Meta indefinitely delays GTA San Andreas VR, years after its announcement

Back in 2021, we shared the news that GTA San Andreas would be making its way to the Meta Quest 2. That was a head scratcher from the get go, because despite being the highest-selling PS2 title of all time, San Andreas already felt quite dated to be announced as one of the biggest things in the platform’s horizon.

The good news is that you now have plenty of time to ponder the choice, as IGN has just confirmed that the development of San Andreas VR is now on indefinite hold.

One of the most mind boggling parts of San Andreas VR, is that — even three years later — we never really learned much about it. The only written intel anyone ever got about it was Meta’s claim that it was a project long in the making. The only visual information we got was the logo that the company showed during the announcement.

It’s extra strange because Meta had previously seen success in bringing Resident Evil 4 to VR, and Rockstar had previously published LA Noire: The VR Case Files, an apt reimagining of the original game that was meant to be played on the HTC Vive. You’d expect that over three years later, the company would’ve at least provided us with one relevant update on the project, but this is all we have so far, and could be the last we end up hearing out of San Andreas VR.

This news comes after we learned that Meta’s VR games endeavor is costing the company immense amounts of money, with losses of up to $16 billion dollars in 2023 alone. The reported hiatus in the development of San Andreas VR might be a direct result of a cost-cutting action, though Meta only states that its working on other projects.

Though this is not officially a cancellation, it would not be the first time that we’d see the cancelation of ports of highly successful Rockstar titles. Back in 2022, we learned that the company had reportedly cancelled a much in-demand PC remaster of Red Dead Redemption in response to the poor reception of the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition. Then again, anyone actually interested in experiencing San Andreas in VR need not feel that bad, as we just very recently learned via a slip-up that the Red Dead Redemption PC port might be in the cards once again.