Contents
- Yes, There's a Pokémon Go Mod for GTA 5 — Here's What It Is
- What LudicrousBeach's Mod Actually Adds to Los Santos
- How Catching, Evolving, and Hatching Actually Work
- What This Mod Doesn't Do — the Part Other Write-Ups Skip
- Who Made It and Where to Get It
- Installing It: What's Confirmed and What Isn't
- Why This Kind of Mod Exists — and Nintendo's Recent Track Record
- Frequently Asked Questions
What we checked ourselves
The figures below were not taken from other articles. We checked them ourselves on 2026-09-14 21:44 KST.
Of the 8 distribution sites and articles covering this mod, only 6 returned a normal response today (HTTP 200); 2 returned 401/403 errors.
Method: for each URL, we directly checked the final HTTP status code after following redirects, using `curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" -L –max-time 15 -A "Mozilla/5.0 …"`. This was a single-point measurement run from Korea (Seoul) at 2026-09-14 21:44 KST.
| URL | Purpose | HTTP status |
|---|---|---|
| gta5-mods.com/scripts/pokemon-go-gta-edition | Original mod page | 200 |
| gta5-mods.com/users/LudicrousBeach | Creator profile | 200 |
| dlcfun.com/en/gta-5/pokemon-go-mod | Mirror/redistribution site | 200 |
| zagruzkamods.com/6337-… | Mirror site | 401 |
| gta-5-pokemon-mod.en.download.it | Mirror site | 403 |
| fandomspot.com (Pokémon mod list article) | Coverage article | 200 |
| dexerto.com (mod coverage article) | Coverage article | 200 |
| steamcommunity.com (video share) | Related video | 200 |
Caveat: the sample is small, at 8 sites, and only covers links that appeared near the top of search results. The 401/403 results may differ in other environments depending on region, User-Agent, and bot-blocking policies. The measurement was a single run from a single device and single location (Korea).
The original mod page is still live, but the last update was 3,680 days (about 10.1 years) ago and the last comment was 1,897 days (about 5.2 years) ago — effectively abandoned.
Method: we opened the mod page on gta5-mods.com (https://www.gta5-mods.com/scripts/pokemon-go-gta-edition) directly to check the upload date, last-modified date, and the most recent date in the comment list, then calculated the elapsed time against today’s date (2026-09-14) ourselves using python3’s `date` subtraction.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Version | 1.01 |
| First uploaded | 2016-08-10 |
| Last updated | 2016-08-17 |
| Time since last update | 3,680 days (≈10.1 years) |
| Most recent comment (of 203) | 2021-07-05 |
| Time since most recent comment | 1,897 days (≈5.2 years) |
| Total downloads | 84,645 |
| Rating | 4.6/5 (62 votes) |
Caveat: the download count and rating are quoted as-is from gta5-mods.com’s own tally and cannot be independently re-verified. The ‘abandoned’ assessment is based solely on comment and update activity, and may not reflect actual user numbers.
Calling this mod’s ‘download’ button the usual way (a direct link call) triggers a 302 redirect back to the mod page instead of the actual file — the download interstitial page only opens if the Referer header is spoofed to look like the mod page.
Method: we extracted the download button’s href (`/scripts/pokemon-go-gta-edition/download/23142`) from the actual page HTML, then ① called it with `curl -sI -L` without a Referer, and ② called it again with the Referer set to the mod page (`-e`), and compared the final status and returned HTML of the two responses.
| Call method | Result |
|---|---|
| Direct call, no Referer | 302 → redirected back to the mod page (no file) |
| Referer set to the mod page | 200, returns the "Downloading Pokémon Go GTA Edition" interstitial page (the actual .zip link appears to be generated by in-page JS after a countdown, and could not be confirmed via curl) |
Caveat: we were unable to ultimately download and verify the actual zip file itself (due to the JS countdown/ad logic). In other words, we only confirmed that ‘the button works,’ not that ‘the file download completes successfully.’
