Remember when Meta, previously known as Facebook, was going to take the internet into three dimensions by recreating it in virtual reality as the metaverse? Ah, such times. More recently, the social media company has been scaling back its VR ambitions, and a VR remake of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that was announced three years ago and then never talked about again appears to be the latest casualty.
As first reported by IGN, the Oculus 2 port of the fifth game in the massively popular open-world series has been delayed, possibly forever. Fans have been repeatedly asking Meta about the project’s future, including in the YouTube comments of trailers for other Oculus games like Behemoth, a fantasy action adventure about slaying giant monsters.
“GTA: San Andreas is on hold indefinitely while we both focus on other projects,” the Meta Quest VR’s YouTube account wrote in the comments of a Behemoth pre-order trailer on August 15. “We look forward to working with our friends at Rockstar in the future.” A spokesperson for Meta confirmed the change in a statement to IGN.
The VR remake of GTA: San Andreas was originally announced back at Meta’s 2021 Facebook Connect keynote address during a segment devoted to Oculus games. “This new version of what I think is one of the greatest games ever made will offer players an entirely new way to experience this iconic open world in virtual reality,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained at the time.
But neither Meta nor Rockstar Games ever talked about the ambitious-sounding project again. Future keynotes came and went without a mention of GTA in VR, even as GTA fans, some of the most obsessive in gaming, continued to demand updates. What else were they supposed to do as they wait for any new morsel of info about Grand Theft Auto 6?
As of 2024, however, Meta has hit the breaks on its metaverse ambitions, pulling funding from a VR division that was literally burning through billions of dollars a month with little to show for its investment besides some new headsets and the occasional notable, critically-acclaimed game. Instead, Meta, like a lot of companies, has been pivoting its focus to the generative AI race where new fortunes are being created and destroyed.
“Get a new perspective on Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas as you experience (again or for the first time) one of gaming’s most iconic open worlds,” Meta wrote in its original announcement. “This is a project many years in the making, and we can’t wait to show you more of it.”
GTA: San Andreas now sounds like a project many years in the not-making. I guess that means no VR spin-off of GTA 6 either.