They manage to run GTA V for free in a browser, but the website disappears a few hours later

They manage to run GTA V for free in a browser, but the website disappears a few hours later

The expectation around Grand Theft Auto is back at its highs just a few weeks after the launch of GTA VIscheduled for November 19. In this context, a rather unusual project has appeared that has allowed GTA V to be run directly in the browser and play for free without having to install the conventional version for PC. Pirate, come on.

The project appeared online this morning and It barely survived a few hours before it stopped working.. PlayGTA5.com has quickly gone viral thanks to several videos showing the game running on Chromebut shortly after it started returning errors and ended up being inaccessible.

A technical analysis carried out by the engineer Satyajit Ghana found that this version had been built from GTA V’s own original C++ code and used game filesmaterials that they obviously cannot distribute.

The code used apparently comes from the attack that the developer Rockstar suffered in September 2022 and which then allowed the leak of several dozen GTA VI videos, three years after its launch. In late 2023, the GTA V source code that had been stolen in that incident was also leaked. The result has been an unusual case of pirate port that allowed free access to Rockstar commercial content without having paid for it.

Artificial intelligence would also have played a major role in the creation of the port, although it is unclear what tools were used or to what extent they automated the process. Alex St.Louisfounder of Wonder Interactivehas assured that GTA V had been adapted to WebAssembly using AIaccording to Tom’s Hardware.

WebAssembly is a technology that allows convert programs originally written in languages ​​such as C++ to a format that browsers can run directly. In this case, with the browser’s hardware acceleration enabled, the user’s computer rendered the game locally using its own graphics card.

The initial download to start playing was around 700MB and the rest of the necessary files were loaded later as the game progressed. The analysis carried out by Ghana found in total 20.9GB of game data transmitted.

The speed with which the website, whose domain had been registered three days ago, has disappeared suggests that Rockstar or its parent company Take Two They have exercised their property rights and demanded closure, but there is no confirmation from any of the companies. In any case, it is the same fate that the videos of this pirated version of GTA V are suffering uploaded to social media that now appear removed in response to the rights owner’s demand.