The 24 Best Crime Games To Play Right Now (2026)
- Niels Gys
- 6 days ago
- 10 min read
Updated: 1 hour ago
CRIMENET Popularity Index
Everybody wants to be a criminal.
At least until somebody asks them to parallel park the getaway car.
Crime games have been letting us rob banks, build cartels, assassinate politicians, hijack sports cars and accidentally punch innocent pedestrians for decades. Some become legends. Others disappear faster than evidence after a suspicious warehouse fire.
The CRIMENET Popularity Index exists to answer one simple question:
Which crime games are people actually playing right now?
This isn't a review.
This isn't nostalgia.
It's a quarterly snapshot of the biggest crime games currently dominating the underworld.
Every entry this quarter begins as NEW.
Next quarter, the arrows arrive.
Some games will climb.
Some will fall.
Some will quietly disappear after their online population becomes smaller than the queue at a tax seminar.
Chart Key
▲ Climbed
▼ Dropped
▬ No Change
NEW First Appearance
RE Re-entry
Updated: Q3 2026
Q3 2026 Rankings
# | Move | Game |
1 | NEW | Grand Theft Auto V / GTA Online |
2 | NEW | Cyberpunk 2077 |
3 | NEW | Red Dead Redemption 2 |
4 | NEW | Schedule I |
5 | NEW | PAYDAY 2 |
6 | NEW | Grand Theft Auto IV |
7 | NEW | Watch Dogs 2 |
8 | NEW | HITMAN World of Assassination |
9 | NEW | Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas |
10 | NEW | Red Dead Redemption |
11 | NEW | Crime Scene Cleaner |
12 | NEW | Watch Dogs |
13 | NEW | Mafia III |
14 | NEW | Mafia: Definitive Edition |
15 | NEW | Crime Simulator |
16 | NEW | Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition |
17 | NEW | Yakuza 0 |
18 | NEW | The Escapists 2 |
19 | NEW | Mafia II: Definitive Edition |
20 | NEW | Mafia: The Old Country |
21 | NEW | Thief Simulator |
22 | NEW | Saints Row: The Third |
23 | NEW | Streets of Rogue |
24 | NEW | Crime Boss: Rockay City |
Grand Theft Auto still runs the underworld, but the crown doesn't pay the bills. If you're already planning your next crime spree, start with the latest GTA Online Weekly Grind and see which jobs are actually worth stealing this week before Rockstar changes its mind again.
#24 NEW Crime Boss: Rockay City
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox
Crime Boss spent its launch face-planting into the pavement at full speed. Since then, update after update has dragged it back onto its feet. Today it's a surprisingly enjoyable co-op crime shooter with enough Hollywood actors to make you wonder whether someone accidentally booked a film set instead of a recording studio.
The Getaway: A comeback story that finally earned its place on the chart.
#23 NEW Streets of Rogue
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox • Switch
Why quietly pick a lock when you can impersonate a scientist, hack the security system, recruit a gorilla and accidentally start a city-wide riot?
Streets of Rogue is organised chaos where almost every objective can be solved through crime, violence, deception or absolute stupidity.
Usually all four.
The Getaway: One of the most creative crime sandboxes ever made.
#22 NEW Saints Row: The Third
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox • Nintendo Switch
Saints Row stopped trying to compete with GTA years ago and instead chose complete insanity.
Insurance fraud became a sport.
Beating people with novelty weapons became perfectly acceptable business practice.
The laws of physics quietly resigned.
Ridiculous?
Absolutely.
Forgettable?
Not a chance.
The Getaway: The series at its wonderfully unhinged best.
#21 NEW Thief Simulator
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox • Nintendo Switch
Some people dream of robbing banks.
Thief Simulator politely suggests stealing Mrs. Henderson's microwave instead.
Study routines. Disable alarms. Fill the van. Leave before the neighbours realise their television has begun a new career elsewhere.
It's burglary at its most methodical.
The Getaway: Still the definitive home-invasion simulator.
#20 NEW Mafia: The Old Country
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox
The newest Mafia game immediately earned attention thanks to one of gaming's most respected crime franchises. While its long-term popularity is still finding its level, organised crime, family loyalty and brutal power struggles remain exactly what fans came for.
The Getaway: A strong debut that now has to prove it can stay on the chart.
→ Mafia: The Old Country Review
#19 NEW Mafia II: Definitive Edition
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox
Few games capture the feeling of climbing through a criminal family quite like Mafia II.
Every promotion feels earned.
Every betrayal feels personal.
Every mission reminds you that organised crime has an extremely aggressive human resources department.
The Getaway: One of the finest mafia stories ever told.
#18 NEW The Escapists 2
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox • Nintendo Switch
Escaping prison sounds straightforward until you realise your grand criminal empire currently consists of a plastic spoon, two rolls of toilet paper and a stolen toothbrush.
Every successful breakout feels like a tiny miracle.
Every failed attempt ends with the guards reminding you that optimism isn't bulletproof.
