In 2021, shortly after Facebook rebranded itself as Meta, the company announced a new virtual reality port of Rockstar’s open-world classic, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the Quest 2. Now, after its most recent gaming presentation, it seems Facebook and Rockstar have forgotten about this VR port.
On October 28, 2021, Meta held a large digital event announcing all kinds of things and showing investors and customers what it had planned for the coming years. During a section devoted to gaming and the Meta Quest—the company’s standalone VR headset—a new GTA project was announced. Meta’s CEO himself, Mark “Totally A Human, Not A Weird Alien” Zuckerberg revealed that a VR port of 2004’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was in development. At the time he said he was “really looking forward” to it, further adding that he thought San Andreas was “one of the greatest games ever made.”
Smash cut to June 1, 2023. Following a new digital event from Meta and the confirmation of a Quest 3, there’s no news or updates on the VR port of Mark’s favorite game. While plenty of other new games and updates to existing VR titles were revealed during Thursday’s show, Meta had nothing to share about VR San Andreas—not even a tease of a tease or a promise of more info coming soon.
Kotaku has reached out to Rockstar Games and Meta for more detail on San Andreas in VR.
Grand Theft Auto fans are growing impatient and frustrated
When VR San Andreas was announced, Meta had little to share beyond “it’s in development” and the promise that it’s cool. Development takes time, but you’d think by now, nearly two years later, they could share a few more details about the project. It might stop people from constantly spamming Meta’s livestream chatroom with demands for GTA information.
Elsewhere, on social media, GTA fans continued to joke about the lack of San Andreas VR updates, with some assuming it’s been canceled by Rockstar or Meta. Others were frustrated after buying a Quest 2 in the hopes of playing the port, just for Meta to go radio silent after its announcement. Of course, this is where I should point out that things haven’t gone well the last few times Rockstar has re-released San Andreas for new platforms, so anyone expecting some incredible VR experience in the classic open-world game might be disappointed.
Still, regardless of quality or what it looks like, it would be nice to hear something about the project sooner than later, if only to confirm it’s dead or reassure fans it’s still coming. At the very least, it would confirm Meta hasn’t just forgotten about it or laid off the people in charge of finishing it.
