GTA Trilogy Archives – GTANet.com https://gtanet.com/category/grand-theft-auto/gta-trilogy/ Now with added vitamins! Mon, 05 Jun 2023 20:48:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.5 https://gtanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/cropped-gtaforums-logo-fixed_1024-32x32.png GTA Trilogy Archives – GTANet.com https://gtanet.com/category/grand-theft-auto/gta-trilogy/ 32 32 Top 5 things we’d like to see before GTA 6 https://gtanet.com/top-5-things-wed-like-to-see-before-gta-6/ Fri, 08 Apr 2022 22:27:43 +0000 https://gtanet.com/?p=12317 I know I know, you’re probably thinking “well we want GTA 6 now!”, and of course we do, but for that we need to keep practicing our patience for a little while longer yet. It’s in the slow cooker rather than the frying pan, and that has had me thinking about all the ‘loose ends’ that I’d like to see

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I know I know, you’re probably thinking “well we want GTA 6 now!”, and of course we do, but for that we need to keep practicing our patience for a little while longer yet. It’s in the slow cooker rather than the frying pan, and that has had me thinking about all the ‘loose ends’ that I’d like to see tied up before the dish eventually gets served.

Now by ‘loose ends’, I don’t mean a few trivial changes, I’m more so thinking of things that the community has been discussing for some time; significant updates that could really improve the landscape for Rockstar with features that players have been regularly asking for, often vehemently, with “when?” rather than “if”. As such, this wishlist contains some of the most hoped for or ideal announcements, and to me, it’s made up of the kind of things that you’d want to ‘get out of the way’ sooner rather than later; things that would truly close the chapter on two games that first arrived on older generations and will soon make way for what is likely to be one of the biggest launches ever with GTA VI.

Of course, we must always take a second to acknowledge the time and resources these kinds of updates can take. Anything we as players ask for is never going to be easy to just throw together and implement, nor are they decided on at a whim. Regardless, I’ve only included updates here that are as realistic or as logical as possible so it doesn’t sound like we’re asking for the world. To some, they might not be important, and to others they might be the bare minimum we should be expecting, but this article isn’t going to be the first or the last place you’ll read suggestions along this vein any time soon; they’re all pretty obvious, to be honest, but I just wanted to use my little corner of GTANet to truly solidify some hopes for the future and the reasons behind them.

**this article was drafted before the announcement of GTA+ or the Max Payne remakes from Remedy, so you’ll find no reference to anything related to them here as I didn’t have such things on my mind at the time!**

In random order:

Fidelity & Performance modes for RDR2

Something that the re-release of GTAV has brought to centre stage is the potential of “unlocking” RDR2 for new-generation consoles as well. An update that allows the game to take full advantage of the latest hardware and SSDs could be a gamechanger for an open world that already pushes older consoles to their limits. Preferably this would be in the form of a (free?) patch that allows players to download a new-gen-only version, much like Cyberpunk 2077 for example, with togglable menu settings that allow you to switch between high resolution graphics with native 4K or optimised performance for 60FPS.

Now it’s worth acknowledging that releasing enhanced versions of older games isn’t actually the norm for Rockstar, especially when it comes to the biggest names in their catalogue. We’ve had mobile ports yes, and a remaster of LA Noire in recent years, but beyond that resources seem reserved only for special occasions. The Trilogy remasters were in celebration of the 20 year anniversary but were still outsourced, and the GTAV re-release has arrived following the “unprecedented” longevity of GTA Online. GTA IV and Max Payne 3 not releasing beyond older generations and RDR1 never making it to PC are prime examples. RDR2 released a full 2 years before the current consoles arrived on the market, and the game itself turns 4 this year, so it’s quite possible that this kind of thing would never be on the table to begin with. Regardless, an update like this would be truly anticipated amongst the community and wider audience of RDR2 fans and I can only begin to imagine how beautiful the already-stunning open world could look with a natural facelift on current consoles.

The Rockstar Editor for RDR2

Something that continues to surprise is the absence of the Rockstar Editor in RDR2/RDO. A tool that has taken the machinima and virtual photography communities to new depths since it arrived with GTAV, and it is sorely missed out on the frontier. I would go as far as saying that the Rockstar Editor has probably inspired other companies in the industry to lay the foundations of more in-depth photo and video editing tools in their own games to allow the creatives in community to thrive in ways that were usually limited to the PC platform, so it’s omittance from RDR2 is still an odd one. Of course, RDR2 single-player does have its own photo mode which is treasured amongst enthusiasts; perhaps it’s possible it was developed with the intention to replace the Rockstar Editor, as the orbiting camera allows for free movement around the game area in order to take the ideal shot. The only issue is that there is no recording or clip editing capabilities, limiting players to get fancy with their own console record button, or by using mods on PC. Additionally, the photo mode isn’t available at all in Red Dead Online; the two types of purchasable cameras you can carry are only really fun for filters or basic shots as the camera movement is quite restricted around your character. The Rockstar Editor, or an expanded photo mode, would truly be an asset to both single and online play.

Acknowledge Red Dead Online

“Saving” Red Dead Online has been a hot topic of conversation for quite a while, and it’s an endeavour that would require a whole list of its own for a game that has been without a content update since last July. Though we’ve named a performance upgrade and a Rockstar Editor addition separately in this list, there’s all sorts of missions, heists, roles, properties, and quality of life changes desperately needed in Red Dead Online, so there’s not really one individual feature that could “save” it for some. Long-standing players have campaigned and protested, and some have even abandoned the game in regret due to the lack of new content, but beyond speculation, we’re still without official word from Rockstar about the status of Red Dead Online right now and if there are any plans at all for the future. It makes sense that things were put on hold in the lead up to launching GTAV on new-generation consoles, but GTA Online doesn’t appear to be slowing down and development on the next GTA is full steam ahead, so where does this leave Red Dead Online?

As a company, “saving” it might be difficult for them to prioritise when the next major project is upon us; if your entire workforce is primarily focused on a new mainline title in the final years of development, then resources are going to be pretty limited in spite of their size and wealth, but acknowledging Red Dead Online and its community would be priceless to fans. I’m sure they have seen the outcry for communication, but even if they don’t have anything to reveal right now because things are truly in limbo regarding the direction of the game, it doesn’t mean no one is listening, it doesn’t mean no one would be grateful to hear that Rockstar has valued fans’ patience and dedication to the game in its short life. It was quite a kick in the teeth when Red Dead Online was omitted from their annual “thank you to the community” New Year update a few months back, and whether intentional or not, the message was loud and clear that their focus is entirely elsewhere at the moment. Of course, I wouldn’t expect recognition of the hashtag campaigns or anything of the sort, that just isn’t their style and ultimately will never be something they will back down on in my view, but I know they’re capable of acknowledging fans and the future in their own way – they just have to choose to do it.

