The History of FiveM: From Mod Project to Official Platform

Introduction: The Mod That Became a Platform

FiveM began as a weekend hack by a handful of modders who were frustrated that GTA V had no official multiplayer modding support. A decade later, it's a platform with millions of active players, thousands of servers, and an official blessing from the publisher that once threatened it with legal action. The journey from scrappy fan project to industry-recognized platform is one of the most remarkable stories in gaming.

This is the complete history of FiveM — from the first multiplayer experiments in 2014 through the Rockstar acquisition, the framework wars, and the current state heading into 2026. If you've ever wondered why your server runs ESX or QBCore, or why FiveM exists at all, this is the story behind it.

Timeline: Key Dates in FiveM History

Year	Event
2013	GTA V released on PS3/Xbox 360
2014	GTA V PC release; early multiplayer mod experiments begin
2015	FiveReborn launches — the first serious GTA V multiplayer mod
2016	FiveReborn rebrands to FiveM; Cfx.re team forms
2017	Take-Two issues DMCA takedowns; FiveM persists and grows
2018	ESX framework gains dominance; RP server boom begins
2019	RedM launches (Red Dead Redemption 2 equivalent)
2020	COVID lockdowns drive massive FiveM player surge; QBCore emerges
2021	Rockstar/Take-Two officially recognizes FiveM; DMCA pressure eases
2022	Take-Two Interactive acquires Cfx.re (FiveM/RedM)
2023	FiveM integrated into Rockstar Games Launcher; QBOX forks QBCore
2024	FiveM reaches 10M+ monthly players; GTA 6 announcement accelerates community investment
2025	Platform matures; Cfx.re publishes official modding APIs; GTA 6 PC release timeline discussed
2026	FiveM ecosystem continues expanding as GTA 6 console sales accelerate anticipation

2014-2015: The Origins — FiveReborn

GTA V launched on PC in April 2015, but the story starts earlier. Modders had been working with the console versions since 2013, and the PC release opened the door to serious multiplayer experimentation. GTA Online existed, but it was a closed, Rockstar-controlled environment. There was no way to run custom game modes, modify server behavior, or build the kind of persistent roleplay worlds the community wanted.

The first serious attempt was FiveReborn, developed primarily by a small team including the developer who would become the core of what is now Cfx.re. FiveReborn was a custom multiplayer client that allowed players to connect to community-hosted servers running modified GTA V. It was rough — synchronization was inconsistent, the server infrastructure was primitive, and the tooling was limited — but it worked well enough to prove the concept.

FiveReborn attracted modders, developers, and server operators who saw the potential. Small roleplay communities formed, borrowing heavily from SAMP (San Andreas Multiplayer) and MTA (Multi Theft Auto) traditions from GTA San Andreas. The DNA of those earlier platforms — job systems, police mechanics, economy scripts — would eventually become the template for FiveM's entire framework ecosystem.

2016: The Rebrand and the Foundation

FiveReborn rebranded to FiveM in 2016, and the team reorganized under the Cfx.re collective. The rebrand wasn't just cosmetic — it represented a more serious commitment to the platform. The networking layer was rewritten, the scripting runtime was overhauled, and the development model shifted toward something more sustainable.

Cfx.re introduced Citizen, the modding framework that underlies FiveM to this day. Citizen provides the bridge between GTA V's native code and the Lua/JavaScript/C# scripts that server operators write. This architecture decision was critical: it meant server operators could write high-level scripts without touching native game code, lowering the barrier to entry dramatically.

The server browser launched during this period, giving players a structured way to discover servers. Within months, dozens of communities had established themselves, each experimenting with different game modes and mechanics.

2017: The Take-Two Legal Threat

FiveM's growth attracted attention — including from Take-Two Interactive's legal team. In mid-2017, Take-Two issued cease-and-desist letters and DMCA takedowns targeting FiveM and several prominent modding tools. The gaming press covered it extensively. Many assumed FiveM would comply and shut down.

It didn't.

Cfx.re's legal position was carefully considered: FiveM doesn't distribute GTA V files, doesn't circumvent copy protection, and requires players to own a legitimate copy of GTA V to connect. The servers run on the players' own hardware. The legal argument held, and Take-Two's enforcement actions stalled without forcing FiveM offline.

The legal battle had an unexpected effect: it galvanized the community. Developers who had been casually building scripts became serious contributors. Server operators who might have moved on dug in deeper. The FiveM community emerged from 2017 more cohesive and committed than it entered it.

2018-2019: The ESX Era and the RP Explosion

By 2018, ESX (Extended Script)framework had become the de facto standard for FiveM roleplay servers. ESX provided what FiveM's core runtime didn't: a complete roleplay foundation — job system, economy, inventory, character management, housing. Server operators could take ESX and build a functional RP server in days rather than months.

