‘GTA 5’ Mods OpenIV: Popular modding tool is available again for the Rockstar game

Although Grand Theft Auto has always been about criminal activities and the people who engage in them, Rockstar Games takes a very hard line about cheaters. Not surprising, considering hackers have been bad news for the game before.

Grand Theft Auto 5’s modding community remains robust, however. When GTA 5’s publisher, Take-Two Interactive, issued a cease-and-desist for a popular modkit called OpenIV, fans flocked to Steam to give the game bad reviews in protest. Now it looks like OpenIV might be back in business — for now.

GTA 5 mods: No more targeting modders creating original single-player content for the game

As we previously reported, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope that OpenIV wasn’t gone for good when the developer released a new patch for the modkit on June 23. Yuriy Krivoruchko, OpenIV’s developer, was allegedly in contact with Rockstar in order to excise the parts of the mod that could be used to interact with GTA Online.

According to Engadget, fan hopes for the mod tool have also been buoyed by statements from Rockstar and Take-Two. Per Kotaku’s reporting on the statements, Rockstar announced on June 23 — the same day the OpenIV patch dropped — that they’d reached an accord with Take-Two:

Take-Two has agreed that it generally will not take legal action against third-party projects involving Rockstar’s PC games that are single-player, non-commercial and respect the intellectual property rights of third parties.

Although the clarification “generally” will probably give some modders pause, it’s still a step in the right direction. However, OpenIV’s creator did post in the GTA Forums that they had ceased development on a mod to bring Liberty City — the setting of GTA 4 — to GTA 5, since it clearly contradicted with a portion of Rockstar’s single-player modding guidelines.

As for what’s next, OpenIV’s creator has merely said, “we are currently revising our plans for the future,” but chances are good that even with the Liberty City mod falling through, this won’t be the last we see of them.

More gaming news and updates

Check out the latest from Mic, like this essay about the sinister, subtle evils lurking in rural America that Far Cry 5 shouldn’t ignore. Also, be sure to read our review of Tekken 7, an article about D.Va’s influence on one Overwatch player’s ideas about femininity and an analysis of gaming’s racist habit of darkening villains’ skin tones.