Continued Fixes & Quality of Life improvements for the GTA Trilogy Definitive Editions

Love or hate them, the Definitive Editions of the classic GTA Trilogy are here to stay, and that means they should continue to receive the attention they deserve. According to the figures, they sold well and have probably been enjoyed by a number of new and returning players to the series, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the road to get there has been successful – there’s still many bugs and glaring art issues and in-continuities that remain unsolved, so it’s anyone’s guess how many patches it could take fix them all. There’s also some small quality of life improvements that would be useful; for example the ability to hide the HUD for screenshots.

It’s not known how long Rockstar plans to continue support for the games, or even if they have taken over in any capacity since the “apology” post-launch. Either way, if we assume that Grove Street Games are still leading the project, they only have a small team of around 20-30 employees so in respect of their work-life balance they do need to be afforded whatever time they require, and the mobile versions that are still unreleased are likely being developed concurrently to any fixes for the other platforms as well. It’s therefore likely going to take a number of months yet to chip away at all the problems, which brings to question why the games were released when they were, but these are issues we’ve discussed at length before elsewhere. For the time being, it seems reasonable to expect additional patches will be confirmed once news about the mobile versions is announced/released, and I can only hope these continue until the games reach their optimum condition.

New-generation GTAV on PC

Last but not least, we have a PC community that would very much like an enhanced version of GTAV of their own. At the very first announcement two years ago, Rockstar did indicate that the new-gen exclusive content would also be arriving on PC. Since then however, the platform has been routinely omitted in every other announcement, so we’re none the wiser regarding specifics. The speculation surrounding this is that a PC version was likely always due to arrive a little later than its console counterparts as it usually takes longer to test and optimise, especially as employees are working from home. The hope is now that an update will arrive in the form of a patch early in the summer, possibly with a new GTA Online update and the patch that is currently in the works to address invite spam.

You might be wondering “but new-gen GTAV already looks like PC!” – well yes, that’s fair in general, but there *are* a few small changes and improvements that are actually performing better on console right now, as shown by Digital Foundry. There’s also other updates PC players should be able to advantage of, such as the UI and lobby access menu changes, the content such as Hao’s Special Works, and any opportunities for increased anti-cheat protections as well.

Until next time, folks…

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Title Update 1.04 arrives for The Trilogy https://gtanet.com/title-update-1-04-arrives-for-the-trilogy/ Mon, 28 Feb 2022 23:38:25 +0000 https://gtanet.com/?p=11932 As announced last week, Rockstar pushed a new patch to all platforms for The Trilogy Definitive Edition games earlier today and the official patch notes are now available. As you can see from the list, a multitude of performance-centric fixes have been applied to all three games targeting collision issues, bugged missions, and glitched out clothing. There are also stability

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As announced last week, Rockstar pushed a new patch to all platforms for The Trilogy Definitive Edition games earlier today and the official patch notes are now available.

As you can see from the list, a multitude of performance-centric fixes have been applied to all three games targeting collision issues, bugged missions, and glitched out clothing. There are also stability improvements resulting in a smoother gaming experience where 60FPS can be maintained, according to a number of community reports on social media.

In addition, there are a small number of enhancements not included on the patch notes, like these improved textures of CJ’s default jeans, and a fix for an issue that prevented some players from saving after achieving 100% completion.

So, quite a few necessary fixes today and some welcome improvements to overall performance, though it isn’t all roses as far as the community is concerned. The patch arrived with high expectations, and there has been number of issues highlighted following the update that still remain since Day 1. This includes wonky road textures, signage typos, inaccurate radio icons, and random collision problems in elevated areas. Foliage also appears to have been removed in the Mount Chiliad area, and some parallax interiors have been disabled from street level stores, but we’re not sure if these are new issues introduced or a design change has been made.

It’s likely Rockstar have just prioritised performance for the first major patch of the new year to ensure all platforms are at the very least stable and playable, with more fixes and an art-focused patch to fix all the remaining texture issues in due course. The mobile versions are also meant to arrive by summer, so it’s likely Grove Street Games are working on optimising the port and fixing already established issues concurrently; let’s hope we hear more details about this soon as it remains to be seen how much longer The Trilogy will be supported by Rockstar now that we’re already almost 4 months post-launch.

As always, be sure to keep up with our own Bugs tracker on GTAForums to make sure all the remaining issues are noted, and join the discussion as the community continues to evaluate today’s update.

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New GTA Trilogy Patch Arrives Next Week https://gtanet.com/new-gta-trilogy-patch-arrives-next-week/ Thu, 24 Feb 2022 23:30:00 +0000 https://gtanet.com/?p=11825 In a small announcement tweet to the community today, Rockstar confirmed that the GTA Trilogy games will receive a new patch next week. The patch will apply to all platforms, possibly as early as Monday, though there are reports this evening that an update has already hit the Nintendo Switch. It’s been a couple of months since we’ve heard from

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In a small announcement tweet to the community today, Rockstar confirmed that the GTA Trilogy games will receive a new patch next week.

The patch will apply to all platforms, possibly as early as Monday, though there are reports this evening that an update has already hit the Nintendo Switch.

It’s been a couple of months since we’ve heard from Rockstar about the Definitive Editions, likely due to the festive period and focus on the recent announcements regarding GTAV E&E and the “next GTA”. Expectations are perhaps a little on the high side from some in the community, but news of the patch is welcome either way as hopefully many of the issues that have continued to plague the remasters since the last major update in November are resolved. Soon shall be revealed!

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Spider Speaks: Untangling the Definitive Edition https://gtanet.com/spider-speaks-untangling-the-definitive-edition/ Wed, 24 Nov 2021 23:58:50 +0000 https://gtanet.com/?p=10417 I suppose at this point an article of this nature doesn’t really need an introduction. We are all very well aware of how the GTA Trilogy Definitive Editions are being received, and the community’s perspective of how it was all handled. Kirsty put up a summary of events a few days ago that you should check out. In this piece

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I suppose at this point an article of this nature doesn’t really need an introduction. We are all very well aware of how the GTA Trilogy Definitive Editions are being received, and the community’s perspective of how it was all handled. Kirsty put up a summary of events a few days ago that you should check out.

In this piece I’d like to focus on something a little different. Be aware that this is merely personal opinion and does not represent the thoughts of everyone at GTANet. It is also conjecture, and none of the information in this article is based on any real knowledge of the events that transpired the release, I’m merely an enthusiast, observer and a long-time Rockstar Games fan, so none of what I am saying is based on experience. I am also not going to get into too much detail with my opinion of the remasters themselves, this is merely an opinion article about the release and an overview of past events.