The Getaway: Prison breaks have rarely been this addictive.
→ The Escapists 2 Review
#17 NEW Yakuza 0
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox
One minute you're negotiating with the Japanese underworld.
The next you're beating someone unconscious with a bicycle before calmly winning a karaoke competition.
Yakuza somehow makes organised crime, heartfelt drama and complete nonsense coexist without either one ruining the other.
The Getaway: A crime epic overflowing with personality.
#16 NEW Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox
Sleeping Dogs remains one of gaming's most criminally overlooked masterpieces.
The undercover premise constantly forces you to balance police duty against Triad loyalty, while the hand-to-hand combat still lands harder than many games released a decade later.
Some games age.
Sleeping Dogs simply keeps embarrassing newer competitors.
The Getaway: If you've never played it, fix that before reading another list.
#15 NEW Crime Simulator
Platforms: PC
Crime Simulator is one of the newest names in the genre, but it's climbing fast.
Fast-paced robberies, cooperative chaos and enough lockpicks to bankrupt an entire locksmith convention have helped it build momentum surprisingly quickly.
If any game looks ready to crash next quarter's Top 10, it's this one.
The Getaway: The fastest-rising specialist crime game on the chart.
#14 NEW Mafia: Definitive Edition
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox
Some remakes merely add shinier puddles and call it a day.
Mafia: Definitive Edition rebuilt an entire classic from the ground up while remembering that the original's greatest strength wasn't the Tommy guns. It was Tommy Angelo. Every mission drips with loyalty, betrayal and enough period atmosphere to make you instinctively look for a fedora.
The Getaway: The definitive way to experience one of gaming's greatest mafia stories.
#13 NEW Mafia III: Definitive Edition
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox
Lincoln Clay doesn't politely negotiate with organised crime.
He dismantles it with the subtlety of a wrecking ball crashing through a church window.
Its repetitive district structure still divides players, but the revenge story remains one of the strongest in the series, backed by a soundtrack so good you'll happily spend ten extra minutes driving just to finish the song.
The Getaway: Flawed, brutal and impossible to mistake for anything else.
#12 NEW Watch Dogs
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox
Before hacking every traffic light became fashionable, Aiden Pearce was already turning smartphones into weapons.
Watch Dogs mixes organised crime with digital sabotage, giving players the power to manipulate an entire city from a phone that's somehow more capable than most governments.
It hasn't aged perfectly.
Its ideas have.
The Getaway: The game that proved cybercrime could carry an open-world blockbuster.
→ Watch Dogs Review
#11 NEW Crime Scene Cleaner
Platforms: PC
Every criminal dreams of pulling off the perfect murder.
Somebody still has to mop the floor afterwards.
Crime Scene Cleaner turns you into the unfortunate soul responsible for erasing evidence before the police arrive. Blood, bullet casings and suspiciously head-shaped holes in the wall all become tomorrow morning's cleaning schedule.
Somehow, scrubbing away evidence becomes strangely relaxing.
Therapists probably have questions.
The Getaway: One of the most original crime simulators of the past few years.
#10 NEW Red Dead Redemption
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox • Nintendo Switch
John Marston is trying to leave crime behind.
Unfortunately, crime keeps forwarding its mail.
The original Red Dead Redemption remains one of Rockstar's finest stories, capturing the dying days of the Wild West with bank robberies, train hold-ups and outlaw gangs slowly being replaced by civilisation.
It's less about becoming rich.
It's about surviving long enough to regret your past.
The Getaway: An outlaw classic that still rides comfortably into the Top 10.
→ Red Dead Redemption Review
#9 NEW Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox • Nintendo Switch • Mobile
Few games have influenced crime games more than San Andreas.
Gang wars.
Drive-by shootings.
Casino heists.
Street racing.
Property ownership.
By today's standards the graphics show their age, but the ambition remains astonishing. Rockstar essentially looked at open-world games and asked, "What if we simply added everything?"
Then they almost did.
The Getaway: The blueprint that inspired a generation of criminal sandboxes.
#8 NEW HITMAN World of Assassination
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox • Nintendo Switch
Agent 47 isn't a criminal.
He's a highly organised workplace accident with a barcode.
Every mission is a puzzle box filled with disguises, poison, exploding golf balls and increasingly ridiculous ways of convincing somebody that gravity was entirely responsible for what just happened.
Professional.
Silent.
Utterly absurd.
The Getaway: Nobody turns murder into an art form quite like Agent 47.
#7 NEW Watch Dogs 2
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox
Marcus Holloway approaches organised crime with the confidence of someone who has never once considered using the front door.
Hack the traffic.
Hack the police.
Hack the security cameras.
Hack the rich bloke's smart fridge if you're feeling particularly vindictive.
Watch Dogs 2 replaces brute force with creativity, making every mission feel like you're conducting a cyber orchestra whose instruments all happen to be illegal.
The Getaway: Ubisoft's most enjoyable crime sandbox still refuses to go offline.
