How to install and play GTA Skate (Skate 3 in GTA III and Vice City)

No loaders needed: unblock the zip, run the launcher, point it at your Skate 3 files and your original GTA III or Vice City, and press J.

GTA Skate brings Skate 3 to Liberty City and Vice City, using the re3 and reVC rebuilds of those games. This guide follows release 1.1 from irregularnetwork/GTA-Skate-3-Trilogy, going by the readme inside the release zip. New to mods? Read Start here first.

1. What you need

Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
GTA III and/or GTA Vice City for PC, the original versions. Steam, Rockstar Games Launcher and the old CD versions all work. The Definitive Edition doesn’t.
Extracted Xbox 360 Skate 3 files: default.xex and data, from your own copy. A .iso won’t work.
An Xbox/XInput controller. You need one to skate.
About 2 GB of disk per city, plus 0.5 GB.

San Andreas is listed as coming later and isn’t playable yet. For San Andreas, see GTA San AnSkateas.

2. Install

Download GTA.Skate.zip from the Releases page.
Right-click it → Properties → Unblock, then Extract All to a short path you can write to, like C:\Games\GTA Skate. Not Program Files, and no accented letters in the path.

3. First launch

Double-click 2 - Play GTA Skate. If SmartScreen appears, choose More info → Run anyway.
Click a city. The first time, it asks for default.xex, then your GTA folder (the one with gta3.exe or gta-vc.exe).
It copies the game into Files\iii or Files\vc and converts the data. Your original folders are never changed.
In game, wait about 15 seconds, then press J.

4. Controls

Input	Does
J, or click both sticks	Get on or off the board
A / X	Push
Left stick	Steer and lean
Right stick down, then flick up	Ollie (other flicks do flip tricks)
Triggers	Grab
1 / 2 (keyboard)	Speed push / big jump
Hold LB or left mouse	Shoot while skating (right stick aims, D-pad or wheel switches weapon)
Ctrl + M	Skate tools menu: gravity, ollie height, no bails, aim assist

5. Troubleshooting

Crash on Alt+Tab: set Windowed=1 under [VideoMode] in Files\iii\re3.ini or Files\vc\reVC.ini.
Turn skating off: set Enabled=0 under [GTA3Skate] or [VCSkate] in the same file.
Logs: Files\iii\skate.log and Files\vc\skate.log.
Known limits: parked cars aren’t solid, and you can’t enter vehicles while skating. Skating ends on death, arrest, cutscenes, teleports, saving or loading, and water.

6. Uninstall

Delete the GTA Skate folder. Your original GTA and Skate 3 folders were never changed.

No GTA? Play the tribute

The skateboarding open-world game is a clean-room skate-the-city tribute that runs in your browser.