This will cover a few specific subjects that I’d like to make an overview of and give a couple of opinions about, even despite liking these games a lot more (apparently) than some of the community: an overview on who Grove Street Games are, what was the San Andreas mobile port that made the community become sceptic about the developer, the process of the community finding out that Grove Street Games were behind the release, and my view on the management of its release, along with some discussion on what could’ve been better.

Nazar Spider Speaks!


Who are Grove Street Games? How do they relate to Rockstar?

Grove Street Games (GSG) were formed in 2007, originally named War Drum Studios, and were the authors of games like the History Channel licenced Great Battles: Medieval for mobile and Gen 7 (Xbox 360/PS3) consoles, the mobile port of Ark: Survival Evolved (which they still maintain), and more importantly, most Rockstar Games mobile ports – Max Payne 1, GTA 3, GTA Vice City, Chinatown Wars, Bully… Among those, there was also the infamous (we’ll get there…) port of GTA San Andreas.

For the 10th anniversary of GTA III in 2011, they were contracted (as War Drum) to port the original game to mobile – with new controls, some mobile-friendly design changes, and more. Later in 2012, Vice City got the same treatment. Those ports weren’t too badly received, with just some reviewers pointing out that the controls weren’t great and some bits like combat were even more frustrating, but otherwise, they were solid GTA’s-on-the-go.

San Andreas mobile port – community relations sour

2013 was the year that War Drum Studios/Grove Street Games saw themselves between the sword and the wall. GTA San Andreas had been ported to mobile devices… except it was nothing like the previous two ports. Many liberties had been taken to try and make it look different on the same renderer, many things were changed in minigame and mission design, and the ports were riddled with glitches and other design decisions that the community deemed questionable. Later, these same mobile versions were ported to the then-current generation consoles – Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and even more issues were introduced.

Mobile version vs. PC version characters by Vadim M.

Modding and datamining community member Vadim M. made a few aggressively worded (but detailed) videos about the mobile versions (named by the community “remasters” although only one Rockstar Newswire article mentioned they’d be “remastered” graphics for mobile, the release isn’t named this – which should’ve tempered people’s expectations), which point out many of the mistakes and bugs included in those releases, and how it got even worse on consoles. The ports attempted to make things better, and in some situations succeeded, but not without making other parts of the game look (and sound) jarring in comparison to the classics.

I don’t think I need to describe the commotion around these releases too much after linking Vadim’s videos. Starting from here, the community viewed War Drum Studios/GSG very differently, with scrutiny that they never really recovered from, due to how people considered the port “objectively bad” and “unplayable”.

Community opinions, especially the modding community’s, towards mobile releases soured even further, as Rockstar replaced War Drum Studios with Lucid Games for GTA Liberty City Stories’ mobile port. Despite the fact that it was a much better and stable mobile port, hawk-eyed modders instantly discovered that Lucid Games had used modders’ textures for their mobile port, without permission or credit. This, among some other (admittedly personally minor in comparison to San Andreas) mistakes found in the port made the community become even more cynical towards Rockstar mobile releases.

As I write this, Lucid Games doesn’t even list GTA LCS in their official list of projects, so take from that what you will.

War Drum Studios is rebranded to Grove Street Games

A good while back, a few years after those mobile ports, the community discovered a developer named Grove Street Games, teasing a secret project on their website. Shortly after, it was discovered that it was just a rebrand of War Drum Studios. The community questioned themselves whether this was a jab at Rockstar after the mobile port fiasco (that maybe they didn’t take seriously), or a conscious decision due to working on new projects with them. Reality was that they named themselves Grove Street Games, after the neighbourhood in Gainesville, Florida of the same name, which is where they are located.

This still made some of the community’s ears perk up and I must admit I found it a pretty interesting naming choice too, as at first I also believed it was a jab at Rockstar.

Definitively Grove Street Games Edition

A few days before the official announcement, after previous leaks of game art and game synopsis that had been uploaded early to prepare for the impending announcement and pre-order, the PC system requirements were leaked from Rockstar Games Launcher metadata.
Why is this relevant, you ask? This same file contained a very important piece of information, that would shape the community’s perspective of these Definitive Editions permanently, even before we got all the details – “adapted by Grove Street Games“.

This was only discovered the day the Definitive Editions were officially listed on the Rockstar Games Store, and the community started melting down, when they realised these were the same developers behind the San Andreas mobile ports. When footage was released, and the community considered some of the art (such as character models) in the reveal screenshots looked subpar or inconsistent, things took an even worse turn, especially among those who were already sceptical.
As all of their portfolio was mobile games, I initially believed they would only be behind the mobile ports of the Definitive Editions, despite thinking it was rather odd for them to be listed in the PC store. Credits in the games industry are a huge point of debate, with pretty nonsensical restrictions and requirements, so I thought Rockstar were still naming them for the sake of recognition (as all developers who work on a game, working on any position, should).

The reveal of who really was behind the ports and the community’s reaction brings me to the next section.

Publisher-developer relations – a view

Skipping past the even further exacerbated community meltdown over character models and some of the game’s visuals, including inconsistent art in screenshots (which even mainline Rockstar games have because they are taken at different points in development, it’s just how it works in the industry many times), I would like to get into something a bit deeper – after summarising the scepticism behind Grove Street Games’ name: who is who in this situation?

Despite the fact that Rockstar did publish and help produce this project, and were the ones who (again) contracted this specific company to work on the games, ultimately, in my view, Grove Street Games were the lead developers behind the project. Grove Street Games were (I assume, mostly) the ones who had access to the game’s code, grabbed most of Rockstar’s formats, converted them all (almost, except animations, gameplay/economy data and scripts for example) to Unreal Engine 4, worked on the character models, remade some of the buildings and other art, recompiled the scripts, managed their own repositories which included original game tools, code, etc.

What this means is, that judgement on the quality of the remasters doesn’t only sit on one side of the fence, or both equally. To me, it is mostly on the developer, and then the rest is on the publisher who should monitor the development process and ensure everything is up to standards, but also does not have to handhold the developer every step of the way. The reason why Rockstar trusted Grove Street Games again to port some of their most beloved and nostalgic games to a new engine, and remaster them after the controversial GTA San Andreas mobile port has been a big point of debate in the community, but again, Grove Street Games did seem to do most of the work, with Rockstar helping out with the publishing aspect (and some other minor aspects) and giving them access to certain assets (whose liberal use ended up causing some weird anachronisms – websites in ads in 1986, NOOSE in Vice City…). In a sense, this also means R* publishing should have been a lot more hands-on with the project, ensuring it’s up to standards and expectations. More on that later.

