The year 2021 saw people heading into the second year of a pandemic that is still ongoing to this day, but many works of fiction celebrated an anniversary that gave people opportunities to remember and revisit them. When it comes to 20th anniversaries, games like Sonic Adventure 2, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and the GameCube as a whole were celebrated. Another game that turned 20 last year is Grand Theft Auto 3, which was important considering Rockstar included it in Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition.
Grand Theft Auto 3 is arguably Rockstar’s most important game. It came out around the beginning of a new console generation and quickly established itself as one of the biggest phenomena for that era of gaming. Grand Theft Auto 3 put Rockstar on the map with a superstar franchise, and normalized the idea of open-world games. Rockstar “remastered” it alongside Vice City and San Andreas in Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition. Unfortunately, what should have been an appreciative move turned out to be more polarizing.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition's Controversies
The entire history of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition is farfetched. Instead of being announced at a big event like E3, Rockstar randomly released a reveal trailer showing its aesthetics, leaving many people skeptical of the trilogy’s overall quality. People were especially skeptical after the reveal that Rockstar was planning to pull the original versions off Steam.
By the time the trilogy came out, skeptical fans proved to be correct, and Rockstar began to receive criticism. The visuals were barely an improvement, and at times felt inferior to the originals. Instead of rebuilding everything for a more visually realistic experience, the games still have their iconic - but nonetheless dated - models and animation cycles.
Other visual glitches, like being able to enlarge the car a player is driving, and the poor rain effects in San Andreas especially, were also mocked. Fans lamented performance issues, the fact that software was used to “polish” every bit of the environment instead of the developers remodeling everything properly, and other poorly implemented weather effects like fog.
It took a while, but Rockstar finally addressed some of these complaints. For example, the original versions of the GTA trilogy can be purchased again, albeit not on consoles, mitigating the company’s actions to some - though this proved fruitless to others. The trilogy also got more patches after its release, fixing numerous bugs and tweaking some problems like the aforementioned fog and other immersion-killing weather.
While it is nice that Rockstar managed to address the issues, it might not be enough depending on who's asked. Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition is a fully priced title that started as a botched and rushed “celebration” of some of the most famous games of the last few decades. Combined with Rockstar’s polarizing decision to spend most of the 2010s on Grand Theft Auto 5 and its online mode, many feel the remasters were an afterthought that the studio took care with very sloppy direction. Fans are free to get the collection if they have money to spare, as it isn't unplayable compared to some other derided games on the market. However, it might be better to stick to the originals if possible, especially with available mods for both versions of the trilogy.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.