A modder takes the concept to the absurd: three GTA games stacked, playable in cascade. We're not going to lie, it blew us away.

GTA-ception: Vice City playable in GTA 3, within San Andreas

We thought we'd seen it all with modded GTAs. A modder has just pushed the absurd to its breaking point: making Vice City fully playable insideGTA 3 - which is itself insideSan Andreas. Kotaku shared the demo this weekend and, frankly, it blew us away.

How is this possible

Technically, it's a tour de force with a simple principle: the scene of the "container" game (San Andreas) displays a screen that is actually a real-time render of the "contained" game (GTA 3), which in turn displays a screen where Vice City runs. Each layer is a real game, controllable, not just a pre-rendered video. The comments all refer to Inception - hard to argue with that.

It's the same modder who, a few months ago, made GTA 3 playable as a texture in San Andreas - and who "takes the logic to the extreme," as Kotaku puts it.

Why it matters

Beyond the funny gag, it's a demonstration of what the modding scene does best: hijacking engines, experimenting with layers of abstraction that Rockstar never envisioned. The GTA 3D trilogy (2001-2004, RenderWare engine) runs today on CPUs capable of handling three instances without breaking a sweat - which makes this kind of tinkering possible.

Rating: 9/10 for technical performance + pure absurd pleasure. Key takeaway - the true legacy of the old GTAs isn't Rockstar Definitive Edition, it's the modding scene that keeps them alive. For whom - PS2 era nostalgics, game engine curious, all geek tinkering fans.