The Beast is unleashed… and leaked

On November 10th, the game released early in Oceania and eastern Asia because PlayStation didn’t want to honour Rockstar’s official release time. This is not unheard of, and Sony has released games early before for many other developers. Rockstar had announced in a support article that the games were releasing worldwide at 3 PM Eastern (New York) time, but Sony obviously had other ideas.

Where the smoke sparks a fire is with the PC release. At 3 PM Eastern, the PC version is released along with all others, as programmed. That is until three hours later the Rockstar Games Launcher is completely taken down and so are Trilogy downloads, along with all other Rockstar PC games because they needed Launcher authentication.

By that time, modders and dataminers had found out that Grove Street Games left not only original Rockstar-created tools to compile localisation files from text sources and script compilers, but also the source to those same script files, something they already had done with the previous games’ mobile ports, which personally raises a gigantic question mark about their actual source control pipeline and how they handle private information – I have a big post on GTAForums about this, and ultimately I do point more of my fingers at GSG for this than at Rockstar. Because source code and private tools are, well, private (and leaks are bad) and under very strict NDA’s in the industry, Rockstar rushed to shut it all down and remove everything over the weekend – the PC game was back by Sunday night without the private files.

Obviously, Rockstar, as the publisher, knowing about the state of these releases and seeing online “feedback” (yes, with quotations, because most wasn’t constructive), issued an apology and mentioned that more patches would be coming in the future, which is something that didn’t surprise me whatsoever, despite some of the community’s scepticism about Rockstar publishing even caring about their own games (come on…) – it was just bound to happen and the amount of scrutiny and criticism wouldn’t let them just ignore the games. It really isn’t up to their normal standards.

Why Grove Street Games? What could have been better on both sides?

This is where I once again started looking at Grove Street Games as a developer, especially given their previous San Andreas mobile adventure and its reception. I don’t do the whole Internet outrage language of “lazy devs” or whatever other spiel, there is no such thing – these games, despite their faults, had a lot more work put into them, especially on the programming side, than it seems – but more and more I think that they not only weren’t fit for the task, but they also were not completely able to handle a bigger project like this.
It doesn’t help that the aforementioned source code leaks had comments from GSG that, to the community and most laypeople, seem to have put on blast their willingness to work on these even further, with them sounding upset that Rockstar testers were requesting fixes so things would look and play better, and you wouldn’t see enemies despawning, among other things and tweaks. Testing is extremely underappreciated in the industry, and for a company like Rockstar, who work on much more complex and nuanced games in-house, it’s normal that their testers will help to try and make things as close to perfect as possible, but it’s up to the other teams to actually consider and fix.

In an environment with all kinds of different roles (testers, systems/world/tech designers, project leads, producers, coordinators, programmers and artists with separate specialisations, etc. etc.) and a big communication network when it comes to decision-making and transferring issues around, it’s normal for some of these departments to take jabs at each other – maybe because they think a certain bug reported by QA is far too nit-picky, or a lead or some department isn’t willing to change something that another department or individual requested, and that frustration is let out in the code for others to laugh at or acknowledge – just regular large-scale teamwork “problems”, not everyone will agree with everything and most projects will ship with choices not everyone agrees with.
The thing is, in this circumstance, based on what the community already thinks about Grove Street Games as a developer and how “careless” they seem to have been in the past, these comments found in the leaked script source code don’t put them in a great light in the community’s eyes, especially after they seemingly have repeated the exact same mistakes from the past, and the amount of love put into the project by them seems questionable, almost as if they were thinking R* was being too demanding. Tweets and forum posts have been posted questioning their willingness to even listen to Rockstar’s instructions when given, as the owners of the original Trilogy property, among other critical feedback.
This circles back to the heading question in this section (which is fully on Rockstar publishing in this case): Why Grove Street Games again?

The same mistakes from the mobile port era were made and some of the same odd decisions were made – they even reused the (almost) exact script source code from the mobile releases with a few specific changes for the Definitive Editions instead of using the full original scripts as a base. This meant some of the previous questionable changes, such as completely changing the original gym minigame for example, are all present. Things that were optimised for mobile devices, which don’t make as much sense on consoles and PC’s, are all almost unchanged in the Definitive Editions. Some changes, such as the checkpoint system and miscellaneous mission difficulty adjustments are very welcome, but other things don’t fit and it looks like they just mostly copied and pasted their previous work instead of re-adapting it even further for a proper Definitive Edition.
Personally, I think they could have gone through discussion threads on the Internet, videos, etc. to see what things actually needed to be changed or fixed in that same source code (see mods like SilentPatch) instead of just reusing most of it and making only a few fixes here and there (granted, they did make some fundamental changes to stuff like timings, to fix high frame rate issues, but even that is incomplete – in GTA VC and III Definitive Edition, vehicles still explode too fast at frame rates above 30 FPS, even if most other things are indeed fixed).

The gym minigame now has you simply hit a button at the right time, even if you choose a 300 pound weight with minimal muscle

All of this said, I don’t think GSG are unredeemable whatsoever, far from it. They can learn (even if forced to do so…) with these mistakes and the feedback, but unfortunately it kind of looks like the community’s scepticism about seeing their name may have been justified.

This is also where I think R*’s publishing people could have overseen the development of the games a lot more and perhaps been more careful with the release of such a passion project (perhaps a delay could have worked?), but once again I don’t think the publisher needs to be a shadow over the developer all the time, and the developer also has to be self-aware of their own abilities and work pipelines. AI upscaling (which is totally fine as long as it’s done well – see Mass Effect and this video on upscaling by the excellent AI and Games) a cutscene character to the point their shirt says “Rinimos” instead of Rimmers (a double-entendre for a sports team from all GTA universes including GTA V), or an octagonal nut being turned into a smooth circle due to model smoothing isn’t only a publisher thing. It doesn’t help that while there’s badly upscaled textures and models, there are also well-done and remade assets for some shops and advertisements around the worlds – the aforementioned inconsistencies.
However, I do think these things would have been instantly spotted in a full playthrough demonstration, and I feel that is indeed also on Rockstar’s publishing part – perhaps more scrutiny was necessary? Especially when these games are called Definitive Edition and Rockstar wanted them to be the new versions people play for years to come?
Where perhaps R* could’ve done better as well was by researching what really needed to be done to these games themselves before settling on a Grove Street Games (or anyone else) contract, looking at fan mods or suggestions, looking at their own source code, development documentation and design documents and see what they originally wanted to improve, and making sure there weren’t anachronisms for example, which doesn’t match the level of fine detail that R* games are usually known for. Then again, GSG could also have done this themselves in pre-production, in my opinion, but I don’t claim to know how any of that went down, of course.

