Remember back to February, when a fan initiative posted reverse-engineered source code for both Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City on GitHub. A week later, Take-Two Interactive swooped in with a takedown notice, and the project vanished. Both games look to be back in action four months later.
According to Eurogamer, the modders recently filed a counterclaim against Take-original Two’s takedown notice for the Re3 and ReVC projects. As it turns out, Rockstar’s parent firm has yet to reply, implying that GitHub has restored access to the projects.
Part of the code has already been restored to the internet for well over a month. In May, Theo, a New Zealand developer, filed a DMCA counterclaim for his contributions to the project. It was restored, but over 200 branches of the code remained down.
Though official copies of GTA 3 and Vice City have been available on PC for some time, GTA 3, in particular, is a poor conversion. The fan projects cleaned up a lot and made a lot of changes to the quality of life. Bugs have been fixed, a debug camera has been added, and loading windows between islands have been eliminated. The reverse-engineered code also allows you greater freedom with modifications, which is always a plus.
While this is all excellent news for the time being, it doesn’t mean Re3 and ReVC are out of the woods—just that’s how DMCA regulations operate. Unless copyright holders take action, any disputed work must be restored within 10 to 14 days. Take-Two has yet to act, so everything is back up… for the time being.
