The GTA Trilogy remastered and is now available on PC
Rockstar Games has finally made Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition playable and purchaseable on PC after a 72-hour wait.
In a tweet, Rockstar added, “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, and are working to improve and update overall performance as we move forward,”
The Trilogy, which comprises remastered versions of GTA III, GTA Vice City, and GTA San Andreas, was only available for PC for a limited time on November 11th, due to a scheduling error. On the same day, the Rockstar Games Launcher fell down, making it impossible to play the GTA bundle on PC (or any other Rockstar games, for that matter). On November 12th, Rockstar relaunched the Launcher, but noted that GTA: The Trilogy was unavailable for purchase or play because Rockstar had to erase data that were “unintentionally included in these versions.”
It’s possible that the files that were removed had something to do with illegal music and the “Hot Coffee” minigame. Data miners discovered code in the remastered edition for the famed Hot Coffee sex minigame, which players could only access via a mod in the original version of GTA San Andreas, according to Video Games Chronicle (VGC).
Despite this, the FTC charged Rockstar and Take-Two of tricking the ESRB at the time – GTA San Andreas was originally rated Mature, but the explicit Hot Coffee minigame would elevate that classification to Adults Only. Rockstar created an M-rated version of San Andreas sans the minigame, but the AO version was pulled from store shelves, resulting in a $24 million loss.
In addition, data miners claim to have discovered the “holy grail” of developer notes in the remastered games, as well as a treasure of unauthorised music that creators left deactivated, according to a separate report from VGC. It’s possible that any of this stuff was part of the Rockstar files that were removed in a hurry.
Rockstar will have to address rising complaints about The Trilogy’s performance and graphics issues now that it’s back on PC. Some players were so dissatisfied with the bundle’s quality that they demanded a refund before it could be used again. And, as the tweet above shows, Rockstar is annoyingly emailing some players who have previously requested refunds to confirm that they really don’t want the games.
To protest the murky release of The Trilogy, as well as Rockstar’s withdrawal of the original GTA trilogy from game shops like Steam, the whole r/grandtheftauto subreddit has gone silent. If you try to access the subreddit, you’ll receive the following message:
Going dark to protest Rockstar/Take-Two taking down modders, pulling Trilogy PC version from paying customers, pulling ALL PC TITLES from paying customers for 30 hours, removing the original GTAs from sale (including 1/2/1969), letting Sony deny Trilogy refunds, No official statements. Please don’t blame modders for looking at files. Thank you to Grove Street Games for doing the best that you could. PC: https://help.xsolla.com/i-made-a-payment-and-need-a-refund
The issues players are having with the games aren’t limited to the PC edition; glitches and flaws can be found in all versions of the remastered games. The look of some of the “remastered” characters as well as other graphical flaws, such as one that generates blinding rainstorms, have surprised players. Rockstar claims that it is aiming to improve the game’s “overall performance” in the future, but it may be too late.