GTA publisher Take-Two has a history of removing mods and even sometimes suing their creators, but even after developer Rockstar's parent company annihilated their YouTube channel, a group of GTA 4 modders still plan to release their slick Vice City port later this week.
That's the buzz around the bright-eyed GTA YouTuber community. The modders themselves, who go by Revolution Team, haven't updated their Telegram. The Team's last post in English reiterates Vice City Nextgen Edition's January 25 release date with a YouTube trailer that collected over 100,000 views before getting smited.
Since Revolution Team is based in Russia, it's possible that it will be protected by a 2022 government decree shielding Russian companies from copyright strikes issued by "unfriendly" countries like the US. But even over on Russian social media site VK, worried GTA fans seem unsure if Revolution Team's Vice City mod will survive Take-Two's tendency to sue.
"What now? I heard you're under sanction…" one VK user says, according to my translation.
"Trump signed it today!" another user responds with a laughing-crying emoji.
Seriously though, Take-Two seems to have been feeling particularly ornery this month, having already reached a "friendly" mutual agreement with GTA 5 modders who, to rapturous success, ported Liberty City into the game. But with GTA 6 trapped in a vague, fall release window, can you blame fans for trying to entertain themselves in the meantime?
That's partly why the sentiment toward Revolution Team's Vice City Nextgen Edition around the globe is so protective. "I will download, make copies, and spread them so deep into the internet that, even if the internet were destroyed, this mod would still exist," one fan writes on Twitter. Now that's dedication.
