Almost three years after confirmation, Meta’s VR version of the legendary Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has been put on hold.
“GTA: San Andreas is on hold indefinitely while we both focus on other projects,” Meta Quest said of its own studios as well as Rockstar Games, both via comments on its official YouTube account and in a statement to IGN. “We look forward to working with our friends at Rockstar in the future.”
Although we didn’t see any in-game assets at or after the initial announcement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had stated at the time that the game would offer players “an entirely new way to experience the famous open world in virtual reality,” and development had reportedly been underway for some time.
Meta’s VR ambitions have been faltering recently, with reports suggesting that spending has been heavily cut in key parts of its VR operations in favor of further developing the “metaverse” and artificial intelligence.
Take Two Interactive and Rockstar are understandably also busy with a small project called Grand Theft Auto VI, so it makes sense that they would want to redirect their resources, however small they may have been for the San Andreas VR project, to more lucrative ventures.
The most recent re-release of the massive 2004 PS2 hit was part of the ill-fated Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition, which, incidentally, came out shortly after the announcement of San Andreas VR and was widely criticized for its sloppy, sloppy port to modern platforms.
