Take-Two Interactive has dismissed a lawsuit (opens in new tab) filed against the "Grand Theft Auto" modders in 2021 over the reverse-engineered ports of "Grand Theft Auto 3" and "GTA: Vice City".

Known as "re3" and "reVC," the project was essentially an update to the pre-Definitive Edition (opens in new tab) and was intended to make older GTA games work properly on modern hardware. Take-Two was initially had them removed from Github using a DMCA takedown notice, but they were restored after a counterclaim by the developer. Take-Two filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the operation, alleging that the mod makers "illegally copied, adapted, and attempted to distribute to the public infringing source code" for Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City.

The lawsuit referred not only to the alleged infringement of the mods themselves, but also to actions taken by the mod makers to circumvent DMCA requests for removal: "On at least three occasions between April and June 2021, Defendants Orçunus, Morra, and Graber have alleged that the repository removals were wrong or not legal, and filed sworn counter-notices with GitHub alleging that the repository removals were not legal. Take-Two knows and believes, and hereby alleges, that these counter-notices were made in bad faith and knowingly misrepresented the contents of the re3 GitHub repository to GitHub.

Not much action followed until, according to TorrentFreak (opens in new tab), in December 2022, both parties requested that the materials in the discovery portion of the case be exempted from disclosure because they likely contained confidential and proprietary information. Shortly thereafter, the parties were informed of a possible settlement, and after numerous postponements, a request to dismiss the lawsuit (open in new tab) was filed on April 3.

The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice and could not be refiled, but only against four defendants: the lawsuit also named 10 John Does as defendants, and the filing stated that "the remaining defendants are not dismissed by this provision."

However, in an update filed the next day (opens in new tab), Take-Two also dismissed the lawsuit against these defendants, but without prejudice, i.e., the lawsuit can be filed again against these defendants: one of the John Doe defendants is "Ash R. and Ash_ 735" and appears to be Ash_735 on Twitter (opens in new tab): they retweeted the settlement earlier this week.

Take-Two has not revealed whether a settlement has been reached with the mod makers or why the lawsuit was dismissed, but despite the fact that GTA3 and Vice City were in very rough shape (opens in new tab) when they were released, the officially updated versions release may have simply been redundant; we have reached out to Take-Two for comment and will update if we hear back.