The Experiment Continues: Modder Connects GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas With Portals in a Shared World

After surprising players by running Grand Theft Auto 3 inside a texture in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, modder Dryxio has taken things even further with a much more ambitious project. In a newly released video, he demonstrates fully functional portals linking GTA 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

The demonstration takes place on Grove Street in San Andreas. Stepping through one portal instantly transports the player to Liberty City, where control switches to Claude from GTA 3. Another portal leads to Vice City and puts players in control of Tommy Vercetti. The transitions don't look like pre-recorded animations—they feel like seamless connections between living game worlds.

What's even more impressive is that the portals are more than just a visual trick. Dryxio shows that players can shoot NPCs located in another game through the portals and actually deal damage to them. In other words, all three worlds are interacting with each other in real time.

According to the creator, all three games are running within a single process and share the same Direct3D device, while still functioning as separate engine instances. This allows the portals to display actual game worlds rather than video feeds, with each world continuing to run and update independently on the other side.

Interestingly, just a few days ago, Dryxio showcased a much smaller-scale experiment — running GTA 3 on a television screen inside San Andreas. At the time, the modder hinted that he wanted to expand the concept and eventually connect multiple GTA titles together. Judging by this latest video, he's already taken a major step toward that goal.

Just days ago, Dryxio was running GTA 3 inside San Andreas through a TV texture. Now he's connected three classic GTA games with fully functional portals. Would you like to see this experiment evolve into a unified GTA universe?