A compressed, drivable version of Shenzhen Bay, Nanshan, Futian and Luohu built from OpenStreetMap roads and Blender landmarks. Drive a sports car, step out and walk, take a tank or a seaplane, and take delivery jobs for cash toward a room fund.
ShenChengJi (深城纪 · 一路向海, roughly "Journey to the sea") is a drivable, walkable, flyable model of Shenzhen in the browser. It covers parts of Shenzhen Bay, Nanshan, Futian and Luohu: real road layouts from OpenStreetMap, real terrain heights from Copernicus data, and Blender-built versions of landmarks such as Ping An Finance Centre, KK100, Diwang, the Tencent Seafront Towers, the Civic Center and Lianhua Hill. Instead of a scripted story you get a city to move through in a sports car, on foot, in a tank, from a drone and in a seaplane, plus a small delivery-job economy.
It is an open-source project by GitHub user linranff, and the GitHub repository is the source for everything here. It is an independent, unofficial project: the repository name and description say "GTA" as shorthand for the genre of open-world driving in a real city, but the game is called 深城纪, and it is not affiliated with or endorsed by Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive. We found no Grand Theft Auto logos, music or models in it; the sound is synthesised in the browser and the project's own planning notes say the official name should not use the GTA trademark.
How to play 深城纪 · ShenChengJi
- The game opens on a loading screen with a stage counter (17 stages), then drops you in a parked red sports car on Binhai Boulevard at sunset. The interface is in Simplified Chinese. Click the game once so it takes keyboard input, then hold W to drive: A and D steer, Space is the handbrake, C changes the camera.
- Get out with F. The car has to be nearly stopped, and to get back in you must stand beside a door, not just next to the bonnet; the game says "走回车辆旁，按 F 上车" (walk back to the car) if you are not close enough. On foot, WASD walks, Shift runs, drag to look, the wheel zooms and C flips between first and third person. E talks to people or hands over a delivery at a marker.
- Press T while driving to swap the car for a tank (Q and E turn the turret, Space fires; it is much slower than the car) and T again to swap back. Press G for a drone view you fly with WASD and Q/E and orbit by dragging; from there B swaps to a seaplane with assisted flight and a small dashboard for speed, height, heading and throttle. Space fires missiles, Shift speeds up, X slows down, and G or F returns you to the ground.
- L cycles the lighting through sunset, night ("月下深圳") and a clear afternoon after rain ("雨后晴日"). Y switches rain on and off. M opens the city map, and J opens the journal, which is where the jobs live.
- The job we tried was the first one on offer, 热饭趁热送 (deliver hot meals): take the job, walk up to the pickup marker at the neighbourhood station and press E, then drive about 0.9 km to a seaside hand-over point against a countdown of about two minutes. We arrived late and the game paid ¥175 against a ¥190 base wage, with a quality score of 42 out of 100 and 100 XP; lateness docks quality and bonus rather than failing the job. The journal shows three roles (day worker, office worker, city worker), a target of ¥1,800 for "your own room", upgrades that start at ¥420 and later contracts that unlock at higher levels. Progress is saved in your browser only, and a contract in progress is lost on refresh.
Controls: Car: WASD or arrows, Space handbrake, C camera. F gets out of a stopped car and back in beside its door; walking is WASD, Shift to run, drag to look, E to talk or hand over. T swaps between car and tank (Q/E turret, Space fires). G opens a drone view, B swaps drone and aircraft (W/S pitch, A/D roll, Shift speed up, X slow, Space missiles). L cycles sunset, night and day, Y toggles rain, M the map, J the job journal, ? the key list.
Why it's worth your time
Who built it: the README says GPT-6 Astra broke down the work and did the Blender scripting, asset processing and material work, that Fable 5.1 (a Claude model) did the code changes and performance fixes, and that the author chose the setting and mechanics, supplied references and tested. It adds that the model names follow "the project author's confirmed usage records"; we did not audit that. One documented Fable 5.1 fix stopped shaders recompiling whenever you switched vehicles.
The map data is the strongest part. The road layout comes from OpenStreetMap, so the bay road really does run where the bay road runs, and the README warns that heights and facades are artistic, not a survey. Copernicus 30-metre terrain is used for Lianhua Hill and the far shore.
