- Meta's official GTA San Andreas VT port never launched
- So a modder has vibe-coded a port for the Meta Quest 3
- You can play it yourself, but it's not easy
The Resident Evil 4 VR remaster on the Oculus Quest 2 was the best the platform had to offer, so a Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas VR port was easily the most exciting news to come out of Meta’s 2021 Connect event. But it never arrived. So now modders are making up for Meta’s biggest letdown by finally bringing San Andreas to Quest systems.
In fact, there’s a whole VR porting community that connects via the Flat2VR Discord. One such member, called GeT_RiCh, has made it his mission to bring the long-promised GTA title to Quest headsets, though you will need a Meta Quest 3.
It’s still a work in progress — you can follow updates on Discord — and installing this game isn’t as easy as pressing a button. As the mod’s GitHub explains you’ll need not only this mod but an original copy of GTA San Andreas from the Google Play Store (specifically version 2.11.311 exported as an APK), a PS2 sound pack for the game, a PC, a Quest 3 headset in Developer Mode (to authorize USB debugging), and around 15GB of space on your PC and 6GB on your headset.
Plus, you’ll need plenty of time and confidence that you can accurately go through the technical steps. I was considering trying to jump into the game before writing this piece up, but quickly realized that might be a challenge.
Despite the shortcomings, the effort is pretty incredible. It’s also, interestingly, being aided by Claude, which the modder is using to help him vibe-code aspects of the software.
Say what you will about vibe coding in the wider coding world, but the tool’s apparent effectiveness at helping someone complete a long-term passion project like this is pretty incredible.
Better late than never
It’s never been officially confirmed what went wrong withMeta’s version of the GTA VR remaster but general development issues of converting all the flat games’ elements into first-person VR, problems with the Quest 2’s low processing power being able to handle the game world, profitability concerns (especially when faced with the massive profits GTA Online expansions or GTA 6 promise), or one of a dozen other possibilities have been floated.
Regardless, all we know is that after that tease, GTA San Andreas VR never managed to get out of the starting gates.
Many have questioned this decision over the years — GTA in VR would be a slam-dunk for plenty of gamers — and others have been perpetually frustrated at Meta for hyping them up into buying a Quest headset, then killing the project.
Thankfully there is now a way to sort of play San Andreas in VR on Quest. Yes, it’s a Quest 3, and yes, it’s not the simplest port to set up, but it’s better than nothing — which is what Meta and Rockstar gave us.
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