Take-Two sues makers of Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City reverse engineering project

Take-Two Interactive is suing a team of developers that have reverse-engineered source code from Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City.

The lawsuit takes aim at 14 programmers behind the re3 project, which offers “the fully reserved source code for GTA 3 and GTA VC”, alongside ports of the titles for Switch, Wii U and Vita.

In the suit, the company stated that it wants to “halt the activities of a group of individuals who have sought unlawfully to copy, adapt, and distribute to the public infringing source code for two classic GTA titles… without the authorisation or consent of Take-Two.”

Take-Two also attempted to have the project removed from Github, and claimed that three of the developers involved “knowingly filed bad faith counter notifications that materially misrepresented the legality of their content, apparently claiming that because they allegedly ‘reverse engineered’ the Games’ source code, they somehow cannot be liable for copyright infringement.”

The company also claims that the creation and distribution of the rebuilt games “has caused, and is continuing to cause, irreparable harm to Take-Two.”

The re3 project does not use any leaked source or copyrighted assets belonging to Rockstar or Take-Two. To access those, players will need to own their own copies of the games. The project also adds new features to the existing games, including a new camera, various bug fixes and widescreen support.

Back in July, Take-Two also delivered a series of takedowns to community-made map mods in Grand Theft Auto 5 — specifically maps based on locations in GTA 3 and Vice City.

The company also attempted to have reverse-engineered source code from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas removed from Github earlier in the year, but was unsuccessful.