23 Years On, GTA Vice City Is Now Playable In A Web Browser

Last updated: December 20, 2025 3:08 am

3 Min Read

We really have a playable GTA Vice City in a web browser of all places before GTA 6: the people at DOS Zone has managed to port this 23-year-old game into the web, meaning you can now click this text to head there and enjoy the 1980s Miami atmosphere right away.

GTA Vice City, Now On The Web

23 Years On, GTA Vice City Is Now Playable In A Web Browser

But how did this happen? One aspect of this comes down to WebAssembly and WebGPU implementation, which allows the website to utilize your device’s hardware, such as GPU, to run demanding applications on the web. In this case, the bowser simply talks to your PC’s GPU and let it handle the rendering of the game, so while it looks like it’s on a web browser, it behaves similarly to a natively-run game.

It’s honestly a feat that we came to a point where a full game is playable straight from a web browser, no download or installation required. In this case, DOS Zone even supports cloud saves, so you can pretty much play the game anywhere with a web browser installed. Part of this effort comes from the open-sourced code obtained from other projects (such as reVC), which already made plenty of conversion work happen through its reverse engineering efforts.

Now, the legality of this is gray area at best. Rockstar never actually open-sourced GTA Vice City at any point, and while DOS Zone claims that it does not distribute game assets, Take Two (Rockstar’s publisher) might say otherwise. In any case, at least in official capacity, you’re required to provide the game’s files to actually progress through the story, but if you don’t care about the story side of things, the map is more or less open to you to explore freely right away.

23 Years On, GTA Vice City Is Now Playable In A Web Browser - 16

In its disclaimer, DOS Zone says this game – or rather, this project – is “an independent, non-commercial technology demonstration,” referring this as a “demo” and is for “educational and technological demonstration purposes, including showcasing modern web-browser capabilities and engine functionality.” To that end, it’s a successful showcase of such capabilities, but we highly doubt Take Two and Rockstar is going to be too happy about this.

It should also be said that the website also hosts many other 90s classics, including DOOM, The Need for Speed, Quake, Diablo, Warcraft, and many more, although the legality of those are unclear, despite them pretty much considered as ‘abandonware’ at this point.

Pokdepinion: I have completed this game so many years ago, now this does bring back the memories.