Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy Is a Wasted Opportunity

I can’t believe it’s been more than 20 years since Grand Theft Auto III was released. I’m old enough to remember playing the original 2D top-down game on my first PC, but it was GTA 3 on the PlayStation 2 that shifted the series into top gear. 

The game featured a 3D view of the action and a refreshing freedom that ushered in a new era of open-world games. It would be hard to overstate its influence, but two decades is a long time in gaming, and its age shows. To bring this classic up to date and produce a remaster worthy of the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy—The Definitive Edition label would take patience, care, and skill. Sadly, Rockstar handed the task off to Grove Street Games, and it seems they weren’t given the time or resources to do it justice.

Back on the mean streets of Liberty City (loosely based on New York), I feel instantly at home in cargo pants and leather jacket as I boost a Banshee and go to work for the Leone family. You play as the silent Claude in GTA 3, the intro to a trilogy that includes Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and San Andreas. Pushing beyond the first flush of nostalgic joy as I burn rubber and flick through the radio stations, I’m struck by how crude everything is—the humor, of course, but also the mission design, the threadbare setups, and the remastered art.

You can trace a growing sophistication as you go from the prototype GTA 3 through the ’80s- action-movie neon fever dream of Vice City, complete with licensed music hits from the likes of Blondie and voice acting by Ray Liotta, on to the engaging story, gang warfare, character development, and depth of San Andreas. The series got bigger and better with every step, and the all-conquering GTA V owes a major debt to its predecessors. So it’s sad to see them so carelessly handled.

There are bugs aplenty straight out of the gate in all three titles. Too many to mention, but highlights include more than one crash into the PS5 menu, falling through the map, riding a motorbike while embedded sideways in the street, NPCs running in endless circles, a cloud of charred dead guys floating permanently in midair after a helicopter explosion, and a multicolored CJ riding a bicycle that defies the laws of physics. I played on PS5, but apparently there are even bigger issues with the PC and Switch versions. Truth be told, these GTA games were always kinda buggy, but you forgave the odd physics glitch or exploding car because the scale of the open world was so impressive at the time. But this is no longer true, and besides, many of these bugs are new.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Photograph: Rockstar Games

Death comes randomly and frustratingly frequently. At first, I’m grateful I can retry failed missions at the push of a button instead of having to go back to the last safe-house save, as in the original, but then I discover San Andreas breaks longer missions down into sections. So why do GTA 3 and Vice City cast you all the way back to the start? This gets old fast with tricky missions like S.A.M. or Copland, which both result in PTSD flashbacks for me and a loud torrent of expletives that bring my wife running into the room with a concerned look on her face.

My memory is not good enough to pinpoint everything that has changed here. I remember playing the original with a foldout paper map that came in the box, so the in-game map and route guidance are a welcome upgrade, even if the pathfinding sometimes switches confusingly and doesn’t always pick the best route. Weapon selection is much easier now, with a pop-up wheel triggered by a shoulder button. But the auto-targeting is seriously wonky and often picks an innocent bystander over the gun-toting thug directly in front of me, who is busily emptying a clip into my face.

Some of the original music is no longer here due to licensing issues, but there are still plenty of great tracks to enjoy. Something that remains unchanged is the casual misogyny and homophobia. You can always argue this is consistent with the characters, but the OG Loc mission in San Andreas, where you hunt down and kill a taunting, effeminate gay man, is a particularly egregious example that would surely not be released today.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Photograph: Rockstar Games

Many of the problems with the art can be summed up by the removal of the fog effect originally used to mask the limitations of the draw distance. This is absent in the remaster, as modern hardware has no trouble rendering everything (or at least it shouldn’t). While the neon-’80s Miami-style Vice City, with its long main strip, looks better, San Andreas without the smog feels smaller. The illusion of a huge map with three separate cities (inspired by Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas) evaporates along with my nostalgic haze. The original art direction masterfully blended everything, even weaknesses, into a coherent style. The remaster simply does not. What results is a jarring inconsistency that mixes improvements with missteps, and it loses much of its atmosphere.

There are clear upgrades in the environments and lighting, but at times it’s so dark I’m squinting to see what’s going on. The character models and animations frequently look just plain weird. It’s as though the characters have had bad plastic surgery. And it’s almost impossible to see where you’re going when it rains. These issues are likely exacerbated by playing on a 65-inch screen, but I only have to think back a few months to playing Mass Effect: Legendary Edition for an example of how to do a remaster properly.

Despite all my complaints, there’s fun to be had here. The script contains some gems, the voice acting is top-notch, and the radio stations are still awesome. That feeling as you tear through alleys, pedestrians diving for cover, and narrowly evade the cops to snatch a drug package or waste a rival hood is still electric. Cruising the city at night, picking up jobs at your own pace, and building your criminal empire is the peerless heart of this series. There are frequent glimpses of why these games were so successful in their day. The homages to their many inspirations come thick and fast, and I recognize more of them now than I did 20 years ago.

I spent so many nights with these games that I was always going to buy this remastered trilogy, but the bugs and lack of care threaten to wash away all my warm and fuzzy memories. I feel a little swindled, and saddened. Rockstar has since apologized for the technical issues with the games, promised the original versions of all three games for PC as a free download for buyers, and released the first patch containing bug fixes. But it should not have been released in this state. I wouldn’t want to do anything to delay GTA VI, but I wish they had reached further into those deep pockets and made this a remaster that fits the legacy of these games. Diehard fans looking to relive the glory days will find some joy here, but I can’t recommend it to anyone else, and it’s a wasted opportunity to bring these classics to a new generation.