Take-Two shuts down AI GTA 5 mod

Volition, the developer behind the Saints Row series, has shut down after 30 years, the studio announced.

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

Mimimi Games has announced its final game is Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew and that the studio will slowly shut down over the next few months.

These days, if you want a flagship phone, you have to settle on something big. First, we didn't get an iPhone 14 mini, and now one of the better small Android phone options, the Asus Zenphone series, may be on its way out, too.

The road to get GTA 6 has not been an easy one for gamers. After all, Rockstar Games made it perfectly clear that they were fine with milking their fifth title and its online component for about a decade before confirming that a sixth title was in the works. Then, the massive leak of the title had everyone questioning what was going on, what the game’s quality would be like, and so on. Even with all of that dying down, Rockstar Games hasn’t provided any clues as to when the title may be released, making gamers all the more anxious.

A week after Rockstar approved mods from Grand Theft Auto Online's roleplaying community, Take-Two has removed a mod for Grand Theft Auto V that featured AI-generated dialogue. 

A single GTA 5 mod has rekindled the age-old shouting match about the precise legality and contribution of videogame mods, in the eyes of developers, publishers and players - while also threatening to trigger fresh debate on the use of large language models, aka AI, in game development. The mod in question, "AI Powered GTA V: Story Mode with AI NPCs" sees you investigating a cult of weirdo AI worshippers, with characters capable of real-time AI-generated dialogue. It's now been struck from several sites by GTA 5 publisher Take-Two Interactive.

The developer of a Grand Theft Auto V mod which gave players the ability to chat to NPCs using AI says it’s been removed by Rockstar‘s parent company Take-Two Interactive.

Earlier this month, we covered a new GTA V mod crafted with Inworld AI's Character Engine by modder Bloc. That mod added a whole new storyline to Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V, though its defining feature was the support for completely unscripted conversation with non-player characters (NPCs). It wasn't Bloc's first attempt at injecting generative AI technology in a game, as he previously did it with Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

«No one from Take-Two Interactive contacted and ask me anything prior to this, they just took down the video out of nowhere.»

Take-Two has chalked up another body in the GTA modding scene, and barely a week after Rockstar turned heads by buying up the FiveM mod makers. This time the victim was the creator of Sentient Streets, the AI mod that allowed you to chat with, cajole and extort the NPCs of Los Santos that we covered last week. Rockstar's parent company was none too happy with it, apparently, so all trace of it has now been blasted from the internet.

Microsoft has announced that it’s shutting down on July 29th, 2024. Players won’t be able to purchase new titles, DLC or other content via the Xbox 360 Store on consoles or the dedicated website.