Granted, the Grand Theft Auto series hasn't exactly been concerned with continuity between games. The most you'll get are a few references from one to another, or in extreme cases, cameos from recurring characters or even returning protagonists (one of whom is memorably beaten to death in the opening hours of Grand Theft Auto V. Sorry if you liked GTA IV.) While it may not be character-focused, the satirical setting of each game provides a richly detailed window into the circumstances of America at the time, especially now that the series has a few period pieces under its belt.
This is the thesis of professor Tore Olsson's upcoming class 'Grand Theft America: U.S. History Since 1980 through the GTA Video Games' at the University of Tennessee, which gives you an excuse to call the GTA games educational. Olsson had this to say about the concept behind the class:
Video games are great at conjuring fictional worlds, but they also impact players' thinking about real-world times and places. And just as Red Dead Redemption 2 has shaped folks' perception of the nineteenth-century American West or Ghost of Tsushimahas informedtheir vision of feudal Japan, millions of people around the globe imagine contemporary America through the lens of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Just think of how many GTA veterans have recognized landmarks in Los Angeles and New York thanks to their hours in Los Santos and Liberty City!
In my class, I take seriously GTA's fictional representation of the United States: its characters, its urban and rural landscapes, and its storylines. And I use that world as the framing device for a serious history class that examines what's actually taken place in the United States over the last half-century. The class is much more about American history than the games themselves, but GTA provides the framework that structures our exploration of the past. My hope is that after the class, students will never look at these games, or modern America, the same again.
I can't deny it'd be interesting to examine post-9/11 paranoia through GTA IV or the Rodney King riots through San Andreas. It's just a shame Grand Theft Auto 6 couldn't be used in the curriculum thanks to its numerous delays.
