loyalty with his team, he, Michael, and Trevor unite, each protagonist takes down the other’s enemy: Michael deals with Stretch, Franklin’s friend-turned rival, then Franklin takes down Wei Cheng, Trevor’s vengeful, would-be business partner. Finally, Trevor kidnaps Weston, shoves him into the trunk of his own car, and drives him to the edge of a cliff. As the billionaire pleads for his life, Trevor pushes the car off, sending him to his doom. Steve Haines meets his end with the bullet to the head at the Del Perro Pier, courtesy of Trevor and his sniper rifle.
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