Vice Cry and GTA Underground are two of the most popular mods that have been taken offline.
Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar’s parent company, played whack-a-mole earlier this year with reverse-engineered versions Grand Theft Auto 3 & Vice City. In the past week, the publisher issued DMCA takedown notices to GTA 5 map mods such as Vice City Overhaul and many popular mods for older games in the series.
GTA Liberty City was an engine conversion that integrated GTA 3’s setting into Vice City’s engine. It was released for the first time in 2005. It is no longer available on ModDB. Vice Cry was also removed. It replaced Vice City’s textures with models and models with higher resolution versions. GTA. Underground also vanished. This combined maps from GTA 3 and San Andreas with those of Manhunt and Bully. Then, it added gang warfare. Mods are also converting San Andreas to ports of the console-exclusive Liberty City Stories or Vice City Stories. This is not all.
GTAForums thread has been documenting the removals. It also notes that Rockstar’s statement regarding singleplayer mods was quietly updated in 2019. This statement, which was made in 2017 during the debate over OpenIV modding tool, was initially put out by Rockstar. Many modders assumed it would protect their work. It now states that the statement does not cover the “use or importation of any IP (including Rockstar IP) in this project” nor the “making of new games, stories or missions”. These clauses were not in the original Rockstar statement. However, they can be found in our news story.
Take-Two is now pursuing these mods because one of them, it is worth mentioning again, is 16 years. The internet is split between two theories. They are seen as competition for hypothetical remastered GTA 3 and Vice City versions. It’s also connected to recent rumors regarding GTA 6.
