Why Grand Theft Auto V is never coming to the Nintendo Switch

The user's analysis of the code suggests that Rockstar may have initially thought of bringing the game to the Nintendo handheld. However, Grand Theft Auto 5 was never even close to running on the Switch which utilizes the ARM system-on-chip architecture of the Nvidia Tegra X1.

Further inspection of the code hints that the references were tied to utility functions and objects. This indicates that any serious development of a Switch port never happened.

RafaelSwi speculates that Rockstar may have planned to have a Switch version of GTA 5 but abandoned it later on when Nintendo announced that the handheld would be using the 64-bit ARM architecture. The assumption explains why there are more mentions of the NX64 codename rather than the Switch within the source code. The possibility that the theory is based on an old version of the game codes appears to be slim as the game files included in the leaks were from the second half of 2021.

To be fair, Rockstar recently released the Switch port for Red Dead Redemption, the only game using the RAGE engine on the handheld, which might have lent more weight to the rumors. However, RafaelSwi believes that it would have been a waste of time to try to run GTA 5 on the console before the engine was ported to the Switch. The user concludes that there is no indication that Rockstar ever actively developed a Switch version of GTA 5. At least, not before 2022, the earliest.

There is still a possibility that Rockstar would be working on a Switch port for Grand Theft Auto 5 given that there have been rumors that a successor to the Nintendo handheld would be released in 2024. Unfortunately, given the studio's track record, it may take a while before the game makes it to the handheld device.

Fingers crossed, we'll see Rockstar confirm ports of Grand Theft Auto 4, Red Dead Redemption 2, and GTA V on the Switch's successor soon.