Reverse-engineered GTA III source code is back online | PC Gamer - gemmillyouser

Reverse-engineered GTA III source code is back up online

(Image credit: Rockstar Games)

Earlier this year, a group of hackers successfully managed to reverse-engineer the source code for Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City. For their efforts, the undertaking was swiftly stamped unsuccessful by a Take-Two DMCA takedown. But one developer didn't just disagree with the publisher's decision—they successfully fought second, delivery the lover-ready-made cypher repository back online.

The result of years of residential district ontogenesis, the Re3 and reVC projects reinforced the ancient crime sims with Bodoni conveniences like widescreen support, debug menus, and an easier launching to modding. Fans fair-haired it, but the games' original publisher did non, forcing all trace of the projects from GitHub.

"The pleased in the links at a lower place consists of copyrighted materials closely-held aside Take-Two," the publishing house said at the time. "The usance of our copyrighted content in these links are unauthorised and it should be remote immediately."

Simply TorrentFreak reports that last month, a New Zealand coder going aside Theo issued a counter-lay claim. Theo maintained uncomparable of the forks containing Re3 and reVC, and believed that Submit-Two's title complete the code was invalid—the code was repeal-engineered, meaning that hackers figured it taboo and wrote it themselves, rather than dig finished Rockstar's first encrypt.

"It would appear that the inscribe in the re3 repo is overturn engineered, not a honest decompilation. I believe Take-Two's claim to be wholly incorrect if this is the example, since the code may be functionally identical, but not exactly identical, they hold no claim to the code."

Theo's branching of the GTA 3 projects has since been restored, though the 200+ other forks of the code remain offline. DMCA rules urge that contested content be restored within 14 days of a counter-claim being filed, though it's entirely possible Take-Two could strike back and take Theo to court. But Theo tells TorrentFreak that, while atomic number 2's prepared for collection action, he doesn't gestate the publisher to take over this any further.

"I DO not agree with how Take-Two handles events like this," Theo added. "Taking down code that does not belong to them is obscene."

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time—and she's not stopped cerebration about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three eld of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European independent scene and having herself developed critically acclaimed small games like Can Androids Beg, Nat is always looking a new curiosity to scream more or less—whether it's the future best independent Darling, or simply somebody modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She's too played for a competitive Splatoon team, and unofficially appears in Apex Legends low-level the pseudonym Horizon.