Three classic Grand Theft Auto games are making an unexpected appearance on New Nintendo 3DS hardware through a new fan-made collection. Grand Theft Auto has appeared on Nintendo handhelds before, but several of the series’ best-known 3D-era games never received official 3DS releases.
Nintendo handhelds are not completely unfamiliar territory for Rockstar’s genre-defining franchise. Grand Theft Auto Advance arrived on Game Boy Advance in 2004, while the Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars spin-off brought an original entry to Nintendo DS in 2009. The 3DS itself never received a native mainline GTA game during its commercial life, leaving massively beloved titles like Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, and Liberty City Stories absent from the system. A new homebrew project called the reGTA Collection is now filling that gap unofficially by adapting three of those games to compatible New Nintendo 3DS hardware.
New GTA Collection Brings 3 Games to Nintendo 3DS
Created by modder EpicReds0817, the reGTA Collection brings Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories to the New Nintendo 3DS family, with the completed project planned for release in early October. The native ports are based on the reverse-engineered re3, reVC, and reStories projects, with each game receiving a dedicated lower-screen interface, touch controls, Nintendo-style button prompts, and a touchscreen keyboard for entering cheats. The collection supports New Nintendo 3DS, New Nintendo 3DS XL, and New Nintendo 2DS XL, while the original 3DS, 3DS XL, and 2DS are not compatible because the ports depend on the upgraded CPU and additional memory of the newer models. Fans should note that this is an unofficial Nintendo homebrew project rather than a Rockstar Games or Take-Two release, and users must build the ports themselves while supplying their own game data.
Of the three games, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories may be the most impressive inclusion. GTA 3 and Vice City already benefited from relatively mature reverse-engineered projects, but the PSP classic Liberty City Stories required more substantial work because its corresponding project had remained unfinished. EpicReds0817 has gotten the entire main story running on physical New Nintendo 3DS hardware, although not every side mission and optional activity has been fully verified. The port relies on converted PS2 game data supplied by the user, rather than distributing Rockstar’s original assets as part of the project.
The collection also does more than simply squeeze the three games onto smaller hardware. Each entry has been adapted around the 3DS dual-screen setup, with the lower display handling additional interface elements and touch functionality. The ports also include various game-specific fixes and improvements intended to make the older titles function more smoothly on the handheld. That gives the project more of a native Nintendo 3DS identity than a straightforward conversion, while the combination of physical controls and touchscreen features makes the handheld an unexpectedly fitting home for these older open-world games.
However, actually playing the reGTA Collection requires considerably more effort than downloading a conventional release. The repository doesn’t include the original game data, finished executables, or the full development toolchain, so users need their own legally obtained copies of GTA 3, Vice City, or the appropriate Liberty City Stories data and must prepare the ports themselves. A compatible homebrew-capable New 3DS-family system is also required. Even with those limitations, seeing three full 3D-era Grand Theft Auto games running natively on Nintendo’s discontinued handheld makes the project an impressive example of what the homebrew community continues to accomplish years after the system left the market.
- Released
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November 19, 2026
- ESRB
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Rating Pending – Likely Mature 17+