Some people also ask why this wasn’t done in-house at Rockstar.
I suppose, and I can fully understand, that R* didn’t want to take resources away from current and future projects such as GTA VI or anything else that might be in the works, leaving the main teams to those mainline games, and leaving the “sideline” stuff for the outsource studio. Nothing shocking, but obviously as a fan it would have been optimal for this to have been a pure R* production in my opinion, and I would bet at least some current developers wouldn’t have minded working on remastering some of these older games (which are most likely also dear to many of them), for them to be fully playable and truly definitive for 2021 and beyond. Even if that meant having to open the crypt of the SCM scripting language and bring back some memories to veteran developers…

What does this mean for future projects? Et tu, communication?

Nothing. As much as some of the fanbase may be sceptical after this, these weren’t mainline Rockstar projects and weren’t made by the exact same Rockstar teams that make the typical games filled with detail and new engaging gameplay and stories. This seems to be more a case of an overall badly organised outsource remaster project (and subsequent release) than anything else, this means absolutely nothing for main R* games and the quality of these remasters doesn’t dictate the quality of any other main R* projects or Online game DLC’s. I’m not phased at all, mostly disappointed at how this specific project was handled. My (mostly positive) opinion on R* has not changed and I’m still excited for future games and even GTA/Red Dead Online DLC, their developers are as skilled as ever and this doesn’t change that fact, even because a large percentage of them probably didn’t even see the Trilogy before it released or worked on it. One thing doesn’t connect to the other whatsoever.

If there is one big thing to criticise in this sense, is that if R* decide to start outsourcing remasters or smaller projects, perhaps they should be more controlling of those projects and ensure that developers have not only what they need (assets, code, time, resources), but also ensure that they respect the original vision of these projects to a T. Especially if these are supposed to be true passion projects to preserve/remaster old classics.

What it does change on their end however, because most people aren’t aware of all of these technicalities and just look at these games having the Rockstar logo on them, along with loud online feedback and online press reviews, is the way they’re perceived to the outside for letting this release the way it did, and their subpar communication once again putting their PR on blast, which in my opinion is something that needs to be remedied sooner rather than later. Yes, communicating with gamers is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t job, but I think it would be even more Rockstar of them to actually let one or another thing out more often, if not even just to soften PR blows on their side instead of having people get even angrier over silence. If R* had a much more active community and PR presence overall, even for GTA Online and Red Dead Online (bring back roasts to known community members!), I have a feeling the backlash would be at the very least a bit less severe, because many outsiders wouldn’t just think the company is hiding.

EA/DICE have opened an account on Twitter dedicated specifically to semi-real time updates from dev teams about the goings on of Battlefield 2042 (another badly received release), but I also fully understand that Battlefield is a real-time fully online game that is currently still getting real-time maintenance and downtime, and that it can be very difficult to get all of the info flowing in real time from dev teams to PR and so on.

Still, I think this release is another sign that things may have to change on the communication side. Even understanding that it’s extremely hard to set specific deadlines and dates for things, I think this would be a great opportunity to talk about more specific plans for the Trilogy and potential (add a million asterisks) ETA’s, or a roadmap.

Where do I stand on these remasters?

Despite everything, I would like to mention that I am mostly enjoying them. Environment art, lighting and graphics/rendering can be exceptionally well done many times (and other times also kind of odd), gameplay is as engaging as it used to be and in my PC experience there haven’t been any completely game breaking bugs in either of the 3 games. It however cuts a lot of corners, and has major inconsistencies that just shouldn’t exist, such as between different character models, specific textures and the way they were handled, PC flying controls, San Andreas not even having any height or distance fog/smog, major collision and mapping issues in areas, strange feature design decisions due to code ported from GSG’s original mobile versions.
Indeed this is a remaster and not a remake, and people shouldn’t have expected completely remade/re-coded features or assets, but if more research had been done to mod projects like SilentPatch, or Vice City: The Leftovers Fix, GTA SA Xbox Map Features, GTA III Xbox Version HD and similar, this would simply be fixing mistakes that were in the original games, and that would most definitely fit in a remaster named Definitive Edition.

That said, I don’t think the remasters’ mistakes are unfixable whatsoever either, with R* planning to release more patches for them. I think they can fix them up nicely at least in the bugs department and some of the more obvious visual inconsistencies, especially if they did allocate more teams from the main R* studios to help out. But it’s certainly going to be a process, and everyone will need to be patient, because making game patches isn’t simply committing a fix and pushing it out the next day – there will be meetings to determine what to fix, making inventories of fixes from online feedback, the actual testing and confirmation process, trying to fix it, confirming the fix, potentially more meetings about stuff along the way, console manufacturer certification processes, etc. etc.

A lot of the community is disappointed, especially because these are named Definitive Edition (although I do think the Mafia remake set too high of a public expectation for that marketing name) and are games that are supposed to be legendary and stay legendary, but what’s done is done, and we will need to maintain civility and be patient while R* works on all of this stuff. Not much else we can do. It also doesn’t help that a lot of people on the Internet are still, to this day, recycling memes based on bugs from pre-release versions from the Australia leaks, that have already been fixed, thus condemning the games even more than they, in my opinion, should.

If you enjoy it even minimally, keep playing it, as I am (and so are many others in the community, some who have already 100% them!), if you don’t, then indeed don’t, or wait for patches, or a price drop. It’s all fair game at this point. Just please maintain civility, don’t use people as scapegoats for anger, and keep anger (moderately…) and criticisms to the games themselves and how GSG/R* handled the situation, not specific people. What I do condemn is the actual hate that’s going rampant around the Internet, and despite criticisms and a few disappointing bits in these games, I will continue doing my own thing and enjoy playing them, even with their issues, and see them (hopefully) evolve with patching.
I am getting enjoyment out of replaying them, what is more disappointing to me is how the release was handled and the state it released in, there is a lot of good in these games amongst the bad too, and to me this does not condemn R* or the games in any way, shape or form. But they will now have to prove this even further on the PR side as this Definitive Edition mishap, plus the previous GTA V E&E event has made some people become a bit sour about R*. Hopefully something nice can help solve people’s worries sooner rather than later. 🌴

Thanks for coming to my talk, and thanks for making it this far and reading this mess of an essay! Now excuse me while I go and yell at Lance Vance (Dance) for dying again because he can’t defend himself for sh*t.

