While fans continue to wait for Grand Theft Auto VI, the community has found a new way to revisit one of the series’ most loved games. An unofficial HTML5 version of Grand Theft Auto Vice City is now playable directly in modern web browsers. The project is available as a limited demo on DOS Zone and has already started drawing attention across the gaming community.
This version is not a full free release. To access the complete game, players must confirm that they own an original copy of Vice City and upload specific game files. The system also checks file integrity, which means modified or cracked versions will not work. Without these files, the story mode stops almost immediately after the opening section at the Ocean View Hotel.
The browser-based port is built on the open-source Vice City codebase that has previously been used for other unofficial projects, including a fan-made Nintendo Switch version. Despite running inside a web browser, it supports modern features such as full resolution scaling, gamepad input, touch controls, and optional cloud saves. From a technical point of view, it shows how far web technologies have come in handling complex 3D game engines.
The developers describe the project as an educational and research demo. According to them, the goal is to demonstrate what is possible when classic game engines are adapted for modern web environments. In practice, the experience feels surprisingly close to native ports, even though minor issues like controller compatibility can still appear depending on the setup.
This project also brings back memories of Rockstar’s official mobile ports of GTA III and Vice City in the early 2010s. Those releases were notable at the time because they brought full open-world GTA experiences to relatively limited hardware. The HTML5 version feels like a modern parallel, but with a key difference. Instead of being an official release, it is a fan-driven experiment that runs almost anywhere, from phones to desktop browsers.
The legal status of the project remains unclear. The team behind it claims full respect for copyright laws and says it only uses publicly available open-source code. They also stress that players must already own the original game to proceed. Still, Rockstar Games has not commented on the project, and its future likely depends on how the publisher chooses to respond.