ESX's dominance wasn't inevitable. Several competing frameworks existed, but ESX had critical mass first. The community wrote scripts for ESX because that's where the players were, and players came to ESX servers because that's where the scripts were. Network effects locked in ESX's position throughout 2018 and 2019.

This period saw the first serious FiveM Twitch streaming. NoPixel, a whitelist-only RP server that attracted high-profile streamers, brought FiveM to audiences who had never heard of it. The server's production quality — voice acting, custom scripts, organized factions — showed what was possible. NoPixel became FiveM's flagship demonstration to the outside world.

In 2019, Cfx.re launched RedM, the equivalent platform for Red Dead Redemption 2. While RedM never matched FiveM's scale, it proved Cfx.re could extend the technology and demonstrated the organization's ambition beyond a single game.

2020: COVID, The Player Surge, and QBCore's Rise

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 drove a historic surge in FiveM's player count. With people at home and social interaction constrained, the rich social environments of FiveM RP servers became an outlet for millions of players. Server operators struggled to keep up with demand. Waitlists for whitelist servers stretched to thousands of applicants.

The surge also accelerated development. More developers meant more scripts, more competition, more innovation. ESX's accumulated technical debt became more visible under load — it had been written quickly, and some architectural choices didn't scale well to the player counts 2020 demanded.

Into this gap stepped QBCore. Released in 2020, QBCore was a clean-room rewrite of FiveM roleplay foundations with modern Lua practices, better performance, and a more modular architecture. It wasn't just ESX with fixes — it was a different philosophy about how a framework should work.

QBCore's adoption curve was steep. ESX's ecosystem advantage was enormous, but QBCore attracted the developers frustrated with ESX's limitations. New servers started on QBCore. The framework war that would define the next several years of FiveM development had begun.

2021-2022: Rockstar Recognition and the Acquisition

The most significant moment in FiveM's history arrived in 2021: Rockstar Games officially recognized FiveM in their GTA Online Creator Program and signaled they would not actively pursue enforcement against the platform. After years of operating in a legal gray zone, FiveM had something approaching legitimacy.

The formal terms of recognition were never fully publicized, but the practical effect was immediate. Take-Two's DMCA campaigns against FiveM-related content ended. Server operators who had been cautious about investing in infrastructure became willing to spend. The ecosystem accelerated.

Then came the acquisition. In September 2022, Take-Two Interactive acquired Cfx.re — the company behind both FiveM and RedM. The announcement was unexpected and the community reaction was mixed. Some feared corporate ownership would mean restrictions, paid access, or creative control over server content. Others saw it as protection: with Take-Two as the owner, the legal uncertainty was definitively resolved.

The Cfx.re team negotiated terms that preserved significant independence. The platform remained free. Server operators kept their autonomy. The acquisition provided resources without (immediately) imposing constraints. Whether that balance holds long-term remains an open question.

2023: Rockstar Launcher Integration and the QBOX Fork

In 2023, FiveM was integrated directly into the Rockstar Games Launcher, accessible alongside GTA Online as a first-class option. For the first time, a player could discover FiveM through official Rockstar channels without searching for a third-party client. This brought a wave of new players who had never encountered FiveM through organic community discovery.

The integration also brought new infrastructure: the Cfx.re community forums became the official hub for server listings and modding resources, tightly integrated with the launcher's server browser.

On the framework side, QBOX emerged in 2023 as a maintained fork of QBCore. By 2023, QBCore had accumulated its own technical debt and suffered from fragmented maintenance. QBOX was created by a subset of the QBCore contributor community to address these issues with cleaner code, better documentation, and a more structured governance model. The ESX vs. QBCore vs. QBOX debate — covered in depth in our framework comparison — became the defining conversation of FiveM development discourse.

2024-2025: Scale and Maturity

FiveM crossed 10 million monthly active players in 2024. The scale brought infrastructure demands that only Take-Two's backing could address. Cfx.re rolled out improved server infrastructure, better anti-cheat tooling, and more robust APIs for server operators.

The ecosystem matured in parallel. The wild-west era of FiveM scripting — where copy-pasted code, security vulnerabilities, and broken dependencies were commonplace — gave way to more professional standards. ox_lib, a shared utility library, became a near-universal dependency that standardized UI components, cache management, and callback patterns. The ox_lib ecosystem did more to improve FiveM code quality than any other single development.

The announcement of GTA VI for consoles accelerated community investment. Developers began building frameworks and infrastructure with GTA 6 in mind, anticipating a future where FiveM-equivalent technology could run on a new engine. Cfx.re confirmed active work on next-generation platform support, though no timeline was publicized.