Yes, There’s a Pokémon Go Mod for GTA 5 — Here’s What It Is
You searched this because a PC Gamer piece called “Don’t tell Nintendo, but I turned GTA 5 into Pokémon Go using a mod” put the idea back in circulation. The mod itself isn’t new. It’s called Pokémon Go GTA Edition, built by a modder going by LudicrousBeach, and it runs on top of GTA V’s offline story mode — not GTA Online, not a standalone game. It layers Pokéstops, catchable Pokémon, and an XP system over Los Santos and Blaine County.
That’s the short answer. Worth saying upfront: coverage of this mod treats it as a novelty and stops there — a reasonable take, except it skips the part that actually matters if you’re deciding whether to install it: what’s missing. More on that below.
What LudicrousBeach’s Mod Actually Adds to Los Santos
The feature list is longer than a single screenshot can show, so here’s what’s confirmed on the mod’s own page and in outlet write-ups:
- Over 85 Pokéstops spread across Los Santos and Blaine County
- Wild Pokémon spawn in their first-evolution form only — no fully-evolved Pokémon roaming free
- 11 new Pokémon species added, each with its own Pokédex entry
- Legendary Pokémon appear at dedicated hotspots that refresh every 15 minutes
- Poké Balls are reskinned baseball objects — you throw one near a Pokémon to catch it
- A three-stage evolution system tied to catch counts
- An egg system with three separate hatch distances
- A leveling and XP system built to mirror Niantic’s original Pokémon Go structure
- A custom UI overlay layered over the game
PC Gamer’s own preview — the piece that put this mod back in the news — names three of those 11 species directly: Geodude, Charmander, and Pikachu, scattered through the streets. That detail comes from the outlet’s own framing, so treat the species list as illustrative rather than exhaustive.
How Catching, Evolving, and Hatching Actually Work
This is the part search results tend to gloss over in favor of “it’s Pokémon Go in GTA.” The mechanics are specific.
Throwing works like this: Poké Balls are baseball props with a Pokémon skin swap, and you throw one near a spawned Pokémon to catch it. There’s no aiming minigame layered on top.
Evolution runs on catch counts, not XP or candy. Catch 10 of the same species and it evolves to stage two. Catch 10 more of that stage-two form and it evolves again, to stage three. That’s the full chain — two evolution jumps, ten catches each.
Eggs come from Pokéstops, and they hatch at one of three distances: 2km, 5km, or 10km, the same tiering Niantic’s game uses. Walking or driving distance in-game presumably counts toward that, though the exact tracking mechanic isn’t spelled out.
Layered over all of that is a leveling and XP system built to track the structure of the original Pokémon Go’s leveling curve.
What This Mod Doesn’t Do — the Part Other Write-Ups Skip
Here’s the gap. Coverage of this mod leans hard on the novelty of the concept and rarely mentions its limits. Four of them matter if you’re expecting something close to the real app:
- No gyms. There’s nothing to claim, hold, or defend.
- No CP stat. Combat power, as a number, doesn’t exist in this mod.
- Pokémon models have no eyes and no animation — they’re static assets, not fully rigged.
- The creator labels the whole project “work in progress” on the mod page itself.
Put plainly: there’s no battling. Nothing about the mod points to a fight system, and the missing gyms and CP stat make that case on their own. This is a catch-and-collect mod, not a combat one. If that’s not what you came here for, this isn’t your mod.
I’d put it this way: the concept oversold itself in the headlines, and the actual build undersells itself on its own page. Neither framing is quite honest about what you’re getting — a walking simulator with a Pokédex bolted on, built by one person in their spare time.
Who Made It and Where to Get It
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Creator | LudicrousBeach |
| Current version | 1.01 |
| First uploaded | August 10, 2016 |
| Last updated | August 17, 2016 |
| Downloads (as of last check) | 84,599 |
| Official host | GTA5-Mods.com, under the Scripts category |
That download count is a snapshot from GTA5-Mods.com, not a live counter, so treat it as a rough order of magnitude rather than today’s exact figure.
Mirror sites — Softonic, dlcfun.com, and gtacache.com among them — also turn up in search results; the mod has been re-hosted elsewhere over the years. None of them have been checked for safety or file integrity. The only source worth using is the original GTA5-Mods.com page.
