The makers of a 14-year-old Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas mod have pulled it offline themselves over a fear of a takedown from Take-Two.
GTA United is a mod based on San Andreas for PC. It unites the maps of Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto Vice City in one game area within San Andreas, effectively replacing San Andreas’ map.
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Work on the free, non-commercial mod began in 2006. The first beta of what was then known as “Vice City 2 San Andreas” came out in early 2007. The beta for “Liberty City 2 San Andreas” came out soon after. Then, in late 2007, the beta for a combined effort called GTA United was released. Five years later, in December 2012, GTA United 1.2 was released. It remained available ever since – until now.
Rockstar parent company Take-Two has issued a raft of takedown notices for GTA map mods in recent weeks.
Mods such as GTA: Underground, and the 15-year-old project, GTA: Liberty City, were hit. Even HD texture projects such as Vice Cry were targeted.
From what the modding community can gather, it looks as though Take-Two’s lawyers are scouring modding databases for terms such as Liberty City, Vice City, and San Andreas. And though no one’s entirely sure why Take-Two has enacted this now (it has yet to comment), some speculate it’s either something to do with GTA Online’s recently-released summer update, or perhaps a remaster or remake project that will see older GTA games released on current-gen systems.
Mindful of this, the makers of GTA United have pulled the mod offline.
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“Due to the increasing DMCA takedowns against various GTA San Andreas map modifications, it is with a heavy heart that we must announce that we decided to preemptively take all remaining instances of GTA United, including its predecessors VC2SA and LC2SA, down,” the modders said in a post titled “Final Chapter”.