Grand Theft Auto clone is a game subgenre.
Grand Theft Auto clone is a subgenre of open world action-adventure video games , characterized by their likeness to the Grand Theft Auto series in either gameplay , or overall design . The storylines of games in this subgenre typically have strong themes of crime and violence . The subgenre has its origins in open-world action adventure games popularized in Europe ( and particularly the United Kingdom ) throughout the 1980s and 1990s .