WATCH: ‘Grand Theft Auto Online’ pays homage to franchise origins

It was 20 years ago, in 1997, that “Grand Theft Auto” started making its indelible impact on the video game landscape, and a reminder of its beginnings is on its way to “Grand Theft Auto Online” in the form of a special birds’-eye-view racing mode.

When upstart action game “Grand Theft Auto” was first released, it threw players into a succession of bustling metropolises and rewarded them with successfully executing jobs for crime networks.

Each environment, based on a real-world equivalent, has subsequently been revisited over the course of franchise history, starting with 2001’s “Grand Theft Auto III”.

“GTA III” also marked the series’ impressive transition into full 3D, a significant step forward in demonstrating the potential of go-anywhere, do-anything open worlds.

Recent releases like “Ghost Recon Wildlands”, “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild”, “Yakuza 0”, “Watch Dogs 2”, “Fallout 4”, and “Metal Gear Solid V” tread a similar path to one degree or another.

Now, an April 25 update to “Grand Theft Auto Online”, the multiplayer portion of “Grand Theft Auto V”, will serve for some as a reminder of “GTA” history.

Taking place within the familiar 3D world of “GTA Online”, the Tiny Racers update adopts the original’s top-down perspective within the bounds of a high-speed car racing mode.

Soundtracking a trailer for the update is “Anthem”, N-Joi’s 1990 dance tune, included in the “Grand Theft Auto V” as one of 200-plus selections for its in-game radio stations. It had been re-released in 1996, not long before the first “GTA” debuted.

The early 1990s were also an era of dedicated top-down combat racers, with “Badlands”, “Nitro”, “Super Cars II” among genre favorites, and the seven race-wrecking power-ups of the Tiny Racers update promise a similar experience. JB

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