The Framework Evolution: ESX to QBCore to QBOX

Understanding FiveM's history requires understanding the framework wars, because frameworks are the invisible infrastructure every server depends on.

ESX (Extended Script Framework)

ESX emerged around 2017-2018 from French FiveM communities. It provided the first complete, community-maintained roleplay foundation. ESX's strength was ecosystem: by 2019, almost every script was written for ESX. Its weakness was architecture — built incrementally without a unified design vision, it accumulated inconsistencies and performance issues that became harder to fix without breaking the ecosystem.

QBCore

QBCore (2020) was a response to ESX's limitations, not a compatible replacement. It chose clean design over backward compatibility. The framework split the community: experienced developers appreciated QBCore's architecture; established servers couldn't afford to migrate their entire script library. Both frameworks coexisted, with ESX maintaining legacy dominance and QBCore capturing new servers.

QBOX

QBOX (2023) forked QBCore to address governance and maintenance issues. It's not a third paradigm — it's QBCore with better upkeep. Most QBCore scripts work on QBOX with minimal changes, and QBOX is the recommended starting point for new servers that would have previously chosen QBCore.

In 2026, all three frameworks have active deployments. ESX maintains a plurality of existing servers. QBCore/QBOX hosts most new development. The frameworks are covered in detail in our technical framework comparison.

The Current State: FiveM in 2026

FiveM in 2026 is simultaneously more accessible and more complex than ever. A new server operator can set up a basic QBCore server in an afternoon using community templates. Building a server that competes with established communities takes months of custom development and a team of dedicated scripters.

The platform's key characteristics today:

• Scale: Thousands of active servers, 10M+ monthly players, servers ranging from 4-player private communities to 1,000-player public servers
• Monetization: A mature economy of paid scripts via Tebex/BuiltByBit, with developers earning significant income from FiveM development
• Infrastructure: Cfx.re-hosted artifact builds, official server listing, integrated anti-cheat, and asset streaming
• Development tooling: VS Code extensions, TypeScript support for scripting, hot-reload development environments
• Community: Active forums at cfx.re, Discord communities for every major framework, and a thriving content creator scene on Twitch/YouTube

The Future: GTA 6 and What Comes Next

The most anticipated question in FiveM's community is GTA 6 compatibility. Cfx.re has acknowledged working on next-generation platform support, and Take-Two's ownership means the organizations are aligned (or at least not adversarial) on this goal.

The technical challenge is substantial. FiveM's entire native binding layer is specific to GTA V's engine. A GTA 6 equivalent would require rebuilding most of the platform's low-level infrastructure. Cfx.re has the expertise and now has the resources, but timelines remain unclear.

What's certain: the community that spent a decade building an ecosystem around GTA V will do the same for GTA 6, regardless of the timeline. The frameworks, the scripting patterns, the server operator culture — all of it will migrate. The question is how much work that migration requires and how much of FiveM's current ecosystem survives the transition intact.

If you're looking to install FiveM and start exploring servers, our FiveM installation guide covers the full process. For a broader look at GTA roleplay culture and what makes FiveM servers tick, see our GTA RP complete guide. Server operators building their own communities can browse our curated FiveM scripts collection for premium resources, and our complete scripts guide covers the full ecosystem.

Compare FiveM's approach to multiplayer against the official alternative in our FiveM vs GTA Online breakdown.

FAQ

Is FiveM legal to use?

Yes. FiveM requires a legitimate purchased copy of GTA V and does not modify the game's files on disk. Take-Two acquired Cfx.re in 2022, resolving the legal ambiguity that existed in FiveM's early years. Players and server operators operate within the terms Cfx.re has established with Take-Two.

Did Rockstar ever try to shut down FiveM?

Take-Two (Rockstar's parent company) issued DMCA takedowns and cease-and-desist letters in 2017. FiveM survived because it did not distribute copyrighted game files and required users to own legitimate copies. Take-Two's enforcement attempts stalled, and the relationship eventually reversed into the 2022 acquisition.

What happened to FiveReborn?

FiveReborn was the original name for the project that became FiveM. It was rebranded to FiveM in 2016 as the platform matured and the Cfx.re team formalized. FiveReborn as a separate entity no longer exists — FiveM is its direct successor.

Will FiveM work with GTA 6?

Cfx.re has confirmed they are working on next-generation platform support. The specifics of GTA 6 compatibility have not been publicly announced, but Take-Two's ownership of Cfx.re makes cooperation likely. The community expects a FiveM equivalent for GTA 6, though the timeline depends on GTA 6's PC release schedule and the technical work required to adapt the platform to a new engine.