Installing It: What’s Confirmed and What Isn’t
There’s no outlet-verified, step-by-step install walkthrough for this mod — what follows is what’s commonly reported around it, not a process anyone has confirmed line by line. One thing is clear from the mod page itself: a “Read Me.txt” file ships inside the download with install instructions, and that file — not this list — is the actual authority on installing it. Beyond that, the specifics get murkier.
- Widely reported requirement: Script Hook V and Script Hook V .NET, the modding frameworks most GTA V script mods depend on — not stated directly on the mod’s page, so call it likely rather than certain.
- Reported step: move the mod’s
.asifile into the GTA V root folder. - Some users report needing to run OpenIV, switch on Edit Mode, and enable the install option before the mod would load correctly.
- The bundled Read Me.txt is described as the authoritative install guide by the mod page itself.
If you’re actually installing this, start with the Read Me.txt in the download rather than a third-party guide — the steps above are close to what’s commonly reported, but I haven’t opened the file myself to check.
Why This Kind of Mod Exists — and Nintendo’s Recent Track Record
Fan projects like this exist because nobody’s shipped an official GTA-Pokémon crossover, and modders fill that gap themselves — for free, and without much legal cover. This isn’t the only attempt — a separate, unrelated GTA V mod surfaced in 2019 that let players transform into Charmander, Squirtle, and other Pokémon using the game’s Halloween transformation feature. Coverage of that mod at the time predicted Nintendo “don’t take kindly to people using their copyrighted IP” and that it wouldn’t last — whether it actually got taken down, nobody said.
As for Pokémon Go GTA Edition specifically: there’s no evidence Nintendo has taken any direct action against it — no DMCA notice, no takedown, nothing on record.
For context on takedown risk: Nintendo pulled more than 400 Switch emulator repositories from GitHub in a single sweep in August 2026, citing DMCA grounds, echoing the 2024 shutdown of Yuzu after a lawsuit. That’s a different fight — emulation, not fan-made game mods — but it shows Nintendo is currently enforcing hard.
None of that is the same fight as a single-player Pokémon mod for GTA V. Emulation and fan-made game mods sit in different corners of copyright law, and Nintendo’s enforcement pattern so far has targeted the former, not projects like this one. Still, I wouldn’t assume a decade-old mod using Nintendo’s characters is permanently safe just because nobody’s come for it yet — Nintendo’s appetite for enforcement in 2026 looks sharper than it’s been in years, and character IP has historically drawn more attention than emulation tools, not less.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you battle other trainers in the GTA 5 Pokémon Go mod? No. There are no gyms and no CP stat in this mod, and nothing in its documentation describes a battle system. It’s built around catching, evolving, and leveling — not combat.
Is the mod still up as of 2026? The official GTA5-Mods.com page was live and accessible as of the most recent check on August 24, 2026, still showing version 1.01 and the same download count. Mirror sites exist too, but nobody’s checked how reliable they are.
Where should you download it from? GTA5-Mods.com, and nowhere else if you can help it. The same Softonic, dlcfun.com, and gtacache.com mirrors turn up in search results, but none of them have been checked for safety, and the mod’s creator only maintains the one official listing.
Nobody’s confirmed how actively LudicrousBeach still maintains this mod almost a decade after the last update, and nobody knows whether Nintendo’s sharper 2026 enforcement posture will eventually reach character-IP mods like this one instead of just emulation tools. Both are worth checking back on if this mod matters to you.
Sources
- Nintendo reportedly takes down 400+ Switch emulators in massive GitHub purge
- Pokémon Go GTA Edition (mod page)
- GTA 5 Gets Pokemon GO Mod
- Play Pokémon Go In GTA V, Literally (GTA BOOM)
- Pokemon invade Los Santos in amazing GTA 5 mod (Dexerto)
- Don't tell Nintendo, but I turned GTA 5 into Pokémon Go using a mod (PC Gamer)
Image credits
- Photo by [Anton](https://www.pexels.com/@anton-8100) on Pexels