Take-Two Interactive Issuing Takedowns To GTA Mods

As disappointing as this is, the modding community could see it coming - even when Rockstar released a statement about mods back in 2017 which allegedly gave the green light to any project that is single-player and not made for profit, the statement was specifically composed in a vague manner stating that legal action "generally" won't be taken, and that regardless of the statement Take-Two reserves the right to torpedo mod projects at its discretion.

The modding community at large often suffers from the legal departments of AAA publishers descending upon popular projects, even though these projects are being distributed for free and do not compete with any product of said companies. However, in this case, we suspect that the latter stipulation might be in play - we just don't know it yet.

Again, all of the mods affected remaster, remake or overhaul the content of past GTA games. If Rockstar were to release official remasters or remakes of 3D era titles like GTA 3, Vice City or San Andreas, these mods would be direct competition. No such project has been announced yet, but there is some reason to believe it may be the case.

Later this year, a native port of GTA 5 will be launched on Xbox Series S/X and PlayStation 5. The most credible GTA 6 leaks to date point to the sequel not being on the books for several years. Remasters of classic GTA games - something the fandom has been shouting about for decades - would be the perfect way to fill those years in between the two releases.

While official remasters of classic GTA games would be the silver lining to all this, the takedowns being issued still sting - countless hours of dedicated work stemming from a love of the series gets buried, just like that. This doesn't paint a pretty picture of Take-Two's appreciation of its consumer-base, and when companies get this draconian with enforcing the modding community is when said modders move to other franchises. It's a lose-lose.