Rockstar’s ‘friendly takedown’ of a free GTA 5 Liberty City mod has community up in arms

After garnering a ton of attention over the past few days, the immensely popular GTA 5 Liberty City mod, recreating GTA 4‘s map in its successor’s engine, has been removed by Rockstar Games in what the mod’s devs have labeled as a “friendly takedown.”

The mod, called the Liberty City Preservation Project (LCPP), aimed to port the map from GTA 4 into GTA 5 and grant it new life in a more modern engine. However, as with any GTA or Rockstar-related mod that gets any sort of attention, it flew too close to the Take-Two sun and earned itself a quick and painless “friendly takedown” request, to which the developers agreed immediately. “Due to the unexpected attention that our project received and after speaking with Rockstar Games, we have decided to take down the Liberty City Preservation project,” the mod’s creators wrote on its official Discord channel.

However, even though it was Rockstar who issued the takedown request, the developers claim it wasn’t a DMCA, but rather a “a friendly takedown, mutually agreed upon by all parties involved.” They further added that “there is no negativity between us and Rockstar Games,” and that any sharing of the mod on their Discord is thereby banned. Of course, this didn’t sit well with players who put thousands of negative reactions on the initial post, while one Reddit post painted the company as “dictators who ignore players’ wishes.” Others called the company many names, none of them good, whereas some blamed YouTubers and their excessive coverage for the situation.

Rockstar Games has had a firm stance on certain types of mods for a while now. It has previously taken down anything that has to do with “remastering” their games, likely wishing to preserve their authority on the subject and keep their potential sales high once actual remasters come out. As we’ve seen with the GTA Trilogy remasters and the Red Dead Redemption PC port and remaster, the company is very much keen on releasing their own “updated” versions of previous titles, and mods like the LCPP could be perceived as a roadblock.

Even so, it is quite disappointing to see community spirits snuffed out once again, leaving years of work in the gutter.