A GTA 5 mod that aims to recreate the entirety of GTA 6’s map based on “leaked” data and guesswork is no longer in development, after Rockstar parent company Take-Two had videos of the project banished from Youtube.
Titled Project Vice and released to the public on 20th March, the playable GTA 6 map mock-up in question is the work of Youtuber Dark Space. In a response video published yesterday, Dark Space says Take-Two sent him a copyright removal request over his Youtube videos of the mod last week. He’s now removed all download links to the mod, without any further prompting from Take-Two, and says he’s no longer working on the project.
“I spent months building a fan-made GTA 6-inspired map inside GTA 5–something purely made out of passion, not profit,” reads the intro to the response video. “But shortly after uploading a video showcasing the project, Take-Two Interactive took it down. No warning. No conversation. Just gone.”
Dark Space has since been chatting to IGN about this reversal, which he says wasn’t unexpected (an unsympathetic soul might ask why, given that knowledge, he decided to work on it in the first place). “I expected this would happen based on their past takedowns,” he said. “I went into this project knowing it was a possibility, and the fact that it happened does not surprise me.”
Take-Two have yet to share their reasoning for the takedown request, so we’re left with Dark Space’s own explanation for events. The mod forms part of a loose community GTA 6 mapmaking initiative, largely operating out of Reddit, which deploys a bunch of speculation and alleged leaked information to plot out the game’s geography. That said, Dark Space claims that “most” of his map is based simply on shots from the first GTA 6 trailer from back in 2023.
“I think my map could have ruined the surprise of their map, which I get,” he told Ian Games. “If you spent years building out this amazing game world just to have some YouTuber spoil the experience of the map’s shape, size, and vibe… I’d want it removed too.”
As for why he’s decided to junk the whole thing despite not being commanded to by our insect overlords at Take-Two, Dark Space observed that “well they clearly do not want this project to exist. So it’s not just under threat, it’s eliminated. There’s no point putting more time into something that goes directly against what they’re willing to allow.”
All of this naturally makes me much more curious about Project Vice. Is this just a corporation’s lawyers auto-firing at anything that smells remotely like an infringement, or is the mod, as Dark Space suggests, “a little too accurate” in its portrayal of GTA 6? I mean, it’s probably the former, but please don’t let my growing deficiency of wonder ruin an emerging conspiracy theory. I’ve dug up a bunch of screenshots of Project Vice for your eyeballs and insights.
All of this continues Rockstar and Take-Two’s rather torrid relationship with the GTA modding scene, which has seen them recruit some modders to work on the series while giving others the ole DMCA blunderbuss. It’ll be intriguing to see how things change or don’t change after the release of GTA 6, given that the game is rumoured to let you modify its own map using Roblox-style features.