The wait for GTA 6 has been long, and the modding community have spent years to fill that gap with some impressive projects. A few of them brought back the old cities, modernised classic games, merged entire GTA worlds, and even added AI-powered NPCs to GTA 5. However, most of them are now gone, either taken down through legal pressure, DMCA notices, or copyright strikes from Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two Interactive.
With that said, here are five of the best mods that did not survive the wait for GTA 6.
Note: Parts of this article are subjective and based on the writer’s views.
Mods that Take-Two killed while we waited for GTA 6
1) Liberty City Preservation Project
The Liberty City Preservation Project was bringing the full GTA 4 version of Liberty City into GTA 5, alongside Ludendorff, North Yankton, and Cayo Perico. The scope was serious. Original vehicles, NPCs, sound effects, and radio stations were all part of the package, not just a raw map port.
The modding team, World Travel, shut it all down in January 2025 after speaking with Rockstar Games and deciding together to take it offline, as the pressure was clear enough that continuing was not a realistic option.
2) re3 and reVC
Before GTA 3 and Vice City got any kind of official modern treatment, the community had already built one. re3 and reVC were reverse-engineered source code projects that made both games run natively on modern hardware, including the Nintendo Switch and PS Vita, with bug fixes and quality of life improvements built in. For players who wanted to revisit the 3D-era classics while waiting for GTA 6, these were the cleanest ways to do it.
Take-Two pursued legal action between 2021 and 2023 that effectively ended both projects. The irony is that Rockstar has still not provided an official modern re-release of either game that matches what the community had already built.
3) GTA Underground
The ambition behind GTA Underground was almost unreasonable in the best way. The goal was to combine the maps from San Andreas, Vice City, Liberty City, Manhunt, and Bully into a single playable experience. In September 2021, development team leader dkluin announced the project was ceasing entirely, and all official downloads were being taken offline.
The reason given was increasing hostility from Take-Two Interactive, and the project had already received a DMCA notice on ModDB. A project years in the making, folded under legal pressure before most players had a chance to experience the full vision.
4) Project Vice
Project Vice was an attempt to recreate the anticipated GTA 6 map inside GTA 5 while the real thing was still years away. Take-Two issued copyright strikes against it in March 2025, and the creator, Dark Space, complied and removed all download links to avoid losing their YouTube channel entirely. The stated reason for the takedown was that the mod was considered too accurate in its recreation, having drawn directly from details in the GTA 6 trailer and leaked coordinates.
Building a recreation that is too faithful to the real product apparently qualifies as infringement, which is a genuinely difficult line for any fan project to navigate.
5) Sentient Streets
Sentient Streets was doing something genuinely ahead of its time. Created by developer Bloc, the mod gave GTA 5 NPCs real-time AI-powered voice conversations that players could actually speak to and get contextual responses from. It was a technical showcase for what AI could add to open-world games.
Take-Two issued a DMCA takedown in August 2023, pulling it from Nexus Mods and striking the associated YouTube videos. The creator noted that the removal of their YouTube video was specifically tied to using Rockstar’s software to demonstrate the AI conversations.
You can also check out the weekly update schedule for GTA Online, which runs till May 13, 2026.
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Edited by Rishi Pallav