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Let’s Talk: The Trilogy Launch… https://gtanet.com/lets-talk-the-trilogy-launch/ https://gtanet.com/lets-talk-the-trilogy-launch/#comments Sat, 20 Nov 2021 02:52:52 +0000 https://gtanet.com/?p=10308 Can you remember a more tumultuous week for Rockstar Games? During my active time within the community over the last 10 years, I don’t think I can! The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition release week has been … pretty miserable, to say the least, as one thing after another led to a disastrous PC launch and ended with Rockstar facing

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Can you remember a more tumultuous week for Rockstar Games? During my active time within the community over the last 10 years, I don’t think I can! The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition release week has been … pretty miserable, to say the least, as one thing after another led to a disastrous PC launch and ended with Rockstar facing a barrage of criticism from hardcore fans, the media and even other developers.

So how did it all unfold? Let’s take a look at just exactly where Rockstar, Grove Street Games, and Take-Two have dropped points during the last week.

Minimal marketing

After a solid year of speculation, hopes were pretty high after Rockstar validated rumours and first teased the remasters back in early October. In the weeks following, the community anticipated a deluge of information would arrive as GTA III reached its 20th anniversary, and expectations were set for gameplay trailers, new artwork, screenshots and merchandise reveals. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick had previously remarked that new iterations of games (i.e. remasters or ports) wouldn’t be marketed like new games, but given the approaching milestone of the 3D era, this quiet and minimalistic approach felt fairly subdued, even for Rockstar. When the trailer dropped on the anniversary, the division over the re-imagined models also left some fans wanting to be “sold” into pre-ordering, despite the welcome short waiting time before launch, and a lack of gameplay only further curbed enthusiasm for the pending release.

Launch time mix-up

Amidst the wait for launch came a few days of confusion over when the games would actually release. Rockstar had explicitly announced a global launch time, but Sony had other ideas, with PlayStation timers indicating midnight local time. Rockstar later re-affirmed the global release time via a Rockstar Support article, stating these countdowns were inaccurate and all platforms would release together at the announced time. You can probably guess what happened after their statement… those other ideas that Sony had, came to fruition, and pre-orders began unlocking over a day “early” at midnight across Australian and New Zealand timezones. While Xbox, Switch and PC players were left twiddling their thumbs, PlayStation screenshots and footage leaked out into the entire community in a mad frenzy for a first real look at the games, and it was here the waters started turning muddy from those who didn’t enjoy what they were seeing.

Botched PC Launch

With tempers already fuelled by no pre-load being available for PC players, the entire Rockstar Launcher being taken offline a mere 3 hours after the games released was not on our Trilogy bingo card. After a sudden drop in service, Rockstar Support confirmed an hour later that the Launcher was undergoing maintenance and would be temporarily offline. In the early hours of the following day, a further tweet was sent out by Rockstar Support to confirm they were still working on Launcher issues, and by the end of that same day it did return with full services; but there was a catch… the Trilogy had been de-listed and would not be available to play due to “unintentional files” being left within the games. The theory is that these “files” related to unlicensed music being accessible by mistake, as well as traces of the notorious Hot Coffee code and other usually-secretive scripts and tools used by Rockstar during development. It was a treasure trove for the modding community, but you can probably understand why management would not enjoy these being publicly available. Unfortunately, this meant the Trilogy was unplayable for PC players for around 3 days in total, and this is where some of the harder criticism began to fall. The botched launch, unprecedented for Rockstar, led to very loud calls for more communication, given Rockstar Support only sent out four fairly robotic tweets regarding what was happening over the course of the weekend without any formal clarification from their main Twitter account. Both unimpressed with the gameplay coming from console players, and the fact that their purchase was simply removed from their library during this time, there has been widespread commentary on refunds since then, with many now getting their money back and opting out of playing these games at all. Mistakes happen, oversights are inevitable, but we have been left with questions surrounding the way in which this launch was handled, and the disappointing lack of general reassurance that could easily have been dished out.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

You could say launch mishaps are easily forgiven, as remote-working has hit us all during the pandemic, and sometimes technology just doesn’t want to comply for one reason or another. Bugs, however, are a different conversation and perhaps indicative of bigger problems to address. While many are still having a great time with the core stories and characters of the Trilogy games, the “Definitive” experience is unfortunately marred with bugs, map glitches and progression issues. These bugs were in addition to poorly received models, inconsistencies with AI-upscaled textures and the re-use of GTAV assets that either broke continuity between universes or confirmed the existence of time travel. From the credits, it can be seen that Grove Street Games are only a very small studio, though there were other outsourced companies involved, as well as a number of Rockstar’s own teams. From this we can make an assumption that the existence of these problems boiled down to the games just not being ready, or a lack of support, or possibly even both. These are not the words you’d expect to put in the same sentence as a Rockstar release, and though it didn’t come out of one of their main studios, we wouldn’t expect resources to be so limited or constrained by time. Though we can’t be sure just how things were handled behind the scenes, from the outside it looks like these three very large scale projects were an ambitious but daunting task for a small team that perhaps needed some extra time in the oven as well as a solid foundation of Rockstar support. The question remains of why they were released at all if they needed more time, which returns us to a growing community opinion that they were rushed out in order to “cash in” on the anniversary.

More modding takedowns

Adding to the disdain of the Trilogy launch, Take-Two quietly strengthened their anti-modding stance with all new DMCA takedowns on the same day as release, of all the days to choose. According to LibertyCity.net and ModDB, notices were served against three mods; a mod that ported GTA Advance to GTA III, a GTA IV mod that exchanged Niko’s model for Johnny and other TLAD assets such as weapon icons, and most bafflingly, a simple GTA IV TLAD save file at 65% completion. It’s not ultimately clear why the latter of these mods were targeted, given takedowns during the summer mostly involved map porting. Rumours of a GTA IV remaster have circulated since, but with the re3/reVC lawsuit still pending, tensions continue to swell in the community over Take-Two’s actions, with fears that they will slowly target other categories of mods and their authors in the near future. The latest protest is in the form of a petition, currently sitting at almost 1200 signatures, which calls for a boycott on creating mods for the Definitive Edition to raise awareness of the importance modding has to the legacy of the franchise. You can discuss the ongoing situation with the rest of the community on GTAForums.

