Back in 2018, several GTA V Liberty City mods were in development, each with varying levels of success. Some lacked features like functional traffic and NPCs, while others suffered from significant performance issues due to loading two maps simultaneously: Liberty City and Los Santos. Mod creator Nkjellman, known for projects like Grand Theft Space, decided to unify these efforts by inviting individual mod creators to collaborate on a single, large-scale Liberty City mod: The Liberty City Preservation Project. After 6 long years, the mod has finally been released to the public, met with great reception. Rockstar Intel gives you a sneak peak behind the scenes of the development of this massive mod.
The goal
The team had an ambitious goal: being able to seamlessly fly between cities and experience Liberty City in an upgraded engine:
“I thought it was amazing how Red Dead Redemption 2 allowed you to visit Blackwater and New Austin from Red Dead Redemption 1 and I thought that it’d be amazing to have that in GTA.”
Nkjellman
To achieve this grand vision, Nkjellman decided to invite others to collaborate on the project: “I started the project in 2018. I found some of the other teammates because they were working on their own LC projects. Over time, it snowballed as other people were brought in,” he explained.
Modders that were invited to collaborate on the project were equally excited, so too was modder Monky, who joined on board in 2019. He was impressed by the team working on the mod: “I had used some other LC maps beforehand to showcase my work but when I joined the LC project team I quickly realised I was dealing with a much higher quality project. One of the first things that impressed me was how the entire project was add-on and didn’t interfere with the base map at all, something no maps prior to that had achieved.”
The team consisted of around 12 members, each contributing to the project in different ways, entirely voluntarily and during their free time. Some less experienced than others, but learning as they went. The project picked up steam in 2021: “We had substantially better tools for doing GTA IV props… Additionally, the Cayo Perico update added some features to the game like water swapping that we were able to utilize to improve the project.”
The project involved a lot more than just porting over the map, modder ook said,, “We wanted to make the world feel a lot more dynamic and alive,” modder Barbu added, “The goal was for people to find cool or curious things happening around the map as they explore it.” This attention to detail is evident in the dynamic scenarios throughout the city, such as a mechanic fixing a car or a pedestrian being ticketed by a cop. 4500 different scenarios were hand placed across the map, making the world feel arguably more alive than Los Santos itself.
“The goal was for people to find cool or curious things happening around the map as they explore it.”
Barbu
Cars have also been authentically recreated, modder Monky was one of the leading contributors to the vehicles: “Several years into vehicle modding, my work evolved from simple reskins to improving existing vehicles and creating new assets. I focused on keeping IV vehicles loyal to their original design while upgrading them to V-quality standards. This included police vehicles, fire trucks, taxis, and ambulances, which retained their original liveries, sounds, and extras. The rest of the pack included GTA V assets and hand-crafted elements, with all vehicles placed into the LC project’s population features like ambient traffic and car generators.”
Developer Retro explains how vehicle cycles make the world feel more alive: “creating the traffic/population cycle was a joy to me. There many little details to more obvious ones, like for example school busses will only spawn in traffic at their appropriate times, giving the city a living felling where people go about their day realistically.“
The map was also enhanced to look up to par in GTA V’s engine, with improved lighting and updated HD textures, creating the GTA V look and feel while remaining authentic. The team used an AI tool to upscale a large portion of the map’s textures: “I used a tool called Topaz Gigapixel AI Upscaler. I wrote some batch scripts that would analyze the file structure, name the HD textures appropriately… and process the textures themselves.” Although AI can’t do all the work, Nkjellman admits: “There are many textures that require manual touch-ups. It messes up on normal maps and on text.” This meant hand-tweaking thousands of textures to look the part.
Player Reception
The mod has been met with incredible player reception. Since its release on December 25, 2024, it has been downloaded over 25,000 times, earning critical acclaim and online attention. Team member Retro reflects: “I was astounded quite frankly, though I really do think we deserve it, it was a fun 6 years. Monky adds: “It’s been amazing seeing the reception so far. I never expected such positive reactions to features like the functional subway, vehicle variety, detailed scenarios, or small details like peds with umbrellas, smoke from manholes, and new ambient lighting.”
Initially, the World Travel team was hesitant to go public with the mod, wary of potential consequences from DMCA infringement, as Take-Two has been known for not being too lenient in such cases in the past. However, with Rockstar Games acquiring cfx.re (the creators behind FiveM), the team gained trust that Take-Two has changed its ways: “I hope that Rockstar and Take-Two will understand that we have good intentions. I hope that the reception the project receives will inspire them with their own projects, whether it is future GTA Online updates or GTA VI,” Nkjellman adds.
The change in mod policy from Rockstar Games wasn’t the only reason to go public with the mod. Modders were attempting to sell low-effort Liberty City mods exclusively on FiveM for prices ranging between $500 and $800. This motivated the team to release the mod for free, available for use in both story mode and FiveM. Team member Retro speaks on where the modding scene is heading: “I don’t like where the modding scene is going—low-effort paid mods, putting DRM on these mods. In my opinion, this was never what modding was about.”
The future
As player reception has started to roll in, the team at World Travel looks ahead: “We still need to restore majority of the interiors to be near 1:1 as IV, a decent bit of fragment destructible props, and also we will need to completely redo the entire maps vertex painting to look even better inside V” beyond that, the team has not yet decided on a new project, though they don’t rule out restoring a new city to explore: “We plan to mainly focus on LC until its essentially complete, so will be a while and after that will probably start a new similar project, since the team is named World Travel, and not just Liberty city”. team member Ook adds. The team is also aspiring jobs in the game industry, says Nkjellman: “I and many others on the team hope that Rockstar will aquire us to work on their incredible projects.”
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