Browser-Based ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ Shows How AI Is Making It Easy to Illegally Port Games to New Platforms

Just a few days ago, Sam Altman pronounced that we, the plebs, “should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of [AI].” This obviously demanded the question of what the benefits actually are, and while Altman was uncharacteristically quiet on that point, this week provided one answer: weird knock-offs of well-known video games!

Last week it was a nightmarish browser-based Fallout-like set in New York, and if the idea of a new Fallout game with 117 unique locations, recruitable companions, and so on sounds good, I fear the moment has passed: Bethesda slapped the game’s, um, creator with a cease-and-desist notice, and the game was promptly removed from the internet. But lest you get any sort of retrospective FOMO, this screenshot should cure it:

Anyway, this week brought another such project—a playable version of Grand Theft Auto V, again running in a web browser. Unlike Fallout Niu Lai, this seems to be an actual port of the game.

You can now play GTA 5 in web browser in multiplayer with your friends https://t.co/yZjW4a4uzw pic.twitter.com/OxftdrZqE6

— 0xProbability (@0xProbabillity) October 6, 2026

The site was of course nuked pretty much immediately by Rockstar, although people are claiming that it remains playable via archive.org—we couldn’t get it to load, but your mileage may vary.

More interesting is the question of how this was done. The site that hosted the game is now down completely, but after the game was removed, it was apparently replaced briefly with the message, “Who wants the [game’s] source code?” This isn’t as bold a claim as it sounds: the game’s source code leaked in late 2023, having apparently been taken the year before in the same breach that saw pre-release GTA VI footage released onto the internet.

There are plenty of guides available on how to build the source code for various platforms, and there’s no reason in theory that it couldn’t be built for WebAssembly and WebGPU—the game was originally released for the PS3 and Xbox 360, consoles whose hardware is positively archaic by today’s standards. Of course, “in theory” and “in actuality” are two different things, and it seems that whoever did this did it the vibe-y way: according to Edmonton-based developer Alex St Louis, it was done with AI:

GTA 5 has been ported ported to WebAssembly using AI. We live in the wildest timeline. https://t.co/7dPeLX3CSC pic.twitter.com/gOuqVPPAHq

— Alex St. Louis (@AlexStLouis10) October 6, 2026

Quite how St Louis knows this is open to question, but if anything, it’s surprising that it’s taken this long for the game to appear online given that its source code leaked almost four years ago. But then again, the timing perhaps isn’t surprising. With GTA VI’s long-awaited release around the corner, interest in the franchise is booming. And in a curious piece of cosmic synchronicity, the game’s November release will coincide with the trial of Anton Kurtaj, the UK-based hacker behind the September 2022 breach of Rockstar’s security in which the source code was taken.

Kurtaj was sent indefinitely to a secure hospital facility in December 2023 after doctors deemed him unfit to stand trial because of his severe autism. That assessment has clearly changed, because in July he was sent to a normal prison to await trial for the string of hacks that he and his hacking collective carried out during 2021 and 2022.

Coincidence? Until we find out who posted GTA V online, of course, we’ll never know.