Is $60 that much? Three, huge, amazing games? And it sounds like they updated the visuals, the controls, the UI etc? I dunno. Seems perfectly in line.
Rockstar published a press release alongside this new site detailing the changes and including screenshots.
In honor of the upcoming anniversary, today we are excited to announce that all three games will be coming to current generation platforms later this year in Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and the Rockstar Games Launcher on PC. Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition will feature across-the-board upgrades including graphical improvements and modern gameplay enhancements for all three titles, while still maintaining the classic look and feel of the originals. We’re extremely excited to share more about these groundbreaking titles in the coming weeks — stay tuned!
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition
It introduces wide-ranging modern control upgrades, including improvements to targeting and lock-on aiming, updated Weapon and Radio Station Wheels, updated Mini-Maps with enhanced navigation allowing players to set waypoints to destinations, updated Achievements, Trophies, and more. The Nintendo Switch version also features Switch-specific controls including Gyro aiming, as well as touch screen camera zooming, pans, and menu selections, while the PC version includes support for NVIDIA DLSS and additional new Accomplishments via the Rockstar Games Social Club.
Additional enhancements across all three titles include a completely rebuilt lighting system; improved shadows, weather, and reflections; upgraded character and vehicle models; along with new higher resolution textures across buildings, weapons, roads, interiors, and more. Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition also features a range of environmental upgrades including all new foliage, smoother surfaces, and increased draw distances to provide a new level of depth and clarity throughout the world.
The digital version
Rockstar’s official page for the games has just gone up, revealing that the trilogy of classic murder-fests—GTA III, GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas—will be yours in 20 days if you get a digital version. For physical editions on all formats, it’ll be December 6 in Europe, December 7 in the United States. Any of those versions will cost you a blistering $60 on PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and the Xboxes.
Of course, you’re getting three absolutely enormous games here, so 60 bucks might not immediately seem so bad. It’s just that we’re talking games ranging from 17 to 20 years old. Which is to say, announcing the pre-orders with less than three weeks to go, and slapping on a premium price, is asking players to exercise a lot of faith.
However, we can at last see a short glimpse of how the three games will be looking, compared to the originals, in this just-released video:
Improvements
improvements to targeting and lock-on aiming, updated Weapon and Radio Station Wheels, updated Mini-Maps with enhanced navigation allowing players to set waypoints to destinations, updated Achievements, Trophies, and more. The Nintendo Switch version also features Switch-specific controls including Gyro aiming, as well as touch screen camera zooming, pans, and menu selections, while the PC version includes support for NVIDIA DLSS and additional new Accomplishments via the Rockstar Games Social Club.
The PC specs
The PC specs do offer some clues as to how grand the improvements might be, and they’re pretty low. The minimum requirements are an i5-2700/FX-6300, with 8GB RAM, and a GTX 760 2GB/Radeon R9 280. The recommended tech still won’t be stretching many a PC: i7-6600K/Ryzen 5 2600, 16GB RAM, and a GTX 970 4GB/Radeon RX 570—those are five-year-old graphics cards. However, they will be occupying 45GB of your hard drive—the original version of San Andreas, the largest of the games, was only 4.6GB on release.
Things definitely look a lot nicer, and they’ve leaned in to a much more cartoony vibe—a smart move if this is really more of a texture upgrade than a true remastering. Cartoons forgive a lot, where an attempt at more realistic depictions would likely have looked pretty ropey. However, it’s a very different vibe from the originals, which you now cannot buy.
