GTA players think there might be a special reason why Rockstar asked for GTA 5’s Liberty City Preservation Project to get taken offline.
Modders kicked off 2025 by shocking the GTA community and adding GTA IV’s Liberty City to the world of GTA 5.
The mod, dubbed the ‘Liberty City Preservation Project,’ let players travel to GTA’s version of New York City by going to the airport in Los Santos.
The fully functional map breathed new life into GTA 5, especially as players grew increasingly frustrated by the lack of GTA 6 updates from Rockstar.
Sadly, on January 15, the mod was taken offline after the modders spoke with Rockstar. While many were quick to accuse the developer of being “against the modding community,” others believe there might be a good reason behind the decision.
Could Rockstar Games be planning an official return to Liberty City?
When the mod was taken down, its creators explained that the decision was made only after speaking with Rockstar.
“Due to the unexpected attention our project received and after speaking with Rockstar Games, we have decided to take down the Liberty City Preservation Project,” they said.
This wording caught the attention of X user and GTA community member Synth Potato, who hypothesized that Rockstar could have something similar in the works.
The takedown of the Liberty City in GTA 5 mod was a mutual agreement between Rockstar and the mod developers rather than a hostile DMCA one.There’s strong hints here at some sort of something official being made in collab with Rockstar related to this mod, just speculation but… pic.twitter.com/wvnW905FNH
— Synth Potato🥔 (@SynthPotato) January 16, 2025
“There are strong hints here at some sort of something official being made in collab with Rockstar related to this mod. Just speculation, but it could be an official integration of this mod into FiveM of some sort,” they pondered.
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“I don’t believe this is related to a GTA 4 remaster, as Rockstar wouldn’t casually reveal that to modders unless, well they actually did, this story is far from over.”
While many weren’t so quick to jump on this theory, suggesting that Rockstar just wanted the modders to end their project without a legal fight, others felt there could be something to the claim.
“Rockstar is gonna use the mod community to turn ‘Project Americas’ into reality,” one said, referring to the early title for GTA 6. “They already hired FiveM devs. I can see them not wanting the mods up for a few reasons, mainly, hopefully being they want to remake the older cities for future GTA 6 Online updates.”
It's possible that Rockstar decided to approach them first, before pursing any legal action. This is a popular mod, by a respected team, so it wouldn't be crazy if they wanted a mutual agreement.GTA VI *might* have map expansions, so an in-house L.C. remake would make sense.
— KARIM (@374_Karim) January 16, 2025
“It’s possible that Rockstar decided to approach them first, before pursing any legal action. This is a popular mod, by a respected team, so it wouldn’t be crazy if they wanted a mutual agreement,” another said. “GTA VI might have map expansions, so an in-house L.C. remake would make sense.”
“Several years ago it was leaked that Rockstar is planning to expand GTA 6 over the years by adding new islands or regions that we can travel to,” someone else chimed in. “We now know that the edit that brought back Liberty City was removed by Take Two.”
We’ll have to see what the future holds for GTA and a possible return to Liberty City. Of course, GTA 6 is set to take place in Vice City, but if map expansions are planned, especially with the new version of GTA Online, we can only hope that this isn’t the end.
Meanwhile, fans are eagerly awaiting Rockstar to reveal new details about GTA 6 and believe the company will finally unveil info in early 2025 based on the developer’s past reveals when a title enters its release year.
