A promising and ambitious Grand Theft Auto V mod of the Red Dead Redemption map ported inside the GTA V engine has been shut down, three years into its production.

The leader of the project, Mr. Leisurewear, successfully managed to reverse engineer the majority of Red Dead Redemption’s map, making it playable within GTA V’s engine. Screenshots released several months ago increased fan excitement, and the first trailer for the mod, released Friday 21st April, showed the port to be a reality.

However, Mr. Leisurewear took to gtaforums to explain that the mod has been forced to shut down.

“I know this is hard pill to swallow, but as you may have noticed we did get contacted, and we sadly have to say we are stopping this project. So thanks guys, we were all so happy to see this, but it isn’t going to happen, sorry :/ :/ :/”

Whilst it remains unclear exactly who contacted the programmer, it seems likely that either Rockstar or its parent company, Take Two, stepped into due to legal issues. As its intellectual property, both companies would have the right to protect Red Dead Redemption and the game it was being ported into, Grand Theft Auto V. With Red Dead Redemption 2 on track to release later this year, it’s also likely that they saw the mod as an unwelcome distraction.

It looks as though fans will have to wait for the official sequel now, which is expected to release in October of this year on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

What do you think of the ambitious mod being shut down? Let us know in the comments section below.

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