

Newer versions of Multi Theft Auto with increasingly better gameplay and other improvements were released based on the same concept of game manipulation, by a small team of developers.

The first version of Multi Theft Auto, dubbed Grand Theft Auto III: Alternative Multiplayer, attempted to fill in this gap by extending an already existing cheating tool with functionality that allowed the game to be played with a very crude form of two-player racing over a computer network purely as a proof of concept, similar to how the now-defunct XBAND service worked by manipulating game memory in order to add online multiplayer functionality. Despite its success, it was the first Grand Theft Auto game to ship without the network multiplayer gameplay features that were present in earlier titles, which allowed players to connect through a computer network and play the game with others. The release of Grand Theft Auto III, a critically acclaimed sandbox-styleaction-adventurecomputer and video gamedeveloped by DMA Design (now Rockstar North) represented the first 3D title in the Grand Theft Auto ( GTA) series.
