It was developed by Reflections Interactive, published by Atari, and released on PlayStation 2, Xbox and mobile phones in June 2004, Microsoft Windows in March 2005, and Game Boy Advance in October 2005.

The game's story focuses on players assuming the role of John Tanner, an undercover FBI agent, as he investigates a car-smuggling ring across three countries, in order to identify and arrest its boss and learn who they are planning to sell a cache of stolen cars to.

Driver 3 introduces new gameplay mechanics to existing ones including motorbikes and speedboats, swimming, a health bar, and gun combat.

Combat focuses on the use of guns, based on real-life models and featuring a mixture of pistols, shotguns, assault rifles and sub-machine guns, and grenade launchers, to take down enemies; all weapons have a limit on ammo except for the lead character's personal weapon, but more can be found from dealing with enemies, or around the game world setting being played in during Take A Ride.

In Undercover Mode, players conduct a series of missions in which they must complete objectives, dealing with tasks such as escaping pursuers, reaching locations, and taking down culprits.

In Take A Ride, players can freely explore either Miami, Nice or Istanbul, searching for secrets, which consist of special cars and a group of hostile NPCs based upon the character of Tommy Vercetti from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

If the player completes a mission of the story or leaves Take A Ride, they can freely choose to edit a replay footage from their game with different camera angles and film effects (i.e. slow-motion).

Undercover FBI agents John Tanner (Michael Madsen) and Tobias Jones (Ving Rhames) are sent to Miami to investigate the "South Beach" cartel headed by Calita Martinez (Michelle Rodriguez), and her associates Lomaz and Bad Hand.

Tanner makes contact with Interpol agents Vauban and Dubois, who insist on arresting the cartel while in possession of the stolen cars.

Meanwhile, Tanner focuses on acquiring the cars for Calita while fending off attacks by a rival syndicate, eventually leading to a confrontation wherein he eliminates the gang's leader.

Following the rescue attempt, Tanner and Dubois break into a cartel boathouse to find out the location of the deal, which will take place in Istanbul, Turkey.

They travel to Istanbul, where Tanner tails Jericho to a meeting with the Bagman, a middleman arranging the sale of the cars to Russian criminals.

When the meeting takes place, Jericho murders the Bagman for providing him only half of the agreed money and fools police by using Bad Hand as a decoy, eventually leading to his death.

[44] Playboy gave it an 88% and stated: "Your investigation jump-starts reckless car chases through more than 150 miles of highways and city streets in detailed re-creations of Miami, Nice, and Istanbul.

[43] While Driver 3 received mostly mixed reviews, two outlets operated by Future plc, PSM2 and Xbox World, gave the game 9/10 scores.

[55][56] After the accusations of review fixing arose, the GamesRadar forums (also operated by Future) were filled with critical posts, many of which were deleted by moderators.