A modder known as Dryxio has achieved a technical feat within the Grand Theft Auto series, successfully running full, playable copies of Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City inside Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The project demonstrates a nested emulation where the game engines function independently while being rendered within the host game.
Technical Implementation
The project relies on 're3' and 'reVC,' which are long-running fan-made reverse-engineered reimplementations of the original Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City engines. By pairing these with the 'librw' rendering library, Dryxio has managed to display these titles on in-game screens, such as televisions and billboards, without using pre-recorded video.
Dryxio confirmed that these are not video files layered over props. Instead, the games run as active, executable code, maintaining their own save files and progress while operating inside the San Andreas world. The mod does not ship with the game files for GTA 3 or Vice City, meaning users must provide their own legitimate copies of the games to utilize the mod.
Development Context
This development follows earlier experiments from February 2026, where the same builder allowed players to interact with in-game televisions to launch independent copies of the older titles. The recent update marks a significant expansion of that concept, allowing one game to be nested within another in a continuous chain.
The use of 're3' code in this mod is notable given that Take-Two Interactive issued a DMCA takedown against the project in 2021, effectively removing it from GitHub at the time. Despite that legal action, the reverse-engineered code is now being utilized by the community to facilitate this cross-game functionality five years later.
Compatibility and Access
As this is a community-driven project, it is designed for the PC version of the games. There is no official support or indication that this functionality will appear on console versions of the series. Players interested in testing the mod must ensure they have the necessary legal copies of the base games to prevent file conflicts and ensure the mod's rendering libraries can access the required assets.