Now that AI is here, it’s getting easier and easier for ordinary people to develop or port things, and recently a pretty wild project has emerged overseas. The PC version of GTA V (Grand Theft Auto V) requires about 105–125GB of storage, but an online user managed to get it running in the Chrome browser, and at first you only need to download about 700MB of data to get into the game. Moreover, not only do story mode, free roaming Los Santos, keyboard and mouse, and controller all work—even mobile touch is supported.
More importantly, the porting process seems to have been done entirely by AI.
But as this web version of GTA V went viral on X and Reddit, with a bunch of people rushing in to play it, the site didn’t even last a day before it disappeared, presumably taken down by the official rights holders.
Image source: Gizmodo
GTA V can actually be played directly in a browser! The initial download is only about 700MB, and it is suspected to rely on leaked source code + AI porting.
According to Gizmodo Reports indicate that earlier a version of GTA V that could run directly in a browser appeared online and even supported multiplayer, but it was quickly blocked. However, some people said an archived copy can still be found via archive.org; this version was built from the game source code leaked in late 2023.
Image source: VideoCardz
And Alex St. Louis, the developer who shared actual gameplay footage, wrote: “GTA 5 has already been ported to WebAssembly using AI. We really are living in the craziest timeline.” However, he was just reposting it, and to this day no one has publicly admitted who actually made the port.
GTA 5 has been ported ported to WebAssembly using AI. We live in the wildest timeline. https://t.co/7dPeLX3CSC https://t.co/gOuqVPPAHq
— Alex St. Louis (@AlexStLouis10) October 6, 2026
The WebAssembly St. Louis mentioned is exactly the key to this version being able to run in a browser. Ordinary games are compiled into programs that Windows or consoles can execute directly, which browsers cannot understand. WebAssembly, by contrast, can be thought of as a kind of “universal format made specifically for browsers,” translating the original program into a version browsers can execute, while its speed can approach that of native programs. Combined with technologies such as WebGPU that let web pages directly call the graphics card, it becomes possible to run 3D games in a tab.
When a player tested it using an Apple M3 Pro, the browser first downloaded about 700MB of data before the game started, and then continued fetching other game assets as needed. Another developer further analyzed the website files and found that PlayGTA5.com actually provided about 20.9GB of Rockstar game data.
In other words, 700MB is more like the “initial data” needed to get the game running, not the full game size.
You can now play GTA 5 in web browser in multiplayer with your friends https://t.co/OxftdrZqE6
— 0xProbability (@0xProbabillity) October 6, 2026
The website URL is playgta5.com. It was registered on October 3, began going viral on social media on the morning of October 6, and the ensuing flood of traffic caused the site to show Cloudflare error 1014. The page was then replaced with an error message, and eventually became a screen with a single line: “Thanks for playing!”
As for who actually did it or what caused the website to be taken down, it is still unknown, but several foreign media outlets point to Take-Two (Rockstar Games’ parent company) sending a cease-and-desist letter; neither Rockstar nor Take-Two has officially responded yet.
The Cloudflare 1014 error mentioned earlier means that DNS settings between two Cloudflare accounts are being blocked. It is a technical status, not a takedown notice, so “blocked by Take-Two” is also a reasonable guess.
Gizmodo also mentioned that, shortly before the site disappeared completely, it briefly put up the line “Who wants the source code?”, which seemed a lot like taunting the copyright holders:
So you can’t play it anymore. But anyone interested can still keep an eye on it—maybe before long someone will quietly put it back up.
As for how the GTA V source code itself got leaked, some people may not be clear on that, so I’ll quickly explain it here.
In September 2022, Lapsus$ member Arion Kurtaj hacked Rockstar Games, causing a large amount of unreleased GTA VI development footage to be posted online, with about 90 videos leaked in total at the time.
By December 2023, the source code for GTA V had also begun circulating widely online, and it was discovered to contain Bully 2 as well as some development files related to GTA VI:
Gizmodo believes this browser version was most likely built on this batch of leaked source code.
Based on the results, the most notable thing about this isn’t that GTA V can be played in a browser, but that with the complete source code, WebAssembly, WebGPU, and today’s AI programming tools, the barrier to porting large older games to platforms that never originally supported them is rapidly lowering.
Source: KOCPC Chinese