Similarly, Karen, the true identity of Niko’s double-crossing girlfriend, reappears in V along with her unnamed handler as agents of the IAA while she lives to fight another day, her handler is shot and killed in a massive firefight late in the game. For instance, annoying Mafia toady Rocco was spared at the end of The Ballad of Gay Tony because he was a “made man” whose death would only further complicate the efforts of Tony and Luis to end the cycle of debt and revenge that was trapping them, but in V, he’s fairly quickly dispatched after a couple run-ins with Michael toward the middle of the game. Most interestingly, in a trend started with the two story expansions to IV, the resolution to dangling tertiary antagonists was left for this title. With Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar could start folding in the new continuity established in IV throughout the new game. GTA IV added so much, and reimagined Liberty City so completely, that it made sense to do away with some of the specifics, outside of the occasional Easter egg reference and the ever-present Lazlow. And of course, the wide variety of companies and products created to fill out earlier games were often reintroduced into the new game universe–especially the cars. The game still felt distinctively set in a Grand Theft Auto universe, with its trio of major cities referenced (Liberty City, Vice City, and Los Santos). The interconnected story lines and character arcs were brushed away. The HD continuity offered a hard reboot with Grand Theft Auto IV. Other characters slip in and out of the games, creating the impression that they have lives of their own–characters like Kent Paul, Phil Cassidy, and Donald Love. Characters we became familiar with in III, like silent protagonist Claude, eventual antagonist Catalina, or mob wife Maria, appear in San Andreas in roles that both act in service to a distant prologue to III and clearly indicate that everyone is the hero of their own story (after all, many would be quite familiar with the player avatar for the earlier game, yet they found him in San Andreas in a peripheral and relatively unimportant role, reframing him from conquering warrior to easily dominated sidekick at the side of Catalina).
Lazlow was a constant radio presence, with a wild up-and-down career journey over III, Vice City, and San Andreas.
One of the fun things about the original 3D series of Grand Theft Auto games was how they slowly built out a world of interconnected characters, places, and events.