Developers reverse engineer GTA III and Vice City and publish source code

A team of developers has rebuilt GTA 3 and Vice City. Through reverse engineering, these developers have published the source codes of both games, which should make it easier to develop mods for the games.

The source codes of the re3 and reVC projects are available on GitHub. The projects can already be played. The developers provide pre-built builds for Windows, Linux and macOS for this, but users can optionally compile the source codes themselves. Game assets are required for the remakes. As a result, users must own the original games to play the re3 and reVC versions. The games are available through digital platforms such as Steam.

The new variants add several improvements. For example, the games now support ‘all screen ratios’ and anti-aliasing, the developers provide a debug menu and the loading times of both games have been considerably reduced. The developers also mention the addition of new cheat codes.

Both projects are available for PC. The GTA III version is also available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation Vita and Nintendo Wii U. The re3 and reVC projects are not yet available for the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox, although the team does say they would like to. . The developers are calling for help. Also, the modders want to adjust the physics of both games to be more compatible with high frame rates.

Grand Theft Auto III turns 20 in October. The game was originally released for the PlayStation 2 and later versions appeared for the PC and original Xbox. GTA III has a Metacritic score of 97. Vice City appeared a year later and was also well received. Both games have been re-released several times, including for smartphones and newer consoles.

A screenshot of re3. Image via the re3 team on GitHub