A GTA modder has got the 1997 original working perfectly on modern PCs and Steam Deck, and it's a joy to behold: 'I wanted pick up-and-play GTA on Windows with the best possible compatibility without classic installation'

In the most welcome of news, you can now play the original Grand Theft Auto—the 1997 top-down, chaos-in-a-shoebox crime simulator that started it all—on modern PCs and Steam Decks without cursing at your screen and tearing your hair out. As a long-suffering bald man, I'm not sure I can confidently pin my lack of follicle fullness on being unable to reliably run the OG GTA on modern hardware until now, but it has always been a total faff.

Removed from digital storefronts such as Steam by Rockstar in the earliest stretch of last decade, middling mods and haphazard emulation have hardly managed to bridge the gap in the interim. Enter LukeStorm, who has packaged the game into something he calls GTA Ready2Play, a plug-and-play mini-time-capsule that runs like it somehow belongs in 2026.

Back to the future

For LukeStorm, this wasn't a crusade so much as a hobby spiralling into digital preservation. "It's truly a passion project for me to prepare older games in my own Ready2Play style," he says. "My Ready2Play bundles everything to play easily without tinkering and classic installation on modern Windows systems. The individually crafted portable launcher ensures that the game is ready to play at any time."

What's fascinating is how unambitious the project's beginnings were. LukeStorm didn't set out to revive a community, engineer a definitive version, or solve compatibility issues for thousands of nostalgic players. "I wanted to have GTA (Windows version) with the best possible compatibility and without classic installation in my Ready2Play style—that was my only idea," he says. "For a long time, it wasn't clear whether I would release Ready2Play in this form at all."

Yet here it is. And if the stream of positive replies and comments on the mod's GTAForums' thread are anything to go by, calling it celebrated among those playing likely doesn't do it justice.

To this end, LukeStorm adds: "The feedback [has been] overwhelmingly positive. Some updates, such as fixes for audio crashes or missing menu sounds, were made directly as a result of this feedback." Even more surprising to him was the number of players running it on Steam Deck and Linux. LukeStorm hasn't tested it there himself, granted, but he's still marvelling at the reports weeks and months down the line. "It was exciting to see and I was surprised how many people tried it on Steam Deck or Linux."

Of course, converting an old game into something frictionless is never smooth. "An unexpected problem was that there was no sound in the game menu when you started the game without the intro," LukeStorm says. Then came the widescreen patch, then the DirectDraw wrapper required a full update to even remotely behave on modern systems. Thankfully, fellow modder FunkyFr3sh stepped in, updating the wrapper and helping patch issues.

As a whole, one thing Ready2Play does especially well is balance—it preserves the original game faithfully while injecting compatibility fixes where they matter. LukeStorm stresses a desire to keep the essence of the original Grand Theft Auto intact while including all relevant content from the game and its expansions, with anything that could meaningfully alter the game's behaviour tucked safely behind launcher toggles.

GTA on the go

That philosophy also shaped the Ready2Play identity: zero friction, zero fuss, maximum portability. "That's exactly the goal," LukeStorm agrees. "Portable and ready to play anytime without tinkering and classic installation. I don't like fixed installations at all… not to mention when you have to install additional stuff. Of course the kind of Ready2Play I have in mind involves a lot of effort… but I do that with fun and passion."

And you can feel that passion. The package includes everything you expect: the base game, both expansions, language options, widescreen support, audio fixes, menu-sound restoration, updated DirectDraw handling, and a bespoke portable launcher that looks like something Rockstar might have made today assuming the game hadn't been all but resigned to the history books.

LukeStorm adds: "The most rewarding part was definitely the feedback from people expressing how much joy it brought them to play the very first GTA again or even to discover it for the first time. I was also surprised by how many people actually found and tried the GTA Ready2Play edition."

As for the future, Ready2Play has reached the destination he envisioned. "Updates will only be released if there is added value in terms of compatibility, stability or a new feature," he says. In other words: it's finished. Or at least as finished as a Windows-era resurrection project can ever be.

The Grand Theft Auto classics are, of course, no stranger to less-than-finessed remaster ventures, which only makes fan-made projects like Ready2Play all the more impressive. In this instance, success isn't defined by reworked character models or smoother animations, Ready2Play is a success because, against the myriad projects that have tried and failed to do so, this one works reliably.

Still some ways away from the arrival of GTA 6, I truly wish 11-year-old me could see me now tearing up Liberty, Vice and San Andreas as they first appeared before the turn of the millennium all over again. Back when I had hair.