Not only is it a landmark title that pushed the game industry forward with its 3D open-world exploration but it also famously began life on the Dreamcast before development was shifted over to the Sony platform, with former Rockstar staff claiming in the years since that progress was only abandoned due to the Sega console no longer being considered a commercially viable project.
This has left Sega fans to question what the game might have looked like if it came out for the console and to await someone who is dedicated enough to try and port the game over themselves. Well, it appears their wait is finally over.
As spotted by The Sega Guru, a developer called SKMP is currently in the process of developing a fanmade port of the game for Dreamcast and is documenting their progress over on Twitter. The port is being built using DreamSDK3 and KalistiOS and is using PC assets. As The Sega Guru details in their video on the port, debugging is being done in reicast, a Dreamcast emulator that they developed, alongside a software renderer debugger called refsw, and another Dreamcast emulator called ldxdream.
As you can see from the image above, the port of the game is still in its early development stages and has a fair few problems still to overcome.
Right now, for instance, the port is taking advantage of a 32MB mod to expand the available memory, meaning only modded Dreamcast consoles will be able to run it. In addition to that, there are apparently issues with the VRAM still not being enough, and parts of the engine also needing to be rewritten to be more Dreamcast-friendly. In other words, it's a work in progress and one we'll need to keep an eye on in the future.
You can watch The Sega Guru's full video on the in-development port below:
