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Some fans have made Grand Theft Auto: Vice City playable in a web browser – but there’s a catch, as always.
Reddit user retro-gaming-lion shared the news on the GTA subreddit:
The Dos Zone team has presented the browser port of original GTA Vice City. The legendary game is now avalible on nearly all platforms without downloads!
Features:
- original game with all key features
- extreemely fast startup
- requires only 56 MB of resources to start, with the rest dynamically uploading as you explore the world
- supports all screen resolutions
- supports gamepads and touch controls
- local and cloud saves
You can open it up on your web browser in the website DOS.Zone here. And yes, you should be able to load and play it on any device that you open a web browser on.
It Really Works!
We just tested this on a Windows PC and an Android tablet, and can confirm that it works on both devices! We assume that if you open this on a Mac, iOS, or Linux device, you will find it also works fine.
We didn’t take the trouble to test gamepads or touch controls, but if you are inclined, you can check the original PC keyboard mapping here.
How Does This Work?
The developers shared this explanation on DOS.Zone:
The open-source implementation of the classic GTA engine, known as reVC, is now running directly in the browser.
On DOS.Zone, you can explore a technology demo that showcases how this iconic game behaves in a modern web environment.
The engine has been completely reworked and carefully adapted to run smoothly inside the browser. Low-level systems such as rendering, input handling, audio, and file access were redesigned to work efficiently with WebAssembly and modern browser APIs, delivering stable performance without native installation.
How Is This OK?
The developers also provided lengthy explanations for the legal defenses of making this available to the public.
You can read the full details on the site, but we’ll focus on three points:
The devs say that the demo is for educational and research purposes only. This is an argument to convince Rockstar to allow it to stay online.
The devs also say they made the demo in accordance with applicable copyright laws. We can’t make a determination on that, especially since they could make deeply technical copyright violations. But at least the devs share their intent.
Lastly, the demo works in such a way that you can’t progress in-game. If you have an original copy of the game, you can connect it to the browser app and it will then allow you to play and progress as if you were playing the game itself.
We don’t know if this is really OK, but we do think you should check it out for yourself.
