Fans of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto games were excited when the company announced that remasters of three of its most popular games would be coming out this year.
However Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition has proven to be a major disappointment, with the three games that make up the remastered trilogy (GTA III, GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas) being riddled with bugs, glitches and other issues. These include poor-looking character models and bad weather blocking vision to an extent that made it impossible to play the game properly while it was raining in GTA: San Andreas…
In short, Rockstar’s remastered GTA trilogy has proven to be a mess, something that’s reflected in Metacritic’s user score, which stands at less than 1 (0.7 is the highest for the PS4 version of the game), something unheard of for a major release like this one. The critic review aggregate score doesn’t go higher than 57, so clearly this is not a stellar release no matter how you look at it.
Also, and adding insult to injury, Rockstar had removed the classic, non-remastered versions of the games from sale, further infuriating fans who thought that the originals were superior, especially when upgrading these with user-created mods, which Rockstar had also been taking down, angering the GTA community even more.
However, it seems Rockstar is now trying to make amends, and has posted a note on its website apologizing for the botched launch of the remastered GTA trilogy, and stating that it plans to release updates to rectify the situation and improve the quality of the remastered games.
“The updated versions of these classic games did not launch in a state that meets our own standards of quality, or the standards our fans have come to expect”, said Rockstar on its website, adding that it plans to address the technical issues via updates. “With each planned update, the games will reach the level of quality that they deserve to be”, states Rockstar.
And this is definitely good news for anyone who bought Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition and was put off by the issues plaguing the games which form part of the trilogy (which as stated earlier are GTA III, GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas).
Also, in a gesture of goodwill that will surely please many GTA fans, Rockstar also announced that the classic, non-remastered version of the games will be back on sale, and will be free to those who bought the games through June 30.
“Additionally, everyone who has purchased Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition for PC from the Rockstar Store through June 30, 2022, will receive these classic versions in their Rockstar Games Launcher library at no additional cost”, said Rockstar on its website.
But while this is certainly a step in the right direction, and Rockstar’s words about releasing updates until the games are at the level of quality that’s expected from them will be soothing to many too, this remaster of three classic GTA games should have never launched in the state it did.
This whole affair has definitely hurt Rockstar’s reputation, even if the remasters were the work of a third party and not Rockstar itself. The only hope now is that Rockstar’s updates solve all the technical issues so that anyone purchasing the GTA remastered trilogy in the future has a better experience playing through these classic GTA games than those at launch did.
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