Community response

As you can already imagine, the community has been less than forgiving in their calls for answers during this week. Swathes of criticism headed Rockstar’s way from all sorts of directions, mostly relating to the scrappy launch, gameplay bugs, performance issues and artistic choices. The first rally came from a review-bomb of almost 5000 “overwhelming dislikes” on Metacritic, giving the games a user review score of a measly 0.5, but commentary from Digital Foundry and a 5/10 Review from IGN cemented that this wasn’t only a “poor gamer” reception this time, but widespread discontent. There has also been significant disappointment amongst the modding community who felt they themselves could have had a larger hand in the remasters if given the opportunity, given the original Trilogy had been de-listed, despite the broken relationship following targeted DMCA action from Take-Two. Suffice to say, the community at large is rather unhappy with this launch and the associated reflection it has caused as long time fans of these games, even for those who are enjoying the upgraded environments and platform accessibility that the Trilogy has provided, with both satisfied and frustrated players feeling the side effects of poor sentiment. The online spaces of forums, social media and Reddit have been rampant with arguments due to mis-information and lack of transparency, which has sadly also led to the harassment of individual developers as well, which can never be justified even in light of disagreeable management decisions. The disharmony amongst the community has intensified the need for a much deeper community management presence, and we would appeal for them to build a bridge and come forward to help us face this head on in future.

The Rockstar Apology

In a surprise announcement, Rockstar rounded off this unexpected series of events with a bittersweet official apology. Claiming that the games did not launch to a standard they, or fans, expect, they apologised for the issues that have been highlighted during this week. They confirmed that the games will be receiving technical updates in due course, with each update adding to the overall improvement of the games. Most unexpectedly, they also confirmed that the original Trilogy of games will be returning to PC in the very near future, in the form of a bundle on the Rockstar Store, and those who purchase the Definitive Trilogy up until June 2022 next year will receive the original collection for free. This is a very welcome gesture given the importance of these classic games and the impact they have had across the gaming industry, and ensuring their preservation, even if only on PC, is a win for the community who fought against their removal in the first place. They also lightly touched on the harassment that has been targeted towards individual developers, with an appeal for the community maintain a “respectful and civil discourse” going forwards – we can get on board with this, though the community has been split on the language used for the statement.

Wrap-up

If you’ve reached this far, then you’ll agree there has been a lot to take in. Discussions still continue across the community, so our efforts at GTANet are currently concentrated on keeping track of updates and ensuring there is a balanced array of topics available in our Trilogy areas on GTAForums. We’ve maintained a Bugs board (thanks to uNi for that idea!) in effort to consolidate some of the most glaring or disruptive problems, which we hope Rockstar and Grove Street Games can make use of. There is also significant modding research currently being undertaken, and you can find the discussion topic for that here.

We’ll be posting our personal reviews, and community reviews, for a more dedicated discussion on the good, bad, and ugly parts of each individual Trilogy game in the near future once we’ve managed to achieve significant story progress!

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Gifts of GTA Gifs from Giphy: Trilogy Edition https://gtanet.com/gifts-of-gta-gifs-from-giphy-trilogy-edition/ Tue, 09 Nov 2021 23:24:29 +0000 https://gtanet.com/?p=10213 Rockstar have updated their official Giphy page with a plethora of GTA Trilogy related gifs and stickers. This drop offers our first glimpse at some of the most iconic scenes and one-liners from the games as we edge closer to release on Thursday. The community has been quick to analyse frame by frame, of course. We have tweeted out some

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Rockstar have updated their official Giphy page with a plethora of GTA Trilogy related gifs and stickers. This drop offers our first glimpse at some of the most iconic scenes and one-liners from the games as we edge closer to release on Thursday.

The community has been quick to analyse frame by frame, of course. We have tweeted out some significant changes on our Twitter, whilst the rest is underway in the appropriate topics on GTAForums: click for III, VC and SA.

One of the most interesting things, however, is from the HUD stickers collection. As first noted by GTASeriesVideos, the skateboard and jetpack from San Andreas are previously unused icons, and the hockey stick and cell phone for GTA III have been taken from Liberty City Stories. This doesn’t necessarily confirm new or beta content is being added to the games (as the SA icons were also remastered but unused in previous ports), but it is a possibility given their appearance. We shall soon find out… Update: these HUD stickers have since been removed, so possibly just an oversight from the collection of remastered assets.

Check ’em all out on Giphy and enjoy!

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Rockstar Confirms 3pm UTC Global Release Time for GTA Trilogy https://gtanet.com/rockstar-confirms-3pm-utc-global-release-time-for-gta-trilogy/ Tue, 09 Nov 2021 22:05:32 +0000 https://gtanet.com/?p=10215 Following pre-load availability on consoles a few days ago, there has been some confusion regarding the unlock times for release. Timers on PS4/5 were counting down to midnight local time, which the community assumed were correct given this is the most commonly used delivery method for digital games these days. However, Rockstar have re-affirmed their initially announced intentions of a

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Following pre-load availability on consoles a few days ago, there has been some confusion regarding the unlock times for release. Timers on PS4/5 were counting down to midnight local time, which the community assumed were correct given this is the most commonly used delivery method for digital games these days.

However, Rockstar have re-affirmed their initially announced intentions of a 10am EST (3pm UTC) global release time via Rockstar Support earlier today to clarify the situation.

Click here to view a countdown with worldwide conversions

Apparently, the PS4/5 timer inaccuracy is a known issue – this will either be fixed by Sony following this admission, or will simply reset itself once it hits midnight local time for each region.

If you have pre-ordered, you can pre-load the games now on Xbox, Playstation and Switch consoles. There is no pre-load for PC, meaning it will unlock for download at the release time. Xbox Game Pass subscribers can also pre-load San Andreas.

Rockstar Support article 👉

https://twitter.com/videotech_/status/1458115588174368770

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Pre-Release Info and Screenshot Dump https://gtanet.com/pre-release-info-and-screenshot-dump/ https://gtanet.com/pre-release-info-and-screenshot-dump/#comments Fri, 05 Nov 2021 18:14:55 +0000 https://gtanet.com/?p=10127 It’s Friday! And with that we’re officially less than a week until the launch of The Definitive Edition. Today Rockstar revealed some pre-loading and launch time information on this final countdown to release. In addition, late last night and into this today, several previously unseen screenshots were discovered on Xbox and Amazon store pages in preparation for pre-orders. You can

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It’s Friday! And with that we’re officially less than a week until the launch of The Definitive Edition. Today Rockstar revealed some pre-loading and launch time information on this final countdown to release.

In addition, late last night and into this today, several previously unseen screenshots were discovered on Xbox and Amazon store pages in preparation for pre-orders. You can see a gallery of these below.

Dates to remember

Digital release date: 11th November 2021 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, PC (RSG Launcher)
Physical release date: 7th December 2021 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch
Mobile release date: 2022
Xbox Game Pass: 11th November 2021 for GTA San Andreas – The Definitive Edition only
Playstation Now: 7th December 2021 for GTA III – The Definitive Edition only

Pre-loading

Xbox: pre-load from today (5th November)
Nintendo: pre-load from today (5th November)
Playstation: pre-load from tomorrow (6th November, midnight regional local time)
PC: no pre-load available (download at launch)

Release Times

The collection will unlock at 10am ET on all platforms; click here to view a countdown with worldwide conversions, plus some select cities below. A timer is also live across our Trilogy areas on GTAForums!

