GTA 5 launched on the Nintendo Switch console - but for nothing

One year after the leak of the Grand Theft Auto V source code, a group of modders has published footage of the game running on the Nintendo Switch console.

The modding team Superstar South released a two-minute video on the X / Twitter official account showing gameplay of GTA V on Switch. In March, Superstar South announced that they were trying to create an unofficial port of GTA 5 for Nintendo Switch, Linux, and Android.

The project is based on the source code that has been circulating openly for at least a year. Rockstar has been the victim of several serious hacker attacks, one of which led to a leak of a lot of materials from GTA VI.

Due to the limited technical specifications of the Switch, performance leaves much to be desired. Apart from the obvious decrease in visual quality, the video shows delays and a constant drop in frame rates from 70 to 27 fps. A separate post shows that the Switch was running in manual clock frequency mode without overclocking enabled.

Obviously you want to at least see how far we got…

(the recording is not as smooth when compared to hardware video output) pic.twitter.com/y0oSRterbD

— Superstar South (@SuperstarS31668) April 17, 2024

It is worth noting that Grand Theft Auto 5 is already a relatively old game. It was released back in 2013 for Xbox 360 and PS3, and then it was ported to PC, PS4, Xbox One. GTA 5 received an update for current generation consoles PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2022. There are many reasons why running GTA 5 on Switch might be challenging, despite its relatively young age, including engine compatibility issues.

Until this day, a version of GTA 5 for Switch has never been offered. Currently, the closest thing to portable gameplay in Grand Theft Auto 5 is to buy a portable gaming PC, such as the Steam Deck. Previously, GTA 5 was available on cloud services like Nvidia GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming, but it was later removed from both.

However, it is unlikely that Superstar South will ever release their version of GTA V on Switch, considering how Take-Two Interactive protects its intellectual property.

Source: ign