The open-world freedom of the Grand Theft Auto series has defined a genre, but you don’t need a console to experience that kind of sandbox action. Mobile gaming has evolved to offer GTA-style experiences that you can take anywhere. For iOS and Android, here are 10 of the best open-world crime games to satisfy your desires for mayhem, destruction, speed, and storytelling. From historical settings to futures yet imagined, these mobile titles capture what makes GTA so engaging in the palm of your hand.

1. Payback 2 – The Battle Sandbox

Payback 2 - The Battle Sandbox

Payback 2 packs the flavor of GTA into an intense mobile experience focused on event-based gameplay. Across its 50 campaign events, you’ll take part in massive gang battles, high-speed rocket car races, and explosive tank duels. You’ll get to explore 7 different cities, each with unique scenery and activities, ranging from slums to mansions.

With multiplayer support, you can battle friends or other players in hourly, daily, and weekly challenges as you compete on leaderboards. Thanks to the custom mode, replayability is endless – craft your own events by mixing and matching cities, modes, vehicles, and weapons. This freedom encapsulates the GTA vibe by letting you cause mayhem however you choose.

Key Features:

  • 50 diverse campaign events
  • 7 distinct cities to explore
  • Multiplayer battles and challenges
  • Customizable gameplay modes
  • Freedom to cause mayhem

2. MadOut2 – Real Multiplayer Mafia Action

MadOut2 - Real Multiplayer Mafia Action

Calling all fans of gritty, open world online multiplayer – MadOut2 offers complete freedom on the streets of Eastern European cities recreated in visceral detail. You can join up to 200 players on a single server for intense non-stop action. Whether you want serious organized crime roleplay, fast-paced racing and parkour, or wild cops versus bandits conflicts, the game has a mode for you.

As you complete missions ranging from high-stakes robberies to stealing and customizing luxury cars, you’ll become an underworld legend. You can fine-tune everything from your character’s hairstyle and clothing to your vehicle’s exterior vinyl wraps. With regular new content updates, you’ll never run out of ways to leave your mark on this gritty open world.

Key Features:

  • Online open world with 200 players per server
  • Various multiplayer game modes
  • 30+ story missions based in Eastern Europe
  • Customizable characters, skins, and vehicles
  • Post-Soviet aesthetic and ambiance

3. Gangstar New Orleans – Latest Action Open World Game

Gangstar New Orleans

Gangstar New Orleans sets you loose in the largest open world ever designed for mobile, modeling the big easy in meticulous detail. The diverse neighborhoods burst with life, from the debauchery of the French Quarter to the gritty back alleys of the slums. You’ll undertake over 80 story missions ranging from grand theft auto to infiltrating riverboat casinos, building your criminal empire block by block.

If you need a break from moving up the mafia ranks, detour into the fully-featured casinos to try your luck or compete in wild challenges like illegal street races and gang wars. Cruising the sprawling city in exotic muscle cars, swamp bikes, or attack helicopters makes traversal an adventure in itself. With so much to do and explore, Gangstar New Orleans encapsulates the thrill of rising to the top of the criminal underworld.

Key Features:

  • 80+ story missions based in New Orleans
  • Huge, diverse open world map
  • Leaderboards and challenges
  • Casino games to play
  • Wide range of exotic vehicles

4. Gangster War Mafia Hero – War of Underworld

Gangster War Mafia Hero

Gangster War Mafia Hero throws you into a crime-ridden city as a powerful superhero aiming to dismantle the mafia’s operations. You’ll use your strength, speed, and combat abilities to take down the dangerous gangsters that plague the streets. The detailed 3D environments truly make you feel immersed as a hero in this urban sprawl.

As you complete missions to weaken the mafia’s influence and restore order, you’ll gain access to new abilities and upgrades to enhance your crime-fighting prowess. If you love the feeling of GTA but want to be on the side of justice, Gangster War Mafia Hero lets you become the hero your city desperately needs against lethal mafia threats.

Key Features:

  • Play as a superhero taking down mafia
  • Detailed 3D city environments
  • Unlock new combat abilities and upgrades
  • Defeat deadly mafia bosses
  • Free city from grasp of gangs

5. Western Gunfighter Cowboy Game

Western Gunfighter Cowboy Games like GTA

Western Gunfighter drops you into an expansive open world Wild West, equipped only with your cowboy skills and trusty six shooter. Step into the spurred boots of a cowboy or cowgirl trying to survive the harsh frontier. You’ll take on challenges like hunting wild animals, finding hidden treasures, riding horses across the wide open plains, and engaging in western shootouts.

Care for your noble steed in the stable you construct, gather resources to craft ammunition, and turn the wilderness into a home. This immersive cowboy simulation open world lets you live out your western fantasies to the fullest through survival-based gameplay. Saddle up and tame the wild west in Western Gunfighter.

