GTA 5 Fans Are Working On Unofficial Switch Port

I know that Grand Theft Auto 5 originally launched on the PS3 and Xbox 360, but the idea of running it on a Nintendo Switch is terrifying. It pushed its generation to the absolute limits and still holds up on decade-old hardware, so running on a handheld that chugs when you open the eShop mid-game sounds like the perfect way to turn your console into a makeshift bomb. Yet, modders have pulled it off.

Sure, it’s choppy and runs at 20fps even with the police removed from the prologue, but it looks surprisingly decent. On the scale of Mortal Kombat 1 to The Witcher 3, it definitely falls closer to Geralt of Rivia’s outing. It’s certainly a far cry from the attempt that modders made two years ago, which looked significantly worse and crashed after just a few minutes.

From Main Menu To The Entire Prologue In A Month

This effort is led by Mosjo, who has been documenting their progress on X since June 27, when they posted a picture of the main menu: “soon (I hope).” They provided an update that same day, explaining that “rendering is still pretty broken and the game crashes before real gameplay.” Then, earlier this month, they showcased an incredibly scuffed look at the prologue, with completely broken visuals and lighting blocking half of the screen.

Just a week later, they had already ironed out the kinks, showing off GTA 5 gameplay on Switch with the visuals and lighting mostly working as intended, a promising sign for the project. But the bombshell came last night when they confirmed that the game could now progress beyond the prologue, a major milestone in making the game playable on the handheld. And no, the footage shown wasn’t filmed on an emulator, but a modded Switch OLED.

The goal right now is to get GTA 5 running at 720p, 30fps on mostly high settings “apart from textures.” The most pertinent issue is the CPU limitations of the Switch, not so much the GPU, which means that “graphics can only get better.” As for file size, Mosjo predicts that the complete game will clock in at roughly 70GB, but it depends on whether they’re “dumb enough to want to get GTA Online running too.”

Of course, this all hinges on Rockstar playing nice and letting the project continue — which, as we’ve seen in the past, is a bit of a pipe dream. Especially when they go viral, as this project has within the community. But for the time being, it’s a fascinating experiment in what the Switch is capable of, and just goes to show that GTA 5 on the Switch 2 isn’t all that farfetched of an idea.