If you’ve been waiting to hear about a release date for the long-promised Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on Quest, you’ll just have to sit tight a little longer.

Meta announced at Connect 2021 that it was working with Rockstar Games to bring GTA: San Andreas to Quest 2, giving players a new perspective on the nearly 20 year-old game.

When asked during Connect 2023 in late September, a Meta spokesperson told Road to VR this: “We don’t have any updates to share on GTA: San Andreas.“

SEE ALSO
New Quest 3 Update Improves Passthrough, Brings 'Lying Down Mode' & External Mic Support

If there was a time for such an update, it seemingly would have been right around Connect and the launch of its next-gen standalone, Quest 3. Even without a major hardware announcement, the company’s annual XR developer conference typically provides a good roadmap to its pre-holiday ramp-up ambitions; the company is touting a few major game releases for that time, including Asgard’s Wrath 2 and Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR.

Considering it skipped that big announcement opportunity, it’s a pretty conservative bet that GTA: San Andreas VR won’t launch in 2023. Whatever the case, Meta is staying tight-lipped, so we’ll just have to continue waiting to see just how Rockstar hopes to inject us head-first into Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • ViRGiN

    It’s Valve fault. Meta is holding GTA up their sleeves to one up steam dickhard. After all, the intel is valve is very committed to VR. We can see this by zero news on this website, it’s nothing but quest articles.

  • namekuseijin

    2023 so far has been an excellent year for VR, but nothing like 24 and 25 promise, with Meta, Apple, Sony and Valve all battling it out

    you need to stock up ammo

    • MeowMix

      did I miss some Valve news or something ?

      • ViRGiN

        Yeah, haven’t you seen valve commitment through latest and greatest UX?
        Did you already forget when someone from valve said in korean school last year that they are working hard on headsets?

        • CrusaderCaracal

          i think he gets his valve news through the famous simmer bradley

          • ViRGiN

            I’m talking about Valve official who was asked out of nowhere during Steam Deck presentation about VR stuff. This is literally the latest ‘confirmed’ news. There hasn’t been anything since.

    • Clownworld14

      Has it? really? Nope. Its been a terrible year for vr software, Maybe the hardware is good, but the software? nope, terrible. Just look at where all the vr players are… they’ve been playing the same games for years now because theres nothing new/good out.

  • gothicvillas

    almost feels like the project is canned.. could it be that Rockstars didnt like the result? or perhaps Meta wanted to make game more wokey.. and therefore ruining the game? Its weird they are so tight lipped… not a good sign.

  • Nevets

    There are some plausibles reasons for the delay (if, that is, the project is still live). These include one that I think nobody so far has mentioned:

    THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF GTA VI.

    If a GTA VI announcement is imminent, then it will be planned very carefully around any competing announcement – which GTA SA would certainly be.

    Remember also that Quest 3 is something of a ‘soft launch’. Meta doesn’t want to put off its Christmas business, and some customers who would purchase a newly-discounted Quest 2 might be deterred by all the coverage of the more costly Quest 3. The Quest 2 would appear to be an inferior alternative, while the Quest 3 would be too expensive. Result: lost sales.

    Meta’s decision to prohibit the release of any Quest 3 exclusives until 2024 also support this theory.

    In short, I suspect GTA SA is still alive and kicking, just not ready yet. I think Meta would have confirmed if it were dead. Still, I’m biased of course – I want to see the game. But we will see.

    • ApocalypseShadow

      Could be any number of things or a combination of things.

      Facebook could be waiting until they see Quest 3 sales numbers for the holiday season. Can’t launch a big game like that and there’s not enough numbers to justify the release too early. Some will say that there’s Quest 2 numbers. But that’s not going to sell Quest 3 that way. The plan is to grow their numbers and sell their new tech against Apple no matter how they and fans try to deny it.

      Could be that it’s not longer coming to Quest 2 because it might not run it well like how Grid Legends turned out. Yeah. You can made a simple game like Red Matter 2 look great when they’re nothing going on onscreen. But what happens when you have multiple cars, NPCs, etc onscreen? What’s the frame rate for that unless they chop up the graphics.

      Could be no longer an exclusive and is launching on all devices and the Quest version is just a launch exclusive.

      Could be cancelled. No one knows really since all this is just speculation. What I do know is that Quest 3 is launching with nothing. Asgard’s Rath 2 isn’t day one, Creed isn’t day one. No mixed reality killer app day one. Just ports of existing games. Which makes me laugh for all the vitriol Sony got for launching with GT7, Horizon and paying for exclusivity of RE8 that arrived day one. That’s how you launch new hardware but they got hate for it. Quest 3 comes in tomorrow even worse and I just have to laugh.

      But GTA SA might still arrive but it’s hard to say since Facebook is saying nothing.

      • Nevets

        What I do know is that Quest 3 is launching with nothing.

        Can’t argue with that…

        • ViRGiN

          PCVR headsets launch with actually less, and nobody cares. +7% resolution panels, wohoo! Gorilla Tag on SteamVR is gonna look better than ever before!

        • MattyMoo

          It’s able to play the full library of Quest games. Since it isn’t backwards compatible, the PSVR2 was limited to the launch titles.

          • Nevets

            Very true. People like new stuff, though. The back catalogue and new hardware will do for me, but other people tend to expect stuff they haven’t seen on the old hardware.