#6 NEW Grand Theft Auto IV
Platforms: PC • Xbox
Niko Bellic came to Liberty City chasing the American Dream.
Instead he found unpaid debts, organised crime and enough betrayal to permanently ruin his trust in phone calls beginning with, "Cousin..."
The darker tone still separates GTA IV from the rest of the series. There are fewer jokes, fewer explosions and far more moments that remind you crime isn't glamorous when you're the one cleaning up the consequences.
The Getaway: Rockstar's grittiest crime story still has an astonishingly loyal audience.
#5 NEW PAYDAY 2
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox
Robbing banks is easy.
Keeping four random teammates alive long enough to leave with the money is where the real challenge begins.
More than a decade after launch, PAYDAY 2 remains the undisputed king of cooperative heists. Hundreds of weapons, dozens of robberies and one of the most dedicated communities in gaming have kept it alive long after most multiplayer games quietly retired to the bargain bin.
Its greatest achievement?
Making its own sequel spend years trying to catch up.
The Getaway: The greatest cooperative crime game ever made.
#4 NEW Schedule I
Platforms: PC
Nobody expected one of 2026's biggest crime games to revolve around building a drug empire.
Then Schedule I arrived and immediately started printing player numbers faster than counterfeit money.
Grow.
Cook.
Sell.
Expand.
Avoid the police.
Repeat.
It's the criminal management simulator that somehow turned illegal entrepreneurship into one of Steam's biggest success stories.
The Getaway: The breakout crime phenomenon of 2026.
#3 NEW Red Dead Redemption 2
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox
Dutch has a plan.
He always has a plan.
Unfortunately, most of those plans involve robbing trains, shooting half the county and eventually explaining why everything went spectacularly wrong.
Red Dead Redemption 2 remains one of the greatest outlaw simulators ever created. Every robbery feels desperate. Every campfire conversation builds the gang. Every mistake pushes civilisation a little closer.
The Getaway: Nobody has ever made life as an outlaw feel more believable.
→ Red Dead Redemption 2 Review
#2 NEW Cyberpunk 2077
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox • Nintendo Switch 2
Night City doesn't reward good people.
It rewards survivors.
Mercenary contracts, gang warfare, cybernetic black markets and enough illegal activity to make Interpol collectively sigh all combine into one of gaming's richest crime worlds.
Its disastrous launch is now little more than historical trivia. Years of updates transformed Cyberpunk 2077 into exactly the blockbuster it always promised to be.
Quite the rehabilitation.
Unlike most of Night City's residents.
The Getaway: One of the biggest comeback stories gaming has ever seen.
→ Cyberpunk 2077 Review
#1 NEW Grand Theft Auto V / GTA Online
Platforms: PC • PlayStation • Xbox
Some kings are crowned.
Grand Theft Auto simply bought the kingdom.
More than a decade after release, Rockstar's criminal empire still dominates the genre. Bank robberies, drug operations, gunrunning, street racing, organised crime and enough illegal businesses to trigger an audit from every government on Earth all coexist inside one gigantic sandbox.
Every rival measures itself against GTA.
Every newcomer dreams of replacing it.
So far, none have managed.
If crime games have a Mount Rushmore, Grand Theft Auto V would somehow carve its own face into the mountain before the others even found a chisel.
The Getaway: The undisputed king of crime games, and the benchmark every challenger still has to beat.
Biggest Story This Quarter
While Grand Theft Auto V comfortably retains the crown, the real headline is Schedule I. Few games explode from nowhere to become one of Steam's biggest hits, yet this criminal empire simulator has done exactly that. If one game looks capable of shaking up the top five over the next few quarters, it's this one.
Outside the Crime Scene
These games narrowly missed the inaugural chart:
PAYDAY 3 - Strong comeback, but overshadowed by PAYDAY 2.
Drug Dealer Simulator - Schedule I stole much of the spotlight.
Drug Dealer Simulator 2 - Good sequel, current audience still too small.
Watch Dogs: Legion - Plenty of ideas, not enough staying power.
Empire of Sin - Great premise, modest modern player base.
The Verdict
The first CRIMENET Popularity Index paints a clear picture of the criminal underworld.
Rockstar still owns the crown.
CD Projekt RED has engineered one of gaming's greatest redemption arcs.
Classic crime games like GTA IV, San Andreas and Sleeping Dogs refuse to fade away, while newcomers like Schedule I and Crime Simulator prove there's still room for fresh blood in the getaway van.
Next quarter, the chart starts moving.
Some games will climb.
Some games will fall.
And somewhere, a developer is desperately hoping their next update is enough to steal a place on the list.
Every week, This Week in CRIME rounds up the criminal opportunities actually worth your time: the best GTA money, new crime, villain and horror games, spectacular industry train wrecks, and the investigations we couldn't stop talking about. Think of it as your underworld briefing. If you enjoy the chaos and want to help keep CRIMENET breaking into more vaults, you can always buy us a coffee on Ko-fi afterwards.
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