Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories is the 2006 PSP game set in 1984, two years before the events of Vice City. You play Victor Vance, a soldier discharged from the army who slides into the city's criminal economy. It introduced empire building, the first system in the series that let you buy, upgrade and defend your own businesses.

Building an Empire

Instead of only taking jobs, you seize properties and turn them into businesses: protection rackets, smuggling, loan sharking and more. Each site generates income, can be upgraded, and gets attacked by rivals you then have to fight off. It is the direct ancestor of the business ownership loop that GTA Online eventually built its whole economy around.

Victor Vance and the Vance Brothers

Victor appears briefly in Vice City, where his story ends early. This game gives him the two years leading up to that moment, alongside his brother Lance. Knowing how it turns out gives the whole thing a weight the earlier handheld game did not have.

Vice City Two Years Earlier

The 1984 map is the 1986 city with differences you notice as you drive: buildings under construction, different businesses, a slightly different skyline. Rockstar treated it as the same place at an earlier date rather than a reskin, which is why fans still hold it up as the best of the Stories games.