          • kakek

            Meta obviously intend to do the same thing they did for the Quest / quest 2 transition.
            Every game have to run on both headset for a year or so. First exclusive Q3 title next year. Q2 support dropped in 2 years. Wich will give the headset a total of 5 years of support.

            Not a lot, but better than I expected.

          • ApocalypseShadow

            So, the headset is held back by the previous headset, then the old headset is dropped for the new one. Sort of like RE4 being the last Quest 1 game then Facebook moved on.

            That’s 20 million possible customers dropped until they spend at least $500 to play the new games. And the new casual buyers who buy the old headset find out later they wasted their money when games they want to play don’t play on their model.

            Got it.

          • kakek

            Dropping older customers is unavoidable at some point, obviously.
            It’s just a question of time frame.

          • ApocalypseShadow

            It launched with nothing. Don’t try and spin a new hardware launch by saying it plays old games. Nintendo and Sony never do nonsense like that. PS4 and PS5 didn’t. Nintendo Switch didn’t. But you want to play like it’s okay for Facebook. LMAO. Get real

            No new games at launch. FACT.

          • MattyMoo

            It launched with nothing new but can still access the existing library. If PSVR2 could play my PSVR1 library I would’ve bought one.

          • ApocalypseShadow

            So, you agree a new device launched with nothing. Got it. And it also plays older games with blurry or low Rez textures. Sure.

            The tech was different for both PSVR and PS VR 2. It’s rather obvious. Lights. No lights. No increase in cost to buy the $50 HD camera and put the tech inside the headset to have lights. Now you’re looking at $600+. Gamers would have said no way. They already complained about $550. Sense Controllers also have less buttons. That means not all games would be playable. Common sense.

            Thing is though, PS5 plays all PSVR games. If one sells their headset, that’s not Sony’s fault you did. And almost every major game has been upgraded to be even better on PS VR 2. There’s nothing wrong with having two headsets. That’s like saying you can’t have two consoles in your house at the same time.

    • Sven Viking

      To be honest I’m not sure a GTA:SA:VR update would remain much competition for a GTAIV announcement after a week or so.

  • another juan

    my guess is: after rockstar’s “definitive” trilogy fiasco, they had to start again from zero.
    a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.

    • ViRGiN

      Not true at all. Cyberpunk is doing extremely well again.

      • CrusaderCaracal

        I mean to be fair they took their time with cyberpunk. Easily one of the best games of the decade though

        • ViRGiN

          Yes, they did. But it was claimed to be “rushed”, and it already redeemed itself.
          We are in the age of insane complexity of games. Even delayed games are never finished and players will demand updates.

          • CrusaderCaracal

            Yeah I think people should step into the shoes of a game dev, it’s not easy to make a game let alone cyberpunk 2077.

    • Jonathan Winters III

      Not a guess – that’s EXACTLY what happened. the Android codebase of the Definitive version was deemed nonmarketable due to the appalling “quality” of the port. Either they’re starting from another codebase that is higher fidelity than Android (to give a much prettier version that the Quest 3 and Quest 2 can now handle with the recent big horsepower updates), or abandoned it altogether – possibly for a different GTA game.

      • DoomDalek

        Nope, that is not “exactly what happened”, and last I checked you’re not a Rockstar employee who might have the foggiest to speak with such unearned authority.

        • Jonathan Winters III

          You know nothing, I know all. BOW TO ME, mere mortal!

    • xyzs

      Yep, that’s what happens when greedy idiots put incompetent people to the task. The definitive edition is an absolute insult and should have been cancelled.
      If they were smart, they would surprise their fanbase by integrating a super remake of these3 games within GTA6, with next gen graphics and all. Not only everyone would buy it just for that reason, but it could also allow GTA6 story to really upon these nostalgic maps partially, and even bring back some characters!

  • kool

    Idk maybe it just wouldn’t be fun. I’ve played san Andreas recently and it doesn’t standup well at all. I wonder if they could get the PS3 version of gtav working on the psvr2?

    • ViRGiN

      Even the worst blockbuster title, in VR it would be the best VR has to offer if they care about the basic controls.
      Skyrim could be the VR game, if it was done properly. But it wasn”t.

      • kool

        Yeah but it needs a lot of work to get me on board. Make no mistake if done right id buy a quest 3 in a heartbeat! But it’d have to have co-op!

      • kakek

        It was done just like flat skyrim.
        Finished by the modding community.

        • ViRGiN

          Vanilla Skyrim is still super decent. Hard to say that about VR version.

          • namekuseijin

            I can say that about vanilla Skyrim

            I mean, some in VR community hype up utter shit like Zenith, which is worse than Skyrim in everyway and yet uses as basic 2D-menu VR interactions as vanilla Skyrim VR. bunch of indie shills

          • ViRGiN

            well you can.
            people bought skyrim for skyrim.
            it was sucessfull before it was modded to oblivion.
            and i dont even play skyrim.

    • ApocalypseShadow

      They could. Because the game came out on PS3.

  • Lucidfeuer

    Imagine waiting for a port of a 20 years old game port in a trilogy, how miserable your platform has to be….

    • ViRGiN

      Uncle gayben, pretty please, show me something i beg you

    • namekuseijin

      said guy playing old sims, Far Cry 1 and HL2 and begging for AC Nexus in every youtube video…

  • Paul Bellino

    I Blasted Meta over this live during the connect show. Not a peep from them. We all want this game.