Los Angeles: 7am
Brasilia: 12pm
Lisbon: 3pm
Edinburgh: 3pm
Berlin: 4pm
Moscow: 6pm
Cairo: 4pm
Cape Town: 5pm
Mumbai: 8:30pm
Beijing: 11pm
Sydney: 2am (Friday)

New Screenshots

Previously unseen screenshots have been discovered on platform store pages as well as Grove Street Games’ website and the Rockstar Store pre-order pages by the community over the last 24 hours. Just how many are out there?! There are possibly more to come, and we’ll update this gallery if they happen to reveal themselves. Click to enlarge, but note that these screens are from varying platforms, hence the resolution differences.

Thanks go out to: Rockstar Universe, GTA Series Videos, wellgamer161, panelaeletricaa, DjSan_, MasterDesmond

You can see comparisons in our GTAForums analysis topics for III, VC and SA.

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GTA San Andreas Goes VR! https://gtanet.com/gta-san-andreas-goes-vr/ Fri, 29 Oct 2021 23:22:49 +0000 https://gtanet.com/?p=10056 I don’t think many of us tuned into the Facebook Connect event yesterday, Facebook’s Meta’s annual conference highlighting future projects, but as it turns out, we should have! Unexpectedly, Mark Zuckerberg announced a collaboration with Rockstar Games to bring GTA San Andreas to virtual reality. The game is currently in development for the Oculus Quest 2 (soon to be known

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I don’t think many of us tuned into the Facebook Connect event yesterday, Facebook’s Meta’s annual conference highlighting future projects, but as it turns out, we should have!

Unexpectedly, Mark Zuckerberg announced a collaboration with Rockstar Games to bring GTA San Andreas to virtual reality. The game is currently in development for the Oculus Quest 2 (soon to be known as the Meta Quest), the company’s VR headset. The project has apparently be a long time coming, according to the Oculus blog.

Yet to be confirmed is whether the game is actually the Classic San Andreas released in 2004, or the Definitive Edition that’s due for release in just under 2 weeks time – the timing of the announcement sits just right for the remaster, but the surrounding wording is not very clear. Oculus were unable to clarify this on their Twitter account, so perhaps this information will come from Rockstar themselves in due course. We’re also not sure of an intended release date, and whether the game will be exclusive to Oculus or if it’s set to come to Playstation VR as well.

While we’re a little short on details thus far, the announcement certainly took the community by surprise, so we’re excited to see how this one plays out.

Discuss with the community on GTAForums

Header from @uNiGTANet

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GTA: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition – launches 11th November 2021 https://gtanet.com/gta-the-trilogy-the-definitive-edition-launches-11th-november-2021/ Fri, 22 Oct 2021 16:55:02 +0000 https://gtanet.com/?p=9976 In true Rockstar fashion, a boat load of information was dropped on us earlier on today about the hotly anticipated GTA Trilogy The Definitive Edition release. Treated to a trailer just shy of a minute long featuring all three games with comparisons between old and new, plus a batch of screenshots showing the protagonists and general environment, we can say

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In true Rockstar fashion, a boat load of information was dropped on us earlier on today about the hotly anticipated GTA Trilogy The Definitive Edition release. Treated to a trailer just shy of a minute long featuring all three games with comparisons between old and new, plus a batch of screenshots showing the protagonists and general environment, we can say it was a pretty awesome way to celebrate GTA III’s 20th anniversary. Today was Rockstar’s day and they owned every minute of it!

I can probably guarantee you’ve seen all of this by now, but let us do a quick summary of everything we learned today for those in a hurry.

Trailer song: O Mio Babbino Caro (Hudson Mohawke Remix) – as featured on GTA III’s 10th anniversary trailer – find it here on Spotify

Development

Rockstar announced that Grove Street Games (formally War Drum Studios) are responsible for the adaptation of the original games for this new release, using Unreal Engine. The studio previously caught flack from the community following a buggy mobile port of San Andreas, but it appears as though Rockstar have placed the full force of their resources behind them for this new iteration of these classic games. Previous suggestions of Ruffian Games (now Rockstar Dundee) being in charge were perhaps red herrings of the rumour mill, though Rockstar were likely still responsible for areas such as QA testing.

Pre-Orders

Pre-orders opened across all platforms upon announcement today; the full cost of The Definitive Edition is $59.99 (not regionally priced). Currently, you may only pre-order the PC version via the RSG Launcher, but as IDs were recently found in the Steam DB, it is likely it will also be available on other PC distributors after release. Details regarding the mobile releases also remain unnannounced.

Dates to remember

Digital release date: 11th November 2021 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, PC (RSG Launcher)
Physical release date: 7th December 2021 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch
Mobile release date: 2022
Xbox Game Pass: 11th November 2021 for GTA San Andreas – The Definitive Edition only
Playstation Now: 7th December 2021 for GTA III – The Definitive Edition only

Main changes of The Definitive Edition

Quality of Life updates
GTAV controller layout
Upgraded weapon and targeting controls
Upgraded drive-by shooting for GTA San Andreas
HD era style weapon wheel
HD era style radio wheel
Upgraded HUD map navigation with GPS waypoints
Mission restarts
New Social Club achievements

Visual updates
New lighting system to overhaul shadows and reflections
Upgraded water effects
Upgraded weather effects
Increased draw distance
High resolution textures across the board: characters, weapons, vehicles, roads, trees, foliage
4K and 60FPS support for PS5 and Xbox Series X
NVIDIA DLSS support for PC
Touch screen camera control and menu selection for Nintendo Switch
Gyro aiming control for Nintendo Switch

Media

If you were too busy consuming all the information from today, you may not have noticed that Rockstar have also updated their official website. It now features a “dark mode” look with an all black background and tiled Newswire navigation, which looks pretty clean and resembles the recently revamped Rockstar Store. They also launched a dedicated website for the GTA Trilogy, much like previous games, featuring space for screenshots and videos, so check ’em all out there.

Discussion

As we enter the weekend, the community is rife with debates and discussions about the changes, the screenshots and everything we witnessed in the trailer. At large, the reception has been overwhelmingly positive as the community reminisces about the importance of these games and are thankful they’ve maintained a look that is close to the art style of the originals, while others vehemently dislike the new character models and struggle to find reasons for why they were remastered in the first place. As always, GTAForums can provide you with both the hottest and coldest gamer takes out there, so be sure to check out our revamped GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas subforums for comparisons, analysis, hypes and gripes.

Quick Comparisons

GTA III

GTA Vice City

GTA San Andreas

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