Key Features:

  • Old West themed open world
  • Play as male or female cowboy
  • Activities like horse riding, hunting, mining
  • Craft weapons, build structures
  • Survive against outlaws

6. Guns and Spurs 2 – An Open World Western

Guns and Spurs 2

This third-person open world shooter immerses you in the Old West as you step into the spurred boots of bounty hunter Jack Lane. He’s arrived in a frontier boomtown with hopes of a better life by doing what he does best – tracking down wanted outlaws and collecting bounties. You’ll explore diverse environments ranging from mountain vistas to dense forests and sweeping deserts.

As you take on bounties, you can approach each situation how you choose – either kill on sight or use your lasso to bring them in alive. With 33 unique outlaws on the list, you’ll need to hone your shooting and hunting skills to survive these western adventures. Customize Jack and his loyal horse to leave your mark on the frontier as you restore order to the lawless land.

Key Features:

  • Open world Wild West environments
  • Play as bounty hunter protagonist
  • Choice to kill or capture 33 outlaws
  • Detailed character and horse customization
  • Dynamic living world

7. Dude Theft Wars FPS Open World

Dude Theft Wars FPS Open World Games like GTA

Dude Theft Wars thrives on physics-based free roam gameplay paired with hilarious ragdoll effects. It captures the absurdity and excitement of GTA with its urban sandbox. You can do crazy stunts with everything from cars to helicopters. The wanted system ups the ante, having you evade pursuing police forces after committing crimes.

In multiplayer modes, you can compete or cooperate with others in game modes like team deathmatch. Dude Theft Wars takes the ingredients of classic open world games and cranks the insanity up to 11 through its physics and ragdoll driven formula.

Key Features:

  • Offline and Online Multiplayer
  • Open world urban sandbox
  • Physics-based gameplay
  • Vehicular stunts and combat
  • Humorous ragdoll effects
  • Police chases and takedowns

8. Cyberika: Action Adventure RPG

Cyberika Action Adventure RPG Games like GTA

Cyberika immerses you in a cyberpunk future where strength and technology rule the urban sprawl. You start from humble beginnings in an apartment on the outskirts, steadily growing your abilities and influence. Completing missions lets you customize your increasingly powerful character with advanced weapons and cybernetic augmentations.

These upgrades open up new combat tactics and playstyles, from stealthy netrunner to augmented super soldier. If you need to unwind, hit the vibrant nightclubs and casinos in the Downtown district. Whether you’re customizing cars, hacking enemies, or dominating firefights, this cyberpunk RPG delivers a diverse urban action experience.

Key Features:

  • Cyberpunk dystopian open world city
  • Missions offer money for upgrades
  • Futuristic weapons like laser katanas
  • Distinct districts to explore
  • Synthwave soundtrack

9. Off The Road – OTR Mud Racing

Off The Road - OTR Mud Racing

Off The Road hands you the keys to a vast open world purpose-built for off-roading adventures. Using your vehicle’s handy winch system, no mountain is too steep and no valley is out of reach as you chart your own course through pristine nature. Traverse land, sea, and sky in your choice of 4×4 trucks, speedboats, helicopters, and more. Accept challenges that test your navigation skills and reflexes to earn money for upgrading your growing fleet of vehicles.

Whether you want to explore in zen-like solitude or race friends online, Off The Road offers the ultimate freedom. The breathtaking landscapes are ripe for you to stake your claim, with endless potential for outdoor escapades. Chart your own trail and write your own stories in this thrilling off-road sandbox.

Key Features:

  • Massive open world environments
  • Realistic vehicle physics and terrain
  • Fleet of land, air, and sea vehicles
  • Dynamic challenges to complete
  • Competitive online multiplayer

10. Gangstar Vegas – Mafia action

Gangstar Vegas

The largest entry in Gameloft’s Gangstar series, Gangstar Vegas offers a mafia-themed adventure in the City of Sin. You’ll play as an MMA fighter trying to break free from the mob as you take on 80 story missions. The open world is packed with casinos and venues to enjoy, exotic vehicles to acquire, and plenty of weapons to let you fight back against the criminal underworld.

Like GTA, you’re free to carve out your own path in this sandbox environment – either complete story quests or just roam causing chaos however you choose. With regular new updates adding missions, Gangstar Vegas provides endless opportunities to immerse yourself in mob life.

Key Features:

  • Fighting and shooting game
  • Open world Las Vegas setting
  • 80+ mafia-themed story missions
  • Exotic vehicles including fighter jets
  • Fully-featured casinos to enjoy
  • Leaderboards and challenges

Conclusion

These 10 mobile games provide all the open-world thrills and spills that the groundbreaking Grand Theft Auto series popularized. With detailed urban maps to explore, vehicles to hijack, chaos to cause, guns to shoot, and stories to experience, you’ll feel immersed in engrossing GTA-style gameplay whether you’ve got an iPhone or Android. Thanks to intuitive touch controls and gameplay tailored to on-the-go gaming, your criminal empire or heroic agenda is right there in your pocket.

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