What it costs you: about 120 MB is transferred before you can drive (roughly 220 MB unpacked, with a few more files fetched later as you fly, walk or change the lighting), and the first load took about a minute here. Once loaded, it ran at about 30 frames a second at 1280 by 720 on Medium quality on a shared Mac; the README reports about 54 to 55 in the author's own tests. It needs WebGL 2 and is built for a desktop browser with a keyboard. On a phone it loads and fits the screen, but there are no touch controls: tapping did not move the car.
Data and licensing, in the author's own words and our reading of them. The code is MIT-licensed, and the README says that licence covers code only (the source, scripts, tests and build files). Everything else keeps its own terms: road and building data is © OpenStreetMap contributors under the ODbL, the terrain carries the Copernicus WorldDEM-30 credit, the hero car body is Khronos's CarConcept sample (CC BY 4.0, and it carries a four-ring badge that looks like Audi's), and trees, skies and benches come from Poly Haven and OpenGameArt under CC0.
One thing to know before you rely on it. The character you walk around as is Kuki Shinobu, and two cafe staff use Yelan, both characters from miHoYo's Genshin Impact, in MMD (MikuMikuDance) adaptations by 观海 (Guanhai) of models miHoYo supplied; the game credits both on screen. The repository's own notes say those packages' terms forbid redistribution and commercial use, that attribution does not change that, and that the project has no permission beyond them. The project's own launch notes recommend replacing these characters before a public release. The other cafe staff and a rider figure are Tripo-generated models that the repository describes as user-supplied, with no licence verified. That is why this page links to the game instead of hosting a copy: we do not redistribute files their own notes say may not be redistributed, and the buildings file is also larger than this site can serve.
The README's play link, on workers.dev, was serving an older build on the day we tested: its page leaves the canvas tag unclosed, which hides the whole interface (speedometer, map, journal, prompts), so you can drive but see no controls. The repository's homepage link, on Vercel, served the newer build with the full interface, so that is the address we link. The GitHub project also contains an Unreal Engine 5 port under ue5/; the README calls it an experiment, and it is not the game you play in the browser.
We found this through Tripo's GPT-6 Astra prompt collection.
How it was made and where it lives
Hosted on Vercel. The author publishes as linranff. Original: https://gtasz.vercel.app/. We link to the original instead of hosting a copy. The playable build ships MMD conversions of two Genshin Impact characters whose package terms, per the project's own notes, forbid redistribution, and a buildings file of about 50 MB that this site cannot serve. So the source is the place to play it.
If you like 深城纪 · ShenChengJi, try these
For another big 3D place you steer through, try WaveRunner: Cala Coast, a timed jet-ski lap, or Mini Moto for a lighter ride. If you would like a real city to look at rather than drive, Seoul 3D Atlas is the nearest neighbour.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this Grand Theft Auto?
- No. The repository's name and description use "GTA" to describe the idea of an open-world city you can drive around, but the game is called 深城纪, and it is unofficial and not affiliated with Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive. We did not find any of their logos, music or models in it. The tank and the aircraft do fire shells and missiles with impacts and explosions; the README says there is no building-destruction system.
- Is there a mission or an ending?
- There are delivery jobs with a timer, cash, XP and a room-fund goal of ¥1,800, plus a short story card, but no ending. We completed one delivery and the game paid out even though we were late.
- Do I need to read Chinese?
- The interface is in Simplified Chinese, but the key hints are shown as key caps and ? lists them all. The jobs and story text are Chinese only.
- Does it work on a phone?
- It loads and fits a phone screen, but there are no touch controls and the hint bar lists keyboard keys, so you cannot drive. Use a desktop browser.
- Does it need a server or an account?
- No. The game only reads its own files, keeps your money and progress in your browser, and has no leaderboard or sign-in. The project's Cloudflare folder is just a way of serving the big files.
- Why can I not play it on this site, like the others?
- Every other game here runs from a copy we host. This one ships character models that the project's own notes say may not be redistributed, plus a buildings file of about 50 MB that this site cannot serve, so we link to the original and you play it there. It is free and needs no account.
- Is it open source?
- The code is MIT-licensed, on GitHub under linranff/GTA_SZ. The game's data, models and character files are not covered by that licence and carry their own terms, including the ones described above.
