Unofficial ports of GTA series games to various platforms

In 2025, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was ported to the Sega Dreamcast. This is far from the only example of a GTA game being ported to a console where it was not released. Our article is dedicated to such works by enthusiasts.

As a rule, such actions will not bring them money, and in some cases they can even become a reason for a lawsuit from copyright holders. However, for programmers, porting a game to other hardware is an interesting challenge to their skills. For example, in 1990, John Carmack, the author of the engine for Doom and Quake, was porting Super Mario Bros. 3 for PC. Nintendo was not interested in his project, so the technologies developed by id Software were used in the studio's own game, which was called Commander Keen.

Unofficial ports of GTA games can also be useful for fans who don't have the console they were originally released on. For example, many players wanted to personally check out the Vice City prequel dedicated to Victor Vance, but buying an old PSP for this seemed unreasonable.

Initially, the original GTA 3 was developed specifically for this platform. But when it became clear that it was inferior to PlayStation 2 in sales, it was decided to refocus on the Sony device. Meanwhile, enthusiasts put together a playable port of the third part, which works fine on the Sega console, which was released in December 2024.

And in April 2025, the same programmers ported the next part of the series, Vice City, to Dreamcast. At the time of writing, the version is not perfect — there are graphical artifacts and bugs. Meanwhile, you can already play it.

The prequels to GTA 3 and Vice City were developed for the PlayStation Portable, and then re-released on PS2 and PS3. It is also worth noting that Liberty City Stories appeared on smartphones. Despite the lack of official PC ports, you have two ways to run these games on your computer. You can use a PlayStation 2 emulator or download Vice City Stories and Liberty City Stories as mods for GTA: San Andreas.

PS Vita is more powerful than PlayStation 2, so with the right skills, any game from the home console can be ported to the second Sony portable. Enthusiasts took advantage of this and prepared playable versions of the classic 3D GTA trilogy. We are talking about the original versions, not the recent remaster.

Rockstar released GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas on smartphones, but did not develop a port of the fourth part. This was taken up by fans. Grand Theft Auto 4 Mobile has Liberty City, the ability to drive cars and shoot weapons. But the story mode has not yet been delivered.

A similar situation with the fifth GTA. With the help of emulators, you can launch and even complete the game.

The Steam version of the San Andreas remaster from the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition collection can be played on VR headsets. To do this, you will need a mod called 6DoF UEVR Plugin. You will have to play in the first person view.

The fifth GTA was launched on a portable mini-TV Sony Watchman from 1984. The diagonal of its screen is only 4.44 centimeters, which is even smaller than the Nintendo Game Boy (6.35 cm). It is difficult to play Grand Theft Auto on such a display — you will have to use magnifying glasses

While GTA 3 and Vice City received prequels that were released on PSP, we never saw the conditional San Andreas Stories. According to unofficial data, the portable console simply will not be able to display an entire state with three cities and rugged terrain. Meanwhile, enthusiasts decided to port the original San Andreas to PlayStation Portable. The project received a playable beta version. It is unknown whether work on it is currently underway. There has been no news for almost a year.

This is not just a port, but a full-fledged remake of GTA from the portable Game Boy Advance console. The modder transferred the game to the engine of the third part. True, work on the project did not move beyond the beta version. But thisdid not stop Rockstar from banning the distribution of the modification.

In April 2024, a video appeared demonstrating the fifth GTA running on the Nintendo hybrid console. Of course, the port was not technically perfect, and the frame rate left much to be desired. But many were surprised by the very fact that Switch was capable of running such a technologically advanced game.

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Have you launched unofficial ports of GTA games? Share your opinions in the comments!