Summary
October 26 will mark the 19th anniversary ofSan Andreas’s critically=-acclaimed release. Since debuting on the PS2, the third3DGrand Theft Autogamefound its way to over half a dozen other platforms, including Android and iOS devices.
One Artur Sychov has recently taken to Twitter to showcase yet another platform capable of runningGrand Theft Auto:San Andreas, having shared a brief clip of the game running on a smartwatch. While the fan did not elaborate on the matter, the likeliest explanation for this achievement is that Sychov merely side-loaded the Android version ofSan Andreasonto his Wear OS device. Since Wear OS is based on Android, gadgets running this operating system are technically compatible with APK files used for installing smartphone and tablet apps, even if most such software isn’t exactly optimized to run on a tiny screen.
That limitation was also underlined by Sychov’s experiment, which saw his smartwatch displaySan Andreasin what appeared to be a 4:3 aspect ratio, but with the corners cut off on account of the device’s round screen. The wearable was hence unable to show the vast majority of the game’s UI elements. On the other hand, the smartwatch seemingly had no trouble actually runningSan Andreas, as indicated by the instantaneous loading times and all-around smooth performance depicted in the minute-long clip. The fan played the game with the 8Bitdo Zero 2, a tiny Bluetooth gamepad that’s oftenrecommended to Switch owners looking for budget third-party controllers.
Sychov cheekily framed this achievement as a spark of hope that the fandom will eventually seeSan Andreasrunning on much more powerful hardware found inside the Meta Quest 3. His comment was referring to the fact that Meta has been working on a VR port of the game since 2021 without much to show for it. Earlier this month, the company confirmed thatGTA: San Andreas VRis still nowhere near completion.
The modding community has previously made some attempts at bringing VR functionality to the PC version ofSan Andreas. However, all such efforts were effectively abandoned by the time Meta officially announced the Quest version of the game.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreasis available on mobile devices, PC, PS2, P23, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.
