The first generation of 3D Grand Theft Auto games is the classics of the classics – GTA 3, GTA Vice City, GTA San Andreas. We got the cheat codes remembered, we got the dialogues memorized, people know the game in and out, and played like they are part of the speedrunning community. But the trio are always standalone titles, as they should be.
But what if you want to launch one program and play them all? You can now, technically.
Thanks to modder ‘DryxioGTA’, he got GTA 3 and VC running inside SA, in real-time. To play them, CJ just gotta walk up to the TV and interact with it (also a mod by the way). Then you (or CJ) just choose which game to launch, and then you just, play it.
Strictly speaking, both SA and the “interstellar GTA” run at the same time, and thanks to them being old titles, modern PCs will not have a problem getting both up simultaneously.
Players can also press F10 to “leave the TV” so you can resume your San Andreas journey.
As if that wasn’t enough, the modder later pushed the idea even further by creating a version that runs Vice City inside GTA III, which itself is running inside San Andreas.
The demonstration starts in San Andreas, where players activate GTA III on a giant screen. Once inside GTA III, they can drive to another display and launch Vice City from there. The result is three fully functional GTA games nested inside one another, all running simultaneously while players freely switch between them.
It’s an impressive showcase of what’s still possible with Rockstar’s classic PC titles more than two decades after their release. The GTA modding community continues to find new ways to push the games beyond their original limits, especially as excitement for GTA 6 continues to grow ahead of its November 19 console